Note 51 — Chapter X

Now, it seems, the two camps had made ready their opposing forces for one of the most sanguinary battles which for many generations had been waged in these islands; and its consequences lasted many years, and its echo was a scandal to the universe. The auditors began the duties of their office with great care and attention, for they were all very erudite men, who had filled chairs in the universities of España; but, as the true wisdom is the fear of God, when this is lacking all human knowledge is useless.... In the Indias a great source of disputes is the desire which some ministers have for extending the royal privileges [regalias], expecting through this channel greater advancement—as if kings, and especially those who are so Catholic and pious as are ours of España, would be willing to do anything else than to render to God that which is God’s, content with what is rendered to them, which is Cæsar’s. The great privileges of the royal patronage are not opposed to the integrity of the episcopal dignity and ecclesiastical hierarchy; rather, they are in accord with each other, and both use their powers to promote the greater prosperity of the faith.... And, since the greatest privileges of the patronage of the Indias are pontifical concessions, how can they be used against the power of him who concedes them, who necessarily must be relatively greater?... Therefore, there neither is nor can be wrong in such privileges, which are founded in justice and right, and there is no opposition between those which are pontifical and those which are royal, as there is not and cannot be any between the virtues. The fault is in those who interpret these privileges as they do the laws, for they say that they give their mind to them, as if they no longer had any mind, and were now mente captas.51... Excellent and learned officials were all the auditors who at that time were members of the Audiencia of Manila; but, to judge by results, self-will greatly blinded their good understandings, and therefore occurred to them the lot of those whom our father St. Augustine mentions (treatise 4 on [the gospel of] John): Temporalia perdere timuerunt, et vitam æternam non cogitaverunt; ac sic utrumque amisserunt.52 The infinite mercy of God probably did not permit that, although all met very painful and some very sudden deaths—except Doctor Don Diego Calderón y Serrano, who died as a good Christian, who did not choose to entrust the safety of his soul to opinions. But at the least we saw them lose temporal prosperity, when they were confidently expecting even more. [Here follows (pp. 751–766) Diaz’s account of the Pardo controversy, which we omit, since it has been sufficiently used for annotation of other documents relating to that subject, for which see VOL. XXXIX, pp. 149–275.]