Therefore, notwithstanding that all my will and desire is that, by the aid of the good spiritual and temporal government in what is explored of the said islands, and the care that must be had in the reduction of the rest, the end be attained to which the grace that God has shown me and is now showing me, constrains me so straitly; still, until He, in His infinite providence, shall dispose it, the most advisable thing is to watch carefully over the sure preservation and increase of what has been reduced and pacified at so great expense.  I charge you that you strive for this end, considering the condition in which you find affairs and the great importance and advisability of bringing them to perfection and placing foundations so firm and secure that not only will there be naught to fear from the many enemies surrounding that part explored, but that it shall be preserved and increased.

Since there is nothing which will have so much influence over all affairs as the care that you are to exercise, I charge you with rigor that those new plants be instructed in the teachings of the gospel and of Christianity by the ecclesiastics whom I have sent, and am sending, for that purpose, with so great trouble and expense; and in civil and moral matters, by the temporal ministers, protecting them so that they may receive good treatment, and maintaining them in peace and justice, so that their labors may be satisfied.  Therefore a most important means will be the care that you and the prelates are to observe in having divine worship celebrated with the greatest devotion and solemnity possible, at least on Easter and the holy days that the church is accustomed to solemnize and observe.  You shall have especial care that the places of worship are kept in order and well served, and all this with due propriety, especially the cathedral church, inasmuch as it is the principal and archiepiscopal church, whose example must induce the same results in the other churches.  Inasmuch as I was informed that things were quite to the contrary; and that the said church, besides being poorly roofed with wood and straw, was not properly served; and that it needed and lacked what it should have—­a thing to which the former governors should not have consented—­I charged your predecessor, Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, strictly that, immediately upon his arrival at the islands, he should have the said church rebuilt.  I assigned for this work the sum of twelve thousand ducados in three parts:  one from my royal exchequer, another from the encomenderos, and the third from the Indians.  These said twelve thousand ducados were to be spent on the said building within four years, at the rate of three thousand ducados annually.  In order that it might be done more easily, I gave an anticipatory order for two thousand ducados on the account of my third, on the treasury of Nueva Espana, whence the said Gomez Perez took them.  Notwithstanding that he wrote to me in his last letters that the work