Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 07).djvu/253

 this case, and retained it in their own body. At another time, the Indians had dared to take a friar from his convent, and they dragged him to the place where I was. I commenced to try the case, and gave a verdict against the Indians, as it was doubly sacrilegious to take the friar from his convent, and to place hands on an ecclesiastic. This case came to the Audiencia by way of appeal, and it still remains there, with the records. A beneficed priest, who was performing the duties of his office, was refused its dues by the encomendero, and came to me for justice. After I had ordered the encomendero to make the payment, he appealed to the Audiencia, and they retained the suit there, claiming that the property given to beneficiaries in this land is secular. As I am poor, and have little power, these injuries and similar ones have not been heard of in Spain. I have suffered them and have kept silence, in order to avoid scandal; but for having resisted in but two cases, in which I was obliged to defend the right of my jurisdiction, in order to comply with the duties of my office, they made a damaging report of me to your Majesty. They say that I would not permit a report to be made, and took the records of the suit from the notary, so that they could not be dealt with. In order that your Majesty may see the difference between what I here declare (which is the actual truth), and what they wrote to your Majesty, accusing me of resisting in toto the commands of the Audiencia in regard to the cases of fuerça (which was glaringly false testimony against me), I have decided—although everything touching the Audiencia is now settled, since your Majesty has commanded it to be suppressed—to answer the account which they gave