In the year 613, your Majesty was given an account of the reasons set forth by Licentiate Don Diego Vazquez de Mercado, archbishop of the metropolitan church of the city of Manila in the Philipinas Islands, why he should be given a coadjutor.  The Council was of opinion that your Majesty might command it to be examined, with the enclosed advice; and your Majesty was pleased to answer:  [Here is repeated the endorsement on the letter preceding this].  In order to give better satisfaction to your Majesty, and to report on the state of affairs in those islands, we have waited for the coming of the letters.  As for himself, the archbishop persisted in his claim, which was explained to your Majesty in writing on the fourth of May, 614, and the second of August, 615.  He considers himself of no use in the government of his church, as he is more than seventy years of age, with many infirmities; and he is anxious over the failure that gives cause for regarding him as remiss, and the fact that he can not fulfil his obligations, nor make easy the conscience of your Majesty, and is burdening his own.  As a result of this his jurisdiction is becoming every day less; and owing to his inability to punish them, and take needful measures, there is cause to fear that there may be increase of certain sins.  It is but right that this should be remedied in due time, by sending a successor.  Again he beseeches your Majesty to appoint one, so that he may continue to fulfil the obligations of that office; and that, for his own support, he be left two thousand of the three thousand ducados which your Majesty has commanded to be given him.  In the letters from the religious orders of these islands it is evident how fitting and just it is to concede to the archbishop what he asks.  Having considered and examined into this, the Council is of the same opinion as in the said advice of 613; and thinks that your Majesty, conformably thereto, may consider it desirable to ask his Holiness to grant the archbishop a coadjutor with the future succession, who will be given a third of the stipend of that archbishopric—­namely, one thousand ducados—­besides the occasional fees and the visitation of the archbishopric, leaving to the archbishop the other two-thirds.  It should be through a coadjutorship, because in this form it appears more suitable, and in accordance with the petition he makes, and with the customary action in similar cases.  If your Majesty be pleased to approve, persons in that region and in the archbishopric will be considered in regard to the qualifications that are required for that church.  Madrid, the first of July, 616.

LETTER FROM LEDESMA TO FELIPE III

Abstract of a letter from the provincial of the Society of Jesus, Valerio de Ledesma, to the king, informing him of the condition of the Filipinas Islands. [69]