nced in shipbuilding
and in navigation, and in accordance with their opinion you shall
proceed in building the ships. You shall endeavor to consider in their
construction what regards both strength and capacity, and the other
matters above mentioned. You shall advise me of what resolution you
shall adopt. Given in Madrid, December fourteen, one thousand six
hundred and thirty.

_I the King_

Countersigned by Don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras, and signed by the
members of the Council.

[_Endorsed_: "To the governor of Philipinas, ordering him to
assemble the persons of that city most experienced in shipbuilding
and navigation, and in accordance with their opinion to regulate the
building of ships."]

_Letter to the Manila Audiencia_

The King. To the auditors of my royal Audiencia of the city of Manila
in the Filipinas Islands. Your letter of the first of _[month omitted_]
628 has been received and considered in my royal Council of the Indias,
and I hereby give you answer to it.

In regard to what you say touching the fact that the officials of my
royal treasury of those islands do not pay you your salaries promptly
when due, saying that the governor has ordered them not to pay it
without his decree, I am having the said governor ordered to endeavor
not to delay the payment of your salaries; but that, on the contrary,
you be preferred to all others in the payment of them.

You say that, in accordance with what was ordained by laws of the
kingdom and ordinances of the Audiencia there, appeals have been
admitted in it, from the decisions of the alcaldes-in-ordinary,
[and] edicts of the governor; [but] that he has imposed a standard
and measure, in matters of the political government, with certain
penalties, on the Sangleys regarding the manner in which they have to
make timber, tiling, and other like articles; and that the governor
has prevented these causes from being appealed to that Audiencia,
declaring his purpose to give me an account of it. As he has done this,
and has asked for a declaration of what he ought to do, I have ordered
him to observe, in the method of reporting these contentions to me,
and in the form on which they must be grounded, the order that is
given by various decrees; and in the meanwhile he shall observe the
custom in similar cases. And if there are no similar cases, then no
innovation shall be introduced in the trial of the said appeals.

The said governor also writes me in regard