The Christian desire so proper to our obligation of attending to the preservation of the holy faith, in all the places and persons in which by the goodness of our Lord it is found already established, and to its propagation and extension in the persons and places (which are many) that have not been reached by the light of the holy gospel; and the strict religious observance of our profession, which at least for charity’s sake constrains and obliges us to endeavor by all means that injustice and oppression shall not be suffered by any of the Indian natives of these islands—the spiritual administration and instruction of whom has been placed in our guidance and care by both Majesties, the divine and the human, entrusting, to the zeal that we are under obligation to exercise, not only the steadfastness in the faith and the good morals of all the natives who have been already conquered and brought back to the bosom of the holy Church, but also the promotion of new reductions and conversions: these are the motives, truly lofty ones, which impel us to set forth plainly to your Lordship the causes (of the utmost importance and gravity, and everywhere at work) which are producing lamentable effects in impairing the Christian native population, inflicting on them violence and injustice, and almost closing the door on that most desirable expectation of new conversions, and of the general relief for so many poor vassals [of the Spanish crown] who, as if they were fugitives from these islands, are engaged in foreign provinces with grief and almost ruin to their souls, among the infidelity of the heretics and the barbarous nations—whither are going, as from their own countries, their wives and their children, leaving only the memory of and pity for them.

The objects of this memorial are two: first, the honor and glory of our Lord, and the exaltation and increase of His holy faith; and second, the hope that the Christian zeal of your Lordship will, by all the proper means that will present themselves to your great intellect, furnish effective control of evils so serious and so general, and cause them to cease—so that the Christian faith and justice may again flourish, the people who formerly possessed these islands renew their abundance of population, and the increase of our faith continue its progress, with the reduction of the infidels. With especial reason [may we expect this], when the remedy for all the evils which are stated in this memorial is [already] provided by the Catholic and pious laws contained in the “Recopilacion de las Yndias;” and if perchance they omit the medicine for some of the said evils, that is likewise anticipated and provided by the decisions of the Councils for Mexico and Lima, confirmed by the holy Apostolic See, and inviolably observed in these islands.

It is taken for granted, Sir, as a maxim which experience has shown to be infallible in all America, that the means for the preservation and extension of the Catholic faith are the same as were employed for its first introduction, which was most prosperous because the ardent zeal of the gospel ministers was united with the power and arms of his Majesty (whom may God preserve), by which the progress of the faith was assured. [On this ground] it is very evident that in these regions it is not possible to improve, or even to preserve, the peoples who are already conquered and reduced, because no attention has been paid to maintaining the military posts, or building any new fortifications; on the other hand, in some places and provinces even the little forts that they possessed have been entirely removed, and in others the number of officers and soldiers designated for their defense from any hostile invasion has been diminished. The effect of this retrenchment, and of not reËstablishing the old military posts with the number of soldiers that is judged necessary, and with the military and food supplies which necessity and natural law prescribed for a suitable defense, is the reason why great destruction and losses from infidels and apostates are suffered and lamented. This has been experienced in the provinces of Cagayan and Zambales, as it appears, for the lack of the arms and defenses which in former times were sufficient for the defense of the faithful converts, and for attacking the hostile infidels—and even for chastising sometimes their wicked acts, as the rigor of justice demands. Today the converted Indians and other vassals of your Majesty are exposed to the dangers of fire and death and captivity which have been experienced in these past years, nor have our people had any other way [of escape] than to contract for the payment of a certain amount of tribute every year to the hostile Indians—an agreement in every way unbecoming and injurious to the reputation and credit of his Majesty’s arms, so entrusted [to our Spaniards] by his royal self. There is this same lack of arms and supplies in the provinces and military posts of Yloilo, Cebu, Caraga, Calamianes, Yligan, and other forts; and from this the only benefit that can result is the very small one that his Majesty will save the expenses of reËstablishing posts and paying soldiers, and put a stop to another evil (likewise a small one), which is the losses occasioned to the poor by the idleness and license of the soldiers—but if this had to be attended to, there would be an end to all the military posts and garrisons which are maintained for the general welfare, the protection of the vassals, and the warfare (offensive and defensive) which natural law permits. Moreover, it is an obligation [and] characteristic of princes that they do not seek or desire the trifling evil mentioned, and as little the advantage of avoiding some expense—which cannot be done without violating that same royal obligation, especially when hitherto in all these islands there have been military posts and the necessary forces, not only in the interior of the country but also on its coasts.

