The visitor, Don Francisco de Rojas, is proceeding with his visit with excellent judgment, and with his personal efforts and close occupation. This community grieves over the results, for they are many. I trust that he may administer justice so fully in all things that only the liquidations and the balances should be those which are collected. He has attempted (as he thinks that he bears authority for it) to make the final decision of what may be spent by councils of the treasury, and in fact has begun it with this royal Audiencia and with me. That has appeared a strong course to us, for his commission does not extend to that. Neither would it be right for only one judge to declare as improper any expense which the governor, auditors, and royal officials had approved by their opinions. The councils of the treasury were established for expenses of government and war. If there were no authority for those expenses, it would be an evil, and nothing could be accomplished. That will be the case on the day when we shall be subject to have one accountant proceed, in the visitation, against those who gave their opinion as to the expenses which may have been incurred. Who would dare give his opinion freely, if he had to fear that it might be amplified or not? Your Majesty already does not trust your governor alone for this responsibility, and orders him to meet in council with the Audiencia and the royal officials, and that the majority of votes shall rule. That has so many inconveniences that the service of your Majesty comes to suffer greatly from them. If the more important things are entrusted to your governor, why not the lesser? When the archbishop died here, as your Majesty was advised, the bishop of Zibu, who entered into his place, petitioned that he be given some gratuity from the salary enjoyed by the archbishop, because of the many expenses of living in this city--taking a precedent from the vacant see of the other archbishop, in which the treasury council assigned him one thousand two hundred pesos. On this occasion it seemed necessary, so that the bishop might be able to support himself, to assign him one thousand pesos annually; and it was ordered that your Majesty be advised thereof, as was done, so that you might consider it a proper expense. It was necessary and unavoidable, for in any other way the bishop could not live three years--the time during which we have to wait for a reply, if we first had to advise your Majesty. The visitor, Don Francisco de Rojas, has added this item, and formed an opinion unfavorable to the auditors who gave their votes to it, and has ordered that they make satisfaction for it. His commission does not announce this; accordingly, as a matter inferred from good government, he has no right to inspect this affair. He has also taken issue against the auditors of the last Audiencia, who were the ones who assigned the one thousand two hundred pesos during the other vacancy. Your Majesty, by decrees