It only remains that your Paternity should cast your eyes upon this new and tiny plant, separated from Rome by so great an interval of distance and situated in the most remote parts of the world, as it has also obtained the last place in the government of the Society; and that you should show to it all kindness and favor by sending to it some laborers with these words from the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah:  Ite, angeli veloces, ad gentem conuulsam et dilaceratam, ad populum terribilem, post quem non est alius. [44] Thus they may bring unto these places of darkness some light by their preaching of the gospel, and all may bend the knee before the true God, the maker of the world, and adore and revere Him.

These treasures the India of the Philippines offers to your Paternity, and it is confident that by the divine grace and your blessing it will offer greater ones.  Finally, may our Lord protect and preserve the health of your Paternity for many years, to the advantage of the whole church and the increase of the Society.  Your Paternity’s son and servant in Christ,

Francisco Vaez

Letter from Diego Garcia to Felipe III

Sire: 

In the year ninety-nine I came to these islands, by order of my general, to console and visit in his name the fathers and brothers of our Society who reside in them.  We were much pleased to see how much has been done for the service of our Lord and your Majesty, and the good of the Indians.

The Society of Jesus has in its charge a good part of the islands called the Pintados, where the holy gospel had never been preached.  In the period of four years, eleven or twelve thousand have been converted and baptized.  Matters are now in such course that in a short time, with the divine grace, there will be more than forty thousand baptized.  As the priests who are occupied in this conversion are not more than thirteen, [45] the results, if there were many more, would also have been incomparably greater.  For the honor of God, I beseech your Majesty to be pleased to command that workers be sent, as it is a great shame that, when the season for the harvest is upon us, it should be lost through lack of reapers.

[In the margin of the preceding paragraph: 

Already provided for.”]

The Indians of these Pintados Islands have by nature good dispositions and abilities.  I have learned by experience with some few, who were brought up in our houses, from the time when they were children, that if there were several seminaries where the education of the youth might be carefully attended to, taking them out of the power of their heathen parents, while still children (for the latter would give them up willingly), inside of a few years there would be a very prosperous Christian community in the sight of God and men.  In my opinion there is no more effective means to establish the faith firmly among these barbarians than this.