From this grievous neglect it results that it is impossible for us to carry out our desire for the new conversions and reductions so earnestly charged by his Majesty; for if at present even our own preservation is difficult, how can any new conquest be easy? or how can it be right for our zeal to consider the acquisition of new Christian communities while leaving those that are now in our charge exposed to every invasion by the enemy and to total ruin? One thing that has contributed greatly to this wretched state of affairs is, that the expeditions for converting infidels and conquering apostates have ceased which in other days were made by the orders of your Lordship’s predecessors, in accordance with the royal laws, after having consulted the royal court of justice—in whose decisions the hopes that were entertained of the great usefulness of those expeditions were not mocked. It seems as if that experience would incline [the government] to renew the said expeditions, which for some time have been neglected; and in this very island there is so great a number of infidels, who are confirmed in their very infidelity and iniquity because they know that there is never any effort to subdue and conquer them, just as if his Majesty (whom may God preserve) had not the right to do so.

From these deficiencies grievous results have followed, in depopulating the islands, which at present lack their former abundance of the peoples and sources of wealth that are native to them. Confirmation and proof of the truth of this statement is especially furnished by the five provinces near to this city. As for those which are more remote, it is known and is evident that all the coast of Tayabas, which extends from Sariaya to the headland of Bondoc, was formerly very populous and rich, but now it has hardly a village that can be called such; there are [only] some groups of huts jumbled together, inhabited by some Indians who are kept there by their desire of obtaining some petty commodities of the country, such as wax, skins, and pitch. All are destitute of churches and ministers; for their churches have been destroyed at various times by pirates and Mindanaos, and no attention has ever been paid to reËstablishing those places anew as military posts, and with the means of defense that were necessary in order that the great number of people that were in that region might be able to maintain themselves as Christians. It is also a fact that there have been [other] very weighty causes for the depopulation of the islands: the building [of ships] within these five provinces; and the excessive and rigorous exactions in the collection of the tributes, and the excessive polos2 and personal services [required]. The sad thing is, that all those who leave the islands are ordinarily apostates from the faith, and live and die among heretics, Mahometans, and other barbarous people; and no reparation has ever been made for this great evil, nor has any obstacle been placed in the way of men passing freely [from these islands] to foreign kingdoms, even those who are well known to be married.

The [requisitions for] the cutting of timber for the construction of the galleons constitute an evil that is necessary and unavoidable, since on these depends the entire preservation of these islands; but this necessity is equaled by the destruction and the injuries which that work has caused in these provinces, in the diminution of their population and products. For this so oppressive and heavy yoke has almost always been imposed upon the said five provinces without extending it to others—to which, without doubt, the silver that his Majesty expends in the said woodcutting would be of public advantage; and at the same time the said provinces that are now burdened would take breath and become prosperous with such a rest, an end to which it greatly contributes that the shipbuilding yards are not limited to the village of Cavite alone. With this easy distribution [of labors] in the shipbuilding, the damages arising from the said woodcutting would no longer be repeated in the same provinces, which, having been thickly populated and abounding in produce, are now ruined and barren—their inhabitants forsaking them for remote provinces, and for lands of infidels and heretics, and sometimes retiring to the districts within the mountains. The reason for this is that, although the building [of a galleon] costs his Majesty the amount of 40,000 pesos for the wages of the Indians, besides the poor of these provinces, [they] carry among themselves a burden of more than 100,000 pesos—or even more, because those who are designated for the repartimiento of the woodcutting search for others who can take the place of each one; and the cost of these substitutes usually reaches five or six pesos, and sometimes ten. For the payment of this, the former pledge, or sell, or enslave themselves; and from this cause result very serious evils—thefts, withdrawing to the mountains to roam as vagrants, and other crimes. Other burdens which the natives miserably suffer, and which ordinarily fall on the poorest and most wretched, arise from the fact that the alcalde-mayor who makes the apportionment of men adds to it a greater number than is necessary, and those who are thus added redeem themselves from this oppression by money; and then the [list of the] repartimiento goes to the gobernadorcillo, in order that the heads [of barangay] may summon for the woodcutting six or eight men, even though only four may be necessary. The gobernadorcillo collects in money that amount in excess, as a redemption from an imaginary woodcutting, a proceeding which does not impair the number of those assigned. Still more, after all the men go to the woodcutting, if any are lacking the [native] overseer pays the superintendent of the work at the rate of two reals a day for the failure of each man. To this is added that the superintendent himself is wont to grant exemptions of his own accord, with unjust benefit to some, to the great injury of the main work, [the burden of] which falls on those who remain; moreover, he usually establishes shops, and thus the fund which his Majesty provides to aid these poor people by the purchase of some of their commodities remains therein. His Majesty orders that the men be called out and paid for one month; but many poor creatures do not get away from the woodcutting in a month and a half, during which time they are so overtaxed and harassed that they hardly have time to eat, and of sleep they will have some three hours, as a result of their labors on the account of his Majesty and outside his account. Such is the sorrowful course of the experiences and the unjust acts which they encounter in the woodcutting, [a labor] so carefully guarded from these by his Majesty—whose royal and innate piety adorns his crown with his clemency toward the poor, and with the justice of the many laws which he has promulgated in their favor. In presenting thus in general these transgressions of the laws, these crimes, and these oppressions of the poor to your Lordship, as to their judge and father, it is not our intention to blame all the head overseers of the woodcutting; for some have been known who with Christian zeal, the utmost assiduity, and entire disinterestedness have begun and ended their terms of woodcutting with treating those poor people with compassion and justice.

In these provinces near Manila there are a great number of Indians whose mode of life may appropriately be compared to that of the gypsies in EspaÑa; for they go from one village to another accompanied by some women, and, without labor, they travel, eat, and are clothed; while they prove to be the authors of many murders, robberies, rapes, and other iniquitous deeds. Of the same sort are a great many of the slaves from Manila, who have fled from their masters and go about in bands through various districts; they ravage and destroy fields and farms; they lord it in the houses of the poor Indians; and there is hardly an evil deed that their rash boldness will not perform.

The tribute of the half-annats which his Majesty commands to be paid by the public offices which enjoy honor and salaries is a burden on many provinces (and especially on that of Leite, in which these half-annats, recently raked up [suscitadas] are collected)—although it is a fact that the [native] governors of those provinces do not receive salaries or desire such honor; rather, they shun it on account of their poverty. From [the attempt at] constraining them the following results ensue: first, they flee to the mountains; second, those who do not flee are compelled to remain slaves, or else bind themselves for their whole lives, in order to find means for paying this half-annat, so grievous a tax and so against their wills.

His Majesty has given orders to fortify and repair the village of Cavite, because on it depends, in truth, the preservation and guardianship of this city, the safety of the castle of San Felipe, and that of many intrenchments and various houses, and of the royal storehouses, which his Majesty possesses there. [Moreover,] a large Christian community has gathered in that place; and there are four churches, and three houses of religious orders, with a considerable number of citizens. All these things strongly enforce the necessity of executing the said royal decree of his Majesty, for the preservation, promotion, and protection of all those religious orders and vassals—although our opinion inclines to suppose that there must have been reasons more important than these for suspending the royal mandate of his Majesty; and if these do not exist it surely seems that this state of affairs calls to your Lordship for amendment.

The most holy and awful sacrifice of the mass depends on the pious and punctual provision which his Majesty has made in having wine brought here for the celebration of mass; and this wine, as for the rest, cannot be sure. It seems that in recent years it has been required [from Mexico by the officials of Filipinas] in so small quantities that often not even the amount ordered by his Majesty is delivered; from this it results that, as this deficiency cannot be made good, there is a failure in saying many masses. Even in the oil for the lamps that burn before the blessed sacrament there is a great deficiency [in the supply], for two reasons: either because it is not delivered, or because it is delivered in places very far away. These two matters are, without doubt, worthy of your Lordship’s most careful attention—from whose Christian veneration for the blessed sacrament and well-known piety our solicitude desires and expects an entire and complete remedy.

It seems as if in most things the principal object of the alcaldes-mayor in the provinces, and that in which they proceed with most assiduity—excepting many who conduct themselves with entire integrity—reduces itself to a rigorous and excessive collection of the tributes; and their other aim is the utmost attention to their own personal advantage. These two aims are most injurious and prejudicial to the public welfare and to the poor people of the said provinces—because, when there is no produce [with which to pay the tributes] the alcaldes-mayor either compel the headmen to search for it, and even to bind themselves to do this, or regularly make the headmen responsible for amounts which they not only will not but cannot collect. Another reason is, that the said headmen, with cruel injustice, compel Indians to pay tribute before the age which his Majesty commands and fixes, and this they do under the compulsion of the alcaldes-mayor; likewise, the said headmen exact more than the amount of their obligations for the conveyance of the tributes. In the other aim of the said alcaldes-mayor (that is, their own private advantage) is seen a monstrous hydra with many heads of injustice and iniquity. One of these is their compelling the Indians to labor in construction and other works which do not belong to his Majesty’s service, although even for those [for the crown] the royal law spares and exempts them [from service] during the times when they sow and harvest their crops. The alcaldes also appoint certain Indians who are intimate with them, and who have influence among the other natives, to whom the latter deliver the commodities which they carry to the provinces; and these Indian agents, fixing the prices of goods at their own pleasure, compel the said Indian chiefs to supply them, either by sale or in exchange for other wares. From this results a most flagrant inequality in the prices and the exchanges of goods; and the loss in all these dealings always falls on the mass of the poor people, because the alcalde-mayor and the said petty chiefs or influential Indians always conclude their bargains with profit, and never with loss. Some alcaldes-mayor have gone to such an extreme of violence that, in case the said petty chiefs are unable to dispose of the goods which are thus committed to them, the alcalde compels them to assume the obligation, and to bind themselves to take the goods. Thus some of the Indians are constantly bringing upon others irreparable consequences and losses that are worthy of redress—all springing from the first injustice of compelling those to buy who neither possess nor can take charge of such commodities.

The assessment for each tribute is regulated at ten reals, and it includes two tribute-payers, the husband and wife; nevertheless, the Indians who have no fixed abode are burdened with the requirement that each individual taxed shall pay an entire tribute of ten reals each—although it is believed that this increase was imposed as a penalty, and in order that certain people might be reduced to villages and barangays; for it is evident, from the method of [planning] the tribute, that the imposition or the increase of the tributes is one of the peculiar and exclusive prerogatives of the supreme sovereignty belonging to his Majesty. These injuries, Sir, and these oppressions which extend through all the provinces, to the destruction of the poor, are certainly worthy of action [on your part], and constitute a legitimate obligation on your vigilance, and on the high office which his Majesty entrusted to your Lordship.

Probably it has contributed much to these pernicious results and this neglect of sacred things that in these recent years the principal aim and object of the supreme government of these islands, as well as of the alcaldes-mayor, has been only the increase of the royal revenue—actually reversing the royal orders, which decree that the first attention must be paid to religion, and to the ecclesiastics and their affairs and maintenance; and after that to the civil government and justice. But, contrary to these orders, it appears that in everything the first place has been attained by the [affairs of] the royal treasury, which ought to engage the later solicitudes [of the royal ministers]—and then without that excessive severity [of administration] which has been experienced in recent years, [and which has aroused our] pity and compassion.

In most of the provinces of these islands the gobernadorcillos are obliged, as are their [subordinate] officials, to accept, without their own choice, appointments to office; and as the cause of their shunning such appointments is the great expense of the year during which they serve, they suffer on this account great injuries in the provinces near Manila. It arouses pity in the hardest hearts to see and know by experience that nearly all the headmen enter office under compulsion from the alcalde-mayor, and, finding themselves perplexed to the utmost by the difficulties in rendering their accounts satisfactorily—either by the duplicate names on the registration lists, or the absences (which usually are many), or by the deaths [of those registered]—on account of the great poverty that is general in the villages these deficiencies fall back on the headmen, who are compelled to pay them or be imprisoned. This measure of imprisonment is carried out with so great rigor that many headmen are in prison, without any hope that they will be able to pay; and there are even cases in which the headmen have been imprisoned for many years for their indebtedness to the tributes in their charge, and, dying in prison, their burial was delayed for several days in order that their relatives might be able to find security for the dead man’s tribute and debt. From this your Lordship can infer the excessive severity with which the officials proceed in the collections of the royal tributes; but in this no kind of severity can be proper, nor can it be decreed by the royal and liberal purpose of his Majesty.

The works and preparations for the equipment [of ships] which are made on his Majesty’s account often make necessary various repartimientos and bandalas for the supplies of oil and rice, and other products, which the provinces furnish; and it is the continual and well-founded complaint from all of them that the amount paid for the said products is not according to their just price and value, but much less, from which follow the most serious wrongs to the poor. Of this precedent many of the alcaldes-mayor avail themselves for [their own] advancement, to judge by their unrighteous profits, with lamentable injury to the poor, which is general and well known in the provinces.

The royal decree of his Majesty provides that, for just and Christian reasons, Moors, Armenians, and other barbarous peoples may not remain in these islands as inhabitants and citizens; but for the last few years several ships from the Coast [i.e., India] have spent the winter here, and in consequence many Moors, Armenians, and other barbarians have settled without the walls of Manila, and in various provinces. These people have enjoyed (as they still do) free intercourse and trade with every class of people, and are causing notable injury to the spiritual welfare of the Indians—lording it over them, and setting a bad example in morals to all of them. Accordingly our affection and obligation [to the service of God] desire the exercise of your Lordship’s justice and Christian procedure, that this injury, so universal and so opposed to the Christian and praiseworthy usages which they ought [to follow], and which our missionaries are endeavoring to introduce among all the natives, may entirely cease.

On account of the great facility (not experienced before) which there has been in cashiering soldiers, these evil consequences for the villages have resulted, with various unjust acts—according to what idleness, poverty, and many temptations have offered to many poor men who came here only to serve his Majesty in the employment of soldiers.

From the introduction of the vice of gambling are following the injurious results and the offenses against God which the holy fathers [of the Church] decry, and which experience places before our own eyes, in the shape of much cursing, poverty, abandonment of the wives and children of the gamblers, and the sinful waste of much time—in which occur quarrels, frauds, and other wicked acts appropriate to gambling and connected with it. Besides this, some of the alcaldes-mayor—who ought to be on the watch to prevent these things, according to the orders which they have from the supreme government of your Lordship—are the very ones who secretly give full license and permission for gambling games, in consideration of the money which they receive every month for the said license. As a result, the villages and their grain-fields are inundated with gambling games (of cards, dice, and cocks, and many other kinds), with the aforesaid effects—all against the will of God our Lord and of his Majesty, which is always impeded and seldom executed by the alcaldes-mayor.

The experience of many years with the Chinese nation has made it very evident that it was necessary to prohibit to the Sangleys, especially the infidels, trade and intercourse with the villages and provinces of Indians, and keep them out of Indian houses and grain-fields, and thus it is provided and ordained; but unfortunately this prohibition is neither obeyed nor respected. It is, however, a fact that only when they are married, and compelled to make their abode in the chief town [of the province], where the alcalde-mayor resides, or when they are settled in a certain PariÁn, does his Majesty permit them to reside among the Indians—who from communication with the Sangleys obtain only superstitions, frauds, and the loss of the habits of morality in which we are trying to instruct them. The administration of the Christian Sangleys is in charge of the two holy religious orders of St. Dominic and the Society of Jesus; and as these people are for the most part the poorest [of the Sangleys], we do not consider it foreign to our obligation to attend to them, in such manner as is possible and right. It is only just to direct your Lordship’s attention to a custom introduced within the last few years, which is that the tribute that they pay for licenses [to remain in the country] has been increased—although it appears that the laws favor the Christian Sangleys, providing that their tribute shall be only ten reals; but at present they are paying the same amounts of tribute as do the infidel and heathen Sangleys. Your Lordship, with your clear judgment and ready comprehension, will be pleased to consider whether it is in accordance with the lofty purposes which his Majesty has for propagating the faith, and for lightening the burdens of those who are converted to it—in which his Catholic piety has so earnestly striven—that the said tributes should be extended and increased among the Christians; and whether they do not deserve to be relieved from so grievous a burden.

So great is the sorrow of our hearts at seeing and realizing how easily and quickly the Indians who are apostates from our holy faith retreat to the mountains, and the obstinacy which the infidels show in not coming out of them, that we cannot neglect to remind your Lordship a second time of the urgent necessity that expeditions into the mountains [by our troops] be continued, like those that were made in former times with success and useful results. We entreat and charge your Lordship that to this remedy which has been already tried on other occasions the piety of your Lordship will be pleased to add [another,] that of prohibiting to the Indians who are already Christians intercourse and trade with the infidels; for the regular result of this is, that the said infidels withdraw more and more from the mild authority of our holy religion. That religion is considered, by the said Christians, as intolerable, although it is not such, whether in itself, in its effects, or in the obligations which they assume by becoming Christians—which, in the feeble light of their understanding, is the same as being reduced only to subjection to the ecclesiastical minister, the alcalde-mayor, and the burdens of tributes and repartimientos.

Finally, Sir, our lofty desire for the general welfare of so many provinces, and the pleasure which we shall all feel in the prosperity and success of your Lordship—which, as [that of] the first and principal head [of this colony], must overflow in all its parts and subjects—impel us to point out to your Lordship how worthy of all assistance and effort in your Christian government is the pitiable condition to which the Christian villages are reduced, now one of poverty and barrenness, even of the native products. And those villages to which, it would seem, their age (which now is more than a century) must furnish greater abundance of produce and wealth rightfully their own, are in the same condition and the same poverty as are the villages that are more recent and less encouraged by the ecclesiastical ministers and the civil officials of these islands; and they can never enjoy any improvement, spiritual or temporal. The remedy for this—which ought to be effective, prompt, and steadily continued—in our humble opinion, is made up of various measures: some for the amelioration and redress of all the evils and difficulties already related to your Lordship, whose peremptory and executive orders must render them effectual; and others which, it seems to us, ought to be charged upon the alcaldes-mayor, and upon the proper ministers who are closest to the Indians themselves (who are the ecclesiastics), in order that they may by every means arouse and animate the slothful natures of the Indians, by instructing them in industries that will be useful to themselves, and in application to an [object of] desire that is honorable and advantageous to the public or to individuals of all the villages. This depends on and consists in not allowing that very abundance and fertility which our Lord has given to these islands to be destroyed with waste and negligence; for it is evident that the enormous sum of silver which necessity, against the royal orders, transfers to foreign kingdoms ruled by infidels and heretics, could remain in the islands themselves, and be converted into property, profit, and the acquisition of wealth for many poor persons. For there are found in these islands, as is well known, abundance of gold, amber, tortoise-shell, various cotton fabrics, wax, and many other native products, even omitting those that concern the sowing of the fields. If these were multiplied in both amount and kinds, it cannot be doubted that they would contribute to the villages, with considerable abundance, wealth and products; and that all the beneficial effects which can be desired would result, in favor of his Majesty and of the public welfare. The chief of these are: first, that all the painful burdens, unavoidable and necessary, which the natives have to bear, and which they lament, would become more easy and light for them, and that they would live a more social and civilized life; second, that their affection, loyalty, and obedience to his Majesty and to your Lordship in his name, as the authors of their prosperity, repose, and advantage, would be enormously increased. Third, all the Christian Indians would be more steadfast and rooted in the holy faith, and would become effective and most suitable instruments for [gaining] new conversions of infidels [and] apostates, the infidels themselves beholding the abundant wealth and profit, and other benefits, of the Christian Indians; for it is the temporal welfare evident to their senses which, as experience teaches us, strongly influences both classes of Indians, to be converted or to maintain themselves in the Christian faith. This same object will be greatly aided by inducing the Indians to settle and form villages; for, in the mode of life in which they now are found, in most of the provinces and villages in which the minister who instructs them is stationed and resides a certain number are destitute of houses, and all the rest of the people live so far away and so scattered that many are obliged to travel three or four leguas in order to be present on a festival day at the church—from which remoteness it also follows that, without any fault of the said ministers, many persons die without receiving the holy sacraments.

Such, Sir, are the evils, and such are the remedies which our consciences, our charity, and our zeal have dictated to us as being most worthy of gaining the attention of your Lordship—at whose feet, through the means of these lines, so many poor Indians approach to prostrate themselves. Neophytes, and bereft of all human protection, they have recourse to your Lordship, not only as to their governor and judge, but also as to a kind father—in whose term of office they hope that peace and justice will again flourish; and that the rights of the poor, and redress for their oppressions, will often obtain a hearing from your Lordship. This, it appears, has not been the case in other times, certainly at the cost of many tears, which were little heeded and never dried by the sovereignty and power that ought to do so. In their name, and only for the objects pointed out at the beginning of this memorial, and that by it we may unburden our own consciences, we are under obligation, at least according to charity, to solicit for them aid and justice.

We humbly entreat that your Lordship will be pleased, in regard to these points, to carry out what his Majesty ordains, and to take such measures as your Lordship may deem most suitable for prompt execution, most easy to be obeyed, and most conformable to the royal will; and we expect that what your Lordship shall judge to be most expedient will be in every way the best, since his Majesty has entrusted to your care, zeal, generous nature, and nobility the supreme government of these islands. Manila, October 7, in the year 1701.

Fray Jose Vila, provincial of the province of Santissimo Rosario.

Fray Francisco de Santa Ynes, provincial of St. Francis.

Fray Jose Lopez, provincial of the Augustinians.

Luis de Morales, provincial of the Society of Jesus.

Fray Bartolome de la Santissima Trinidad, provincial of the discalced Recollects of St. Augustine.