e King partially compensated him with the Government
of the Canary Islands.

Juan Vargas (1678-84) had been in office for nearly seven years,
and the Royal Commissioner who inquired into his acts took four years
to draw up his report. He filled 20 large volumes of a statement of
the charges made against the late Governor, some of which were grave,
but the majority of them were of a very frivolous character. This is
the longest inquiry of the kind on record.

Acting-Governor Jose Torralba (1715-17) was arrested on the
termination of his Governorship and confined in the Fortress of
Santiago, charged with embezzlement to the amount of P 700,000. He
had also to deposit the sum of P 20,000 for the expenses of the
inquiry commission. Several other officials were imprisoned with him
as accomplices in his crimes. He is said to have sent his son with
public funds on trading expeditions around the coasts, and his wife
and young children to Mexico with an enormous sum of money defrauded
from the Government. Figures at that date show, that when he took the
Government, there was a balance in the Treasury of P 238,849, and
when he left it in two years and a half, the balance was P 33,226,
leaving a deficit of P 205,623, whilst the expenses of the Colony
were not extraordinary during that period. Amongst other charges,
he was accused of having sold ten Provincial Government licences
(_encomiendas_), many offices of notaries, scriveners, etc., and
conceded 27 months' gambling licences to the Chinese in the Parian
without accounting to the Treasury. He was finally sentenced to pay
a fine of P 100,000, the costs of the trial, the forfeiture of the
P 20,000 already deposited, perpetual deprivation of public office,
and banishment from the Philippine Islands and Madrid. When the
Royal Order reached Manila he was so ill that his banishment was
postponed. He lived for a short time nominally under arrest, and was
permitted to beg alms for his subsistence within the city until he
died in the Hospital of San Juan de Dios in 1736.

The defalcations of some of the Governors caused no inconsiderable
anxiety to the Sovereign. Pedro de Arandia, in his dual capacity of
Gov.-General and Chief Justice (1754-59), was a corrupt administrator
of his country's wealth. He is said to have amassed a fortune of P
25,000 during his five years' term of office, and on his death he
left it all to pious works (_vide_ "Obras pias").

Governor Berenguer y Marqui