as I have already stated, or else, if this division be not made, that the governors be men who are able, assiduous, and disinterested. For such will cause all the members [of the government] to follow the example of their head; and the laws, the royal decrees, and the ordinances will be obeyed, so that your Majesty may be recognized as sovereign lord of these dominions, and a thoroughly good government will be established which can preserve these Christian lands, with benefit to the royal treasury, as I have had the honor to represent to your Majesty. For otherwise it does not seem probable that the royal orders of your Majesty will be productive of results, for experience shows that such has not been the case hitherto with the many pious and excellent provisions contained in the wise laws of the Indias, and with the repeated royal decrees by which, at various times, those laws have been confirmed. These have not yet been fulfilled, nor will they be, unless disinterestedness rules, and unless there is punishment for covetousness--for this is what ruins and upsets everything, and, by force of defying and insulting upright ministers, causes the latter to live without freedom to execute justice, and to render the worthy tribunal of the Audiencia useless and inactive; for the iniquitous proceedings of some governors, and especially of the present one, have reduced this court to the utmost humiliation, as the numerous transactions of which I have given account to your Majesty prove. May God preserve the Catholic royal person of your Majesty for many years, as is needful for the monarchy. Manila, May 1, 1767. [Francisco Leandro de Viana, fiscal of the royal Audiencia.] ANDA'S MEMORIAL, 1768 Abuses or disorders which have been fostered in the Filipinas Islands under the shelter of religion, and at the cost of the royal treasury, which ought to be cut down at the root, so that the governors who may be sent to those parts, if they are good may be better, and if bad may not be worse--and, at least, so that they may not have any excuse; so that religion may be established on its sure principles of purity, in order that the king may be owner of those domains (until now he has been owner in the matter of expense); and finally, so that his Majesty's vassals, both Spaniards and Indians, may be vassals of their king alone, and may be relieved from the abominable slavery which they have borne for about two hundred years. [68] FIRST ABUSE It is an abuse, and a very great one, for a city so reduced as Manila to have two universities for the small student body [estudiante y medio: literally, "student and a half"] therein, without other object or idea than the rivalry of the Thomist and Jesuit schools, to the so great harm of the state, and of religion, as has been seen in all parts, in so many clamorings and scandals. [69]