intimidate me and close my mouth, so that I should not write
against him to your Majesty any of the infinite amount which might
be written. Likewise he had the same object in calling together the
captains and leading men of this colony, to address them with such
insolence as that which I have told your Majesty in another letter;
for the expression which he used was: "You people [_vosotros_] do
not know that I know what you have written to his Majesty against
me; and that his Majesty sent me a command to have your heads cut
off." From this your Majesty will gather how the government must be
conducted here, since the governor is going about seeking, by cunning
and deceit, to frighten people that they may not write about his
mode of life. I told enough of this in the other letter, and others
are writing the same thing; but at present I shall only mention a
few things. In the first place your Majesty should not inquire into
the particular vices of Don Francisco Tello, but should picture to
yourself a universal idea of all vices, brought to the utmost degree
and placed in a lawyer; this would be Tello, who is your Majesty's
governor in the Philippinas. He is not one of those men who accompany
a vice by a virtue, and among many vices follow one virtue; but he
has not even an indication of a virtue. And that he should not lack
the sin of putting his hand upon the altars, he has now begun to
commit simonies, and to live excommunicated, selling for money the
presentations which he makes to the benefices conformably to your
Majesty's right of patronage. This is so true that I have this week
corrected one which he committed in the convent of San Francisco del
Monte itself. Abandoned by the power of God, he paid for the evil which
he had done against me with so great a vice. He received four hundred
pesos, for the presentation to a prebend, which he presented to me
that very day. He has become accustomed to do this, and says that he
is going to write to Espana that he is going to this said convent,
which is a heavenly garden, belonging to descalced fathers of much
holiness. Although he has a house near there he is not content with
it, but comes in and meddles with the convent, and with those who go
to see it, for there is nothing which his hand does not profane. On
Monday afternoon before St. Francis' day, this year, he left Manilla,
saying that he was going to Cabite to despatch the ships. At night
he left the road with a servant,