The royal official judges made objections to doing this, alleging their obligations. I replied that nevertheless they must confirm these grants, and that I would give account of them to your Majesty; and that, in case you were not pleased to approve them, I would pay them from my own salary. For I consider it a grievous thing to see before me your soldiers fighting, and being crippled in your Majesty's service, and I not able to encourage them with the reward of a peso of extra pay, which is very little gain for them. I entreat your Majesty to be pleased to command that this be examined and approved; and, in case objection is made, to be pleased to let me know of it, so that--although in like cases I may grant other favors to the soldiers in your royal name--I may not give them extra pay; and so that the royal official judges may pay this amount from my salary, deducting from it what shall have been thus spent. May our Lord protect the Catholic person of your Majesty, as Christendom has need. Manila, August 20, 1637. Sire, your vassal kisses your Majesty's feet. Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera Sire: Master-of-camp Pedro de Heredia has by your Majesty's grace governed the forts of Terrenate for twelve years, and you have commanded that his residencia be taken; but he has ingenuity and shrewdness, and always has been able to make gifts to my predecessors. It is reported that he is accustomed to say among the soldiers that he has 30,000 pesos to close one eye of any governor who shall send to take his residencia, and, if it should be necessary, as many more pesos to close the other eye; but he has found the door to this shut. He is availing himself of his ingenuity, as he has done before, to make the residencia which I have taken of his government suit his wishes. After I came here (or before), a Portuguese resident in Malaca demanded from him 60,000 pesos, which Don Pedro had seized from his property. I appointed Auditor Don Antonio Alvarez de Castro as judge in this suit. The sentence having been pronounced, on sufficient evidence, that he must repay 12,000 pesos to this Portuguese, Simon Texeira, Don Pedro appealed to your Majesty's royal Council of the Indias; but as you have here your royal Audiencia, the affair was placed in its hands. He challenged Auditor Marcos Çapata and all the lawyers of this city; his plea was that in Terrenate he had brought to trial Sargento-mayor Don Marcos Çapata, son of the auditor, because he had punished with the cudgel a subordinate of his for a certain shameless act, and because officially, without having complained to any one, he upbraided him for holding illicit relations with a married woman, without having corrected or punished him. This might be true, because, in order to cover up his own evil proceedings, there was not a captain, nor a commander of the relief ships, nor a private soldier, with whom he did not pick a quarrel, in order to keep that man under