It seems to your Lordship that I wish to appoint too large a number of these alcaldes-mayor; but one day your Lordship asked me to appoint some of them.  Since I have come to this land, I have established a new administration of justice in the island of Masbate; and good results which have followed, can be stated by the father custodian, who arrived yesterday from that island, and is well acquainted with the excellent result there.  Hitherto, tribute has been collected there in the absence of every form of religious teaching, or administration of justice; but now, only from their intercourse and relations with the Spaniards and from having justice established at once among them, they have already made such progress that they demand a minister, and even the blacks have come down from the interior to settle near us.

[The governor reminds the bishop that the progress of religion among the heathen must depend upon the foundation established for that good work by secular government; and that if this be not maintained the land will relapse into barbarism, and the Spaniards will be compelled to abandon what they have begun to build in the islands.] Your Lordship should make some estimate of the damage which would result therefrom to the king our lord and his royal treasury; for according to that his Majesty would have to find one hundred and fifty thousand pesos and more with which to make restitution, to say nothing of thirty thousand of income which he would lose; for all the encomiendas are his.  These islands would be left without one soldier, and your Lordship and the religious would alone remain; but within eight days there would be none of you left.  Your Lordship may be sure of one thing:  until I receive express orders from my king to do so, I can make no change whatever in regard to the encomiendas, by reducing or cutting off their income.  It is twenty-six years since they were first instituted, and during twelve years your Lordship has known that they were in this condition; and yet you have until now maintained silence. [The governor again declares that he will not change his attitude; and that he has no right to interfere between the king and the encomenderos.  It is his business to establish justice, and the encomenderos are bound to provide instruction; but they must have the means to do so.] Your Lordship does not provide religious to minister to the Indians, because you have none; but you have never been willing to give these good Christian laymen whom I have mentioned permission to go among them meanwhile to do this good work, although the encomenderos have many times asked for them, both since and before I came here.  But your Lordship replies that you are not willing that any layman should teach them to make the sign of the cross; accordingly nothing is done for them. [The governor justifies some minor provisions of his decree, on a basis practically the same as has already been set forth; and, in his turn, cites various learned theologians.  He requests the bishop to prevent the clergy from discussing this subject in their pulpits, as they have often done, which is not fitting to the uses of a house dedicated to God.]