I the King

By command of the king our lord: 
Don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras

Decree forbidding secular priests from Eastern India in the Philippines

The King.  To Don Juan Nino de Tavora, knight of the Order of Calatrava, member of my Council of War, my governor and captain-general of the Philipinas Islands, and president of my royal Audiencia therein, or the person or persons in whose charge their government may be.  I have been informed that the secular priests who go to those islands from Eastern India with their trading-ships generally are those expelled and exiled; that they remain there, and are often employed in vicariates, curacies, and benefices, to the injury of the natives, and the patrimonial rights of the country.  After examination of the matter by my royal Council of the Indias, I have considered it proper to issue the present, by which I order you not to permit any of the secular priests from those districts [of Eastern India] to enter those islands; nor shall you admit them to any exercise of office, for this is my will. [Given in Madrid, March twenty-six, one thousand six hundred and thirty-two.]

I the King

By order of the king our sovereign: 
Don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras

Signed by the Council.

[Endorsed: “To the governor of Philipinas, ordering him not to allow any of the secular priests who might go from Eastern India to the islands to enter therein or admit them to any exercise of office.”]

Order to the city of Manila regarding the Mexican trade

The King.  To the council, justices, and magistracy of the city of Manila, of the Philipinas Islands.  In response to what Don Juan Nino de Tavora, my governor and captain-general of those islands, wrote me, in the former year of 1629, about your petition for the fulfilment of the decree of 1593 which permits the inhabitants of that island to go to sell their goods in Mexico, or to send them under charge of a satisfactory person—­and not to send or consign them, except it be in the second place—­in a section of a letter which I wrote on December 4 of the former year of 630 to the said my governor, I charged him that, if the encomenderos living in that city who had sent persons with their possessions to Mexico proceeded dishonestly, or formed trusts [ligas], or monopolies among themselves, they should be punished according to law; and that if, in addition to the inconveniences that should arise in the observance of the said decree, others should be discovered, he should advise me thereof, so that suitable measures might be enacted.  I also had my viceroy of Nueva Espana ordered to watch carefully what the inhabitants of Mexico did, so that he might apply the advisable remedy.  Now, Don Juan Grau y Monfalcon, your procurator, has informed me that the decree given in the said year of 593, ordering that the inhabitants of those islands might