Note 12 — Letters from Auditor Messa y Lugo to the King

Having arrested me with the haste above mentioned, it happened that the governor—having planned, so says common rumor, the death of his wife—circulated the report one afternoon that he was going out of town to a place called Cavite. Departing that afternoon, he returned at night. Having notified the guards and soldiers to that effect, he climbed over the wall by means of a ladder, and went to the house of one of the companions who went [196] with him (for many of his adherents went with him, and some who were hired). Going with them from this house, he stationed men at the place where he had planned that his wife would come with a young boy whom she sheltered at her house, and in whom she had confidence. This boy persuaded her to go out dressed as a gallant (a very wrong act, although she had been persuaded by the certainty that her husband had gone to Cavite), to the house of a man named Juan de Messa, who had been brought as chief clerk by the factor, Dionisio de Castro Licon, and whom the governor suspected of adultery with his wife. Arrived at the place above mentioned, the governor saw her coming with two men, one of whom is said to have been Juan de Messa, and the other his friend. Advised by the young lad that it was she, for he accompanied her in the street for some time, where he left her with her companion and went to give account of it to the governor, the latter went behind her with the retinue above mentioned. Arrived at Juan de Messa’s door, which is quite distant from that of the governor, he let them enter, but went in behind them before they shut the door. Mounting the stairs with some of his men behind Juan de Messa and his wife, who had ascended, and leaving the others below with the other friend who had come as companion to Juan de Messa, the death of his wife followed, as did that of Juan de Messa and of the latter’s escort, a pilot who had come from Castilla last year. They were killed up stairs and down, as I have said, and because the governor had taken possession of the streets, and stationed soldiers there with orders to allow no one to pass. The soldiers killed a young lad who tried [197] to pass, or wounded him so severely that it is said that he died. Notwithstanding the unseemly hour, the people came running out at the outcry and clamor especially those from the nearest houses. They saw and noted everything with fairness, and consequently it has been published that the chief murderers were those whom the governor took with him, both those of his wife and of the others. That has seemed in this community to be a very lamentable occurrence. Then the governor went to his house after the event and the matter was immediately known throughout the city. Thereupon Licentiate Legaspi and Don Antonio Rodriguez proceeded to make investigations. What they began to do was, it is said, to furnish proofs of adultery. They have managed to do this by great efforts, and that with the criminals free, and with the power of the governor. And I am told that the governor ordained what had to be done, namely, to make no investigations against the dead woman. What is understood is, that many fine things have been done in the records, for they say that they have expunged, erased, and copied things according to their pleasure, the notary in the cause being the governor’s most devoted follower, Pedro Muñoz, secretary of the Audiencia court, as above stated. In everything has always been done what the governor has ordered and commanded—especially by Licentiate Legaspi, for Don Antonio withdrew then and refused to do anything further, at seeing how the governor flinched from everything. All the criminals go about and take their pleasure, thus occasioning much reproach. Will your Majesty consider what you shall be pleased to order done in this matter; for there is much talk of the hatred and great [198] and long-standing enmity of the governor to his wife, and of the evil life that he led her. It is said that he had already given her poison three or four times, from which she escaped by antidotes that she took; and that one of her women, to whom she gave the remainder of a little chocolate12 in which the poisons were administered to her, died within two days or so, because she did not take the antidote, while his wife escaped because she had done so.