has been said to your Majesty, it is not known that this has happened; but in order to provide for this, and at the same time for the principal aim which your Majesty has, the spread of the holy gospel in regions so remote, and where experience has shown that there is so great a disposition to receive it, and for the preservation of the states which your Majesty holds in the Western and Eastern Yndias, it has appeared best to the Council that your Majesty should be pleased to order his ambassador who is present in Rome to represent to his Holiness the reasons which exist for opening the way for preaching in Japon, for such religious as may be approved by their superiors and the Council; and therefore he should ask for the revocation of the briefs which oppose this object, leaving it to the general disposal of all the provinces of the world.  They also suggest that your Majesty should order that from no part of his kingdom should religious go to Japon without first making port at the city of Manila in the Philipinas Islands, where the governor of the islands and the superiors of the orders, as those who manage this business, shall ascertain at what time and opportunity, and what religious, it is expedient to send over to preach in Japon; and these and no others shall go.  The said governor should command that the religious who are to go to Japon shall go in ships belonging to the Japanese themselves, as it is understood that those who have gone up to the present time have done, without permitting that other ships than those of the crown of Castilla should go, under this pretext, to the provinces and realms of Japon—­severely punishing those who violate this order.

Your Majesty will order what shall be most for the royal service.  Valladolid, May 30, 1606.

Report from the Council of the Indias

Sire: 

The Duke de Lerma has written to me, the Conde de Lemos, that your Majesty orders that the enclosed report from the Council of Portugal be examined in this Council, in regard to the order that there should be no passing to Japon by way of the Philipinas, and that your Majesty be advised of what seems best.  In this report the principal purpose seems to be that commerce should be prohibited, by your Majesty’s command, in order that the Philipinas may not maintain it with China or Japon.  This matter depends very much on what the same Council of Portugal has claimed, and now brings forward as foundation for its claim, which is the prohibition of the entrance of Castilian religious into Japon to preach.  At your Majesty’s command, the Council replied, in the past year, to another report from the Council of Portugal, in which it proposed in detail the arguments on which it founds its claim.  Therefore it seemed best to return the report to your Majesty, together with a letter written to your Majesty by Francisco Pena, auditor of Rota, from which it is apparent how this matter is considered in Rome, and how much that opinion is