that the chief preacher and teaching for the inhabitants of Manila, and the best method of banishing public sins from it, is the good example and life of the governors.  With that, and with the affability and love that they would exercise toward the virtuous, and with the displeasure and asperity with which they would treat the vicious, there would result, at least in the exterior court, the good or evil conduct of the inhabitants of this community.  Inasmuch as the community is small, and all its inhabitants need the governor and are watching him, they will try to imitate him.

In regard to sending a relation of the persons worthy and capable of being appointed prelates. Your Majesty ordered me in the said royal decree to send a separate and very secret relation of those persons most worthy and capable in this archbishopric of being appointed to prelacies—­recounting their virtue, morals, and example, character, prudence, age, and modesty; and of the intellect, learning, degrees, and governing ability of such persons, besides other circumstances.  Obeying the commands of your Majesty, I report all that in a separate letter, and I shall continue to do so in the form and manner in which your Majesty may advise me.

Whether there are vacant prebends or benefices. At present, Sire, there is no vacant prebend in the cathedral of this city, although some are being filled by appointments by the governor until your Majesty shall confirm them or shall appoint to these posts persons who are pleasing to you.  In regard to that, I refer to what I am writing to your Majesty in a separate letter.  The benefices are appointed by competition as soon as they become vacant, in the manner prescribed by the holy council of Trent, in accordance with the royal patronage and last royal decree of your Majesty that treats of this matter.  Consequently, throughout this diocese there is no vacant prebend or benefice.  As soon as any become vacant, I shall take care to provide for them as speedily as possible, as your Majesty so piously orders me.

Regarding the number of curacies and missions, and of the persons who administer them. In regard to the relation and report that your Majesty orders me to make of the curacies and missions of this diocese (both of Spaniards and of Indians); of the persons who serve them, and the manner of their presentation, whether of seculars or of friars, and of what orders; the age of each, and his length of service in those curacies and missions; and whether he serves with the good-will, humility, unworldliness, and good example to which he is bound; as well as of other things contained in the section that treats of this.  I refer to what I have said in my letter, without going into particulars regarding the names and ages of the ministers; for that appears to be less necessary, since the benefices at present held by seculars in these islands are so limited in stipends and obventions that nearly all of them are compelled to beg for these, in order not to desert their benefices.  In the missions in charge of the religious, the same persons do not live continuously, for their provincials remove and change them from one to another, according as they deem most advisable.