year 596, ordering the establishment of the Audiencia of the said
islands. In that provision were inserted the ordinances pertaining
to this point, namely, the sixty-seventh, the sixty-ninth, and the
ninetieth. [72] They read as follows:
"Ordinance 67. _Item_: My president shall, together with two auditors
[_oidores_], audit the accounts, at the beginning of each year, of
the royal officials who shall have had charge of my royal treasury for
the past year. They shall conclude it within the months of January and
February; and when they are completed, a copy of them shall be sent to
my Council of the Indias. I order that if the said two months pass,
without the said accounts being completed, the officials of my royal
treasury shall receive no salary until they shall be concluded. Each of
the auditors who shall be present at the auditing of the said accounts
shall have a gratification of twenty-five thousand maravedis, provided
that that salary or gratification be not given them--and it shall not
be given them--except for the year for which they shall send the said
accounts concluded to my royal Council of the Indias."
"Ordinance 69. _Item_: I order that when my president and auditors
commence to audit the accounts of my royal estate, in accordance
with the provision in regard to it, they shall go first of all to my
royal treasury, and weigh and count the gold and silver and the other
things that may be there, and take account of it [_In the margin:
"Sic."_]. Then they shall begin the accounts, and, having finished
them, shall collect the balance within the time ordered by the said
decree. [_In the margin_: "I do not find any account, in the records
of the visit, of this provision which is cited."] The amount collected
shall be placed in the chest with three keys; and orders shall be
given that the balance from the past year shall not be made up from
what shall be collected during the time in which the accounts shall
be audited."
"Ordinance 90. _Item_: The said fiscal shall be at all the meetings
which shall be held outside the ordinary Audiencia by the president
and auditors, whether of justice or pertaining to my royal estate,
with the officials of it, either for matters of government, or in
any other manner."