s it is impossible
for them to return. One would think that, since it was considered an
inconvenience for the vassals of the Canarias (who are distant only
two hundred odd leguas from Hespana) to go to Sevilla, and a tribunal
was established there for their alleviation, there is not less but
much [more] reason in the Filipinas for your Majesty to be pleased
to order that a tribunal be erected in the city of Manila, as was
done in the Canarias. Moreover, supposing that Goa return later to
the allegiance of your Majesty, it is as difficult to take criminals
and records from the forts of Terrenate to that place as to Mexico;
and, in proportion to the dangers of the sea, much greater.

At present, even if the road from Terrenate to Goa were short and easy,
it is not right to take the faithful vassals of your Majesty to be
punished by rebels, and by secret decrees, in districts so distant
from one another. And if they are not taken--as they have not been
taken for many years, during which acts have been fulminated--evildoers
remain without punishment, and the one evil is as bad as the other. All
that will be avoided by establishing a new tribunal in Manila. By that
erection no new expense will be added to the royal treasury other than
that of the inquisitor, and the amount given him will be proportioned
to the income of the country, and can be obtained by assigning a
certain number of Indian tributes to the royal treasury for that
purpose; and he can afterward be advanced to bishop and archbishop,
with greater experience than those have who go from other regions. The
other officials do not receive a salary. I trust in God, and the
piety of your Majesty, that provision will be made for this in the
manner most to our Lord's glory and the welfare of your vassals, etc.

Francisco Vello [16]

Sire:

I, Francisco Vello, procurator-general of the Society of Jesus for
the province of Filipinas, declare that, on account of the information
that I have had from those islands and from all parts of the Orient,
I have deemed it necessary to represent to your Majesty that, when the
forts of Terrenate were restored from the possession of the Dutch in
the year six hundred and four, the temporal government of those forts
(which was before under Eastern Yndia), was administered by Filipinas,
while the ecclesiastical and spiritual was left to the said Yndia,
as it belonged to the bishopric of Malaca, and the Inquisition to the
tribunal o