in France, [169] however much he has tried to persuade people
that he was born in Viscaya.

On December 19, 1689, the ship "Santo Nino" cast anchor in
Acapulco, and in it came the dean of Manila, Don Miguel Ortiz
de Cobarrubias; the fiscal, Don Lorenzo de Alanis; the Dominican
father Fray Raimundo Verart; and the examiner, Don Francisco Campos y
Valdivia. The last-named was detained in the said port, continuing some
investigations with which he was charged--especially that concerning
the registration [of the galleon's cargo] for the year 1684; and in
regard to the seizure in the same year of the property of Governor
Don Juan de Vargas, in which he supposed there had been some formal
act of the royal officials, with information from the viceroy,
Marques de la Laguna--investigations all upon uncertain matters,
little praised by his subordinates, or acceptable to them. On occasion
of receiving a declaration, the examiner compelled General Antonio
de Aztina to surrender his authority, at the same time appointing,
de plenitudine potestatis [i.e., "in the fulness of his power"], as
commander Captain Oriosola--who enjoyed this new favor no long time;
for the viceroy, Conde de Galvez, being informed of this, immediately
gave the appointment of commander to Don Juan de Garaicochea.

On the fourteenth of January, 1690, his investigations being concluded,
the examiner left Acapulco, and sent ahead by the fast carriers as
many as twenty loads of his own equipage, with a servant, and verbal
orders that the guards should give them free passage. Information of
this exemption reached the custom-house of this city, and its special
judge, Don Juan Jose de Ciga y Linage, stationed officers on the
route for safety. The examiner set out, by easy stages, because he
was conveying a woman who had lately become a mother--one of his two
maidservants, with whom he traveled, whom he had secretly married while
in the bay, a little before landing at Vera Cruz; and the said lady
died, a few days after leaving Acapulco, and was buried in the town
of Cuernavaca. The said freight and equipage arrived at Mexico, and,
notwithstanding the orders of the examiner, the following articles
were unloaded in the custom-house: twenty-one chests, four boxes,
two escritoires, three boxes, one screen, four china jars [tibores],
[170] one trunk of clothes, and four civet-cats. Permission was given
that the animals be sent to the house of Don Geronimo de Chacon, to