same object. Done in Manila, on the twenty-eighth of February in the year 1591.
LETTER FROM THE BISHOP TO THE GOVERNOR
[Evidently as the result of a dispute between these two dignitaries, Salazar writes (March 4) a letter to Dasmariñas, deprecating any hostility between them, defending his own position, ascribing the differences between them to intermeddlers, and prophesying evil to the country if Dasmariñas maintains his present purposes in regard to the tributes. He criticizes the governor's decree in various points—the permission to collect three-fourths of the amount levied; the appointment of more officials (in most of whom the bishop has no confidence); and the importance attached therein to the administration of justice in the encomiendas, as compared with the provision of religious instruction.]
Since your Lordship cares so little for these arguments, know that the reason which induced his Majesty to command that in Nueva España there should be no fiscals was, that they wrought injury to the Indians; . . . and yet he had not so much certainty of the evil deeds committed by the fiscals as he has of those done by the alcaldes-mayor and the deputies. . . . Among other decrees which, I am told, Doctor Vera brought when he came here as president of this Audiencia, is one commanding him to be very cautious in creating alcaldes-mayor, on account of the injury thus occasioned to the country. . . . You say that you do not dare to make changes, lest the encomenderos abandon their encomiendas, or become disaffected; and yet you know that all the inhabitants of these islands, whether or not they possess encomien-
