Source: Amy Notes (ID702)
Author: Howard, Amy (ID633)
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Even Bushnell?s nonfiction has surprises for me. Be sure to set up plenty of them.
Even Bushnell?s nonfiction has surprises for me. Be sure to set up plenty of them.
Cross references
Roller-coaster ride of the Villegas audit of SA's royal officials
Date Created: 2023-10-12 20:56:17
Source: The King?s Coffer (ID 83)
Author: Bushnell, Amy (ID 32)
Content_id: 599
Part of the reason Redondo Villegas was overstaying his welcome was that the king had extended his commission and told him to renew collections on the Cevadilla and Junco accounts, which he had determined amounted to 23,258 and 1,606 ducats respectively. AN85 [Note 31: Cedula to Pedro Redondo Villegas 11/14/1600] As part of that process he threw Gil de Cevadilla and Juan de Junco the Younger in prison and coerced testimony from them against other parties. One of these was Captain Hernando de Mestas, a favorite envoy of the governor. On his way back from Spain in 1599, Mestas had been captured off Puerto Rico by French corsairs, who rifled through his trunk. Among the items they took was a Council receipt for 4,000 ducats collected from Juan de Orebe Apalua, one of the Cevadilla bondholders. Without this receipt, Mestas was unable to prove he had given the Council the money. Accountant Arguelles, himself in trouble for his easygoing collections, may have known that Mestas was a secret informer. Five days after Arguelles wrote that the auditor had him under pressure, he, the governor, and the auditor were all on good terms and Mestas was in irons in the castillo. An unannounced search of the captain’s house had produced two incriminating letters addressed to the Council. The governor, furious, held Mestas incommunicado under pain of death. Redondo Villegas slapped a demand on him for the 4,000 ducats. If the prisoner did not sign a confession that his secret reports on the governor were untrue, the king’s auditor offered to break his bones with an iron bar and make him no man. [Note 32: Alonso de las Alas 2/23/1600; cedula to Diego Ruiz Osorio, receptor of the Council 11/24/1598; Juan Menendez Marquez 9/20/1602; Hernando de Mestas 3/12/1603] AN86 The ship carrying Redondo Villegas’ precious papers went down in the Bahama Channel, but the governor’s new envoy, Fabricio Lopez, saved the account copies and they eventually reached Spain. A letter that Mestas managed to slip out of the prison got there, too, with one parting shot. With ungrammatic emphasis the captain warned the king to disregard Mendez de Canzo’s tales of a hill of diamonds in the interior (tierra adentro), for “the perfect diamonds in the situado!” [Note 33: Cedula to Gov. Ybarra 7/25/1603; Hernando de Mestas 3/12/1603] What became of Captain Mestas is unknown; the governor was recalled to Spain and suspended from His Majesty’s service for eight years, not for conniving with an auditor, but for having appointed his 10-year-old son Antonio a company captain. [Note 34: Camara of New Spain, Madrid 5/6/1608] AN87 The Cevadilla account was finally reclosed 11 years after the treasurer’s death. Arguelles, Menendez Marquez, and Las Alas each spent years in Spain in litigation. Arguelles received his quittance in 1605; Menendez Marquez was proposed for a 1,000-ducat reward and given the governorship of Popayan; Las Alas’ reputation was rehabilitated after his death. [Note 35: Cedulas to Bartolome de Arguelles 5/26/1603 and 1/31/1604, and Juan Menendez Marquez 5/26/1603; Council 1/21/1615; Francisco Menendez Marquez seen in Council 1/9/1627]