Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 02).djvu/332

328 inquiry shall be received confirming the signature as that of the said Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, and of the handwriting and signature of Hernando Riquel, his notary. Having been received as signed from the secretary of this royal Audiencia it shall be sent to his Majesty. And accordingly they ordered it, by decree, to be set down in writing.

(Attestation: And then upon the said day, month, and year above specified for the said inquiry, there was received an oath in the name of God and the blessed Mary, and upon the sign of the cross +, in the form prescribed by law, from Sancho Lopez de Agurto, secretary of the royal Audiencia of this Nueva Spaña, and he took the same in the presence of me, Juan Augustin de Contreras, notary of his Majesty and receiver of this royal Audiencia, under which he promised to tell the truth in this affair. On being interrogated by the aforesaid, and after having seen the writing contained in this other part, and the signatures thereof, where occur the names of Miguel Lopez and Fernando Riquel, he said that this witness knew the said Miguel Lopez and Fernando Riquel, whom many times he had seen write and sign their names; and that he knows that the said Miguel Lopez de Legaspi went as governor and general to the islands of the West, and took as his official notary the said Fernando Riquel, on the authority of the viceroy Don Luis de Velasco; and that the said signatures at the end of the said narration and writing, to wit, "Miguel Lopez and "Fernando Riquel," together with the handwriting of the said narration are, of a truth