The Council, on examining in the hall of justice the [records of the] official visit which Licentiate Don Francisco de Rojas made of the Audiencia and royal officials of the Filipinas Islands; and having examined therein charge three made against the said royal officials regarding the general account for each year to be taken from them by an auditor of accounts [_contador de cuentas_]--namely, that they have not given him sworn statements; and, in particular, that they refused to give a sworn statement of the amounts that ought to be collected, and of other things which the auditor of accounts ordered--commanded me to make a comprehensive report from what should appear in the records of the visit, and in the other papers resting in the secretary's office concerning the matter; so that, having been examined in the government where they are considering whether it is advisable or not to appoint one for life to that office of auditor of accounts in those islands, and with what conditions, the advisable measures may be taken. In fulfilment of that command, having attended to that matter as was fitting, I have drawn up this paper, in which, as briefly as possible, and as was required by the gravity of the matter, I have compiled what treats of it, dividing it for greater distinctness and clearness into the four following points. Point 1. Of the beginnings in those islands of the office of auditor of accounts, and of the variations and changes that have occurred in it, down to the present. Point 2. Of the litigations that have occurred between the royal officials and the auditor of accounts, in regard to the manner of exercising the duties of that office. Point 3. Of the disadvantages, as seen from the records of the visit, that arise from the existence of that office in those islands. Point 4. Of the advantages that are found for the existence of that office in those islands, and what has been enacted and decreed in the Council regarding it, up to the present. [Point 1] Book 7, folio 284, verso. In regard to the first point, I presuppose that, as appears from the certification of the government notary of those islands, there is not in it the particular reason of an order from his Majesty for the governor of the islands to appoint an auditor of accounts, as all the governors have done for many years past. What appears is, that in years preceding that of 1595 (although it does not appear when this practice was first inaugurated), the governor made an annual appointment of an auditor of accounts, in order that he might audit the general account of the royal officials for the preceding year--as is mentioned by the governor Don Luis Perez Dasmariñas in the first perpetual title that he gave as auditor of accounts, in the year 595, to Bartolome de Renteria, who was the first to whom it was given with this title. The governor says the following in regard to it: