number have set aside this fourth part, and they have done it very seldom.  It is an unbearable deception for the encomenderos to hold this view, for this decree does not refer to the encomiendas which, as we have said, are deprived of religious teaching.  As for the latter, not only can the king not give them license to collect their tributes, but, even were he here, he himself could not collect them.  The aforesaid decree, moreover, treats not of these, but of the encomiendas whose inhabitants are already Christian.  It is with regard to these that the king commands that a fourth part of the tributes be appropriated for the construction of churches; and that in place of the tithes which they, as Christians, owe to the ministers for their maintenance, a certain part of the tributes be appropriated in such wise as may be here decided.  Afterward, I shall satisfactorily prove that it never entered the king’s mind that the encomenderos would, by renouncing the fourth part of the tributes, fulfil their obligations toward their encomiendas.

The above is a summary of the contents of the opinion which I am preparing, wherein may be found a more extensive treatment of what I have here set down.  In that document your Lordship will find complete proofs of what is contained in this summary, accompanied by arguments so cogent and convincing that there is neither room nor possibility for doubt in this matter.

Two other points are to be found in the clauses furnished to me by the secretary, Juan de Cuellar, drawn from the instructions which the king, our lord, gave to your Lordship for the good government of this land.  In one of them there is a discussion of the two reals which his Majesty ordered to be added to the tributes hitherto collected.  It also contains the views of the theologians of this bishopric, and my own, concerning this increase.  Your Lordship will find them all in the document which, as I said above, I am preparing.  Inasmuch as the execution of that clause is not immediately pressing, it has not seemed to me necessary to discuss it here.

The other clause deals with the means to be employed in establishing religious instruction in the small encomiendas and districts where the said instruction does not exist.  Concerning this we shall have but little to say at present, not because the affair is free from very great difficulties, in undertaking to accomplish his Majesty’s orders as contained in the aforesaid clause; but because there is no present occasion for anxiety regarding the establishment of this instruction, inasmuch as there are no ministers to undertake the work.  I will only say that, if his Majesty does not decree that the small encomiendas be made into a few large ones, it will be most difficult (and indeed almost impossible) to establish therein religious instruction.

In conformity with this, your Lordship will see how you are to give permission to the encomenderos who do not maintain instruction, so that they may collect from their encomiendas, if your Lordship wishes to make secure your own encomienda [46] which I, by this statement, have enabled you to do.