Chapter X: Book 7: , folio 235. His Majesty despatched a royal decree in the

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."