LETTER FROM MELGHIOR DAVALOS
TO FELIPE II
Royal Catholic Majesty:
It was through divine inspiration, we may believe, that your Majesty appointed a president and auditors for this extremity or beginning of the world; for at the very time when Governor Don Gonzalo Ronquillo had just died or was about to die, in this city of Manila, the Council, more than four thousand leagues from here, resolved upon and decreed the foundation of the royal Audiencia in Manila, and we came hither—as president and governor. Doctor Santiago de Vera; I, who was living quite neglected in Mexico, as first auditor; the licentiate Rojas as second auditor, and the licentiate Ayala as fiscal. It is said that another auditor, the licentiate Bravo, remained in Castilla; all of us excepting him came here. We set sail from the port of Acapulco on the ninth of March, according to the new computation of time which your Majesty, by order of the supreme pontiff, commanded us to observe. I mention this point because we who came enjoyed an experience never known before—namely, that while at sea we kept Ascension day, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi day; when we landed we kept and celebrated the same feast-days in Manila, be-
