Translations:  These are all made by James A. Robertson, except the second, by Robert W. Haight.

LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP SERRANO TO FELIPE IV

Sire: 

In the ships that came from Nueva Espana to these islands this last month of June, I received a decree of your Majesty dated Madrid, December six of the former year six hundred and twenty-four, with a copy of the one that your Majesty wrote to the governor of these islands, in respect to the gold mines of the Ygolotes.  I shall discuss it with the said governor, as your Majesty orders, as soon as this despatch shall be made, which will be at the end of this month.  I shall exert all the effort possible, so far as I am concerned, so that your Majesty may be well served in everything.  I believe that Governor Don Juan Nino de Tavora will not be lacking in the same, for he shows very earnest desires to employ himself in your Majesty’s service. [In the margin:  “That it is well.”]

I received two other decrees, of the fourteenth and thirtieth of August, of the same year, in which your Majesty is pleased to lay down the form that must be observed in the visitation of the missionary religious; and ordering that the latter may not make arrests or employ stocks or prisons, or fiscals or constables who make arrests, besides those whom the archbishop or bishop shall assign, or who shall have the latter’s authority to do so in cases permitted by law—­all of which will be observed and obeyed as your Majesty orders, [In the margin:  “Seen.”]

In another decree, of June twenty of the past year twenty-five, your Majesty also orders me to inform you, with the distinctness and clearness necessary for the better understanding of what you desire, of the annual incomes and values of the benefices and revenues of this archbishopric of Manila, and what sum pertains to the dignidades, canonries, and prebends, both of this church and of the others of my diocese. [Your Majesty also asks for] the number in each church; how many beneficed curacies there are in each district, and their income; the number of missions, their value, and whether they are in charge of seculars or religious of the orders.  I gave your Majesty a long account of that in a letter that I wrote the former year of six hundred and twenty-one on the twenty-fifth of July, to which I have had answer from that royal Council that it was received in the following year of six hundred and twenty-two.  I only neglected to place in that letter the incomes of the archbishopric and the prebends of this church—­taking that for granted, as a matter very well known, since your Majesty sustains both the archbishop and the dignidades, canonries, and prebends from your royal treasury, because there is no other source, and the tithes are not sufficient.  The latter are placed in the said treasury, and are collected at the account of your Majesty.  They