baptism.  I gave account thereof to your Majesty, and await your orders. [Marginal note:  “Write to the provincial acknowledging this, and to the bishop “in regard to cutting off the hair of the Chinese.  This is not expedient, as their conversion is thereby retarded.  Moreover, they do not dare to return to their own country where they could teach and convert others.  This custom of the Chinese, wearing their hair long, is more usual in other parts of the Yndias, as he knows; and hitherto this has not been considered unseemly.  Let the bishop call together the superiors of the orders, and other learned and zealous persons.  They shall confer and give commands for what is expedient in regard to suitable measures for the conversion of the Chinese.  He shall send advices thereof, and of the difficulties in the way, and shall provide for both.”]

The bishop of these islands, as I have at other times written to your Majesty, does not countenance appeals made by force, and the decrees of the Audiencia; and when he is so inclined, he refuses to comply therewith.  We have therefore been put to much annoyance and constraint in enforcing exile and other penalties, particularly in regard to the defense of the royal jurisdiction.  This latter has not been done because the land is new, and to avoid offending the natives.  He becomes very angry at times, with little or no occasion, so that he often disagrees with the Audiencia, in the pulpit and out of it, and causes others to do the same—­notwithstanding what your Majesty has commanded, and the reprimands that he has received.  Although there have been serious difficulties, I do not discuss them, in order not to weary your Majesty with a longer account.  I beseech your Majesty to supply the remedy which you think suitable, and to order the bishop not to publish, without reason, as he has done, causes of the Holy Office against the Audiencia and fiscal.  Although we must always do justice, and the fiscal must act as plaintiff, there is caused much scandal and many hindrances to the authority of your Majesty’s Audiencia, by trying to disgrace and intimidate the judges by threats of the Inquisition.

Although your Majesty has ordered this camp and the royal hospitals to be provided with medicines and other necessities, as there is no doctor the soldiers are only treated by unskilled surgeons who attempt to cure them.  For this reason many people die, and I beseech your Majesty, as it so important to your service, to order the viceroy of Nueva Espana to send a good physician with an adequate salary at the cost of your royal estate.  The city has no money with which to pay him, nor do the soldiers, since even the richest of them has not enough for his own support. [Marginal note:  “Write to the viceroy of Nueva Espana to send a doctor and a surgeon to treat these people and give advice thereof.”]