se islands, number twenty-three. They have forty-nine ministers
in these; and in the city of Manila they have another monastery of
their order, with fifteen religious--priests and brethren, laymen and
choristers. He [Ortega] does not know the exact number of Indians in
their charge, although he thinks that they have baptized something
like thirty thousand persons.

There are four monasteries of the order of St. Dominic in Indian
villages, and two in Manila--one among the Chinese settled there,
and the other among the Spaniards. All six convents have eighteen
ministers, and he thinks they have baptized something like fourteen
thousand souls.

Fray Francisco de Ortega presents this report to your Highness, as
one who has an experience of twenty-four years in those islands, and
what remains from thirty-nine years in Nueva Espana. He presents
the report with all sincerity, so that your Highness may have
detailed information, and may deem yourself to be well served by
his order. His hope is that the necessity of ministers--both for
preaching to the natives already converted, and for the conversion of
so vast a multitude of people still to be converted--being evident,
your Highness, with your royal and usual kindness, may have a great
number of ministers of the gospel sent; since God is sending the
remedy that is drawing this people from their blindness, by the hands
of your Highness, for whom He is keeping the reward of so noble and
sovereign a work as this of converting a new world to the knowledge
of God our Lord.

[_Endorsed:_ "Fray Francisco de Ortega of the order of St. Augustine."]

What He Begs for the Monasteries of His Order

+

Sire:

Fray Francisco de Ortega, visitor-general of his order of
St. Augustine, and prior of the convent of the city of Manila, in
the name of that province, and by the authority which he has for that
purpose, humbly begs and beseeches the following from your Majesty.

1. That your Majesty be pleased to bestow, as a grant and as alms for
the building of the monastery of that city, a fixed sum for a certain
period, as you did in past years for the building of the church of
the said monastery. In that case were assigned for the period of
ten years one thousand ducados annually. This grant is asked in
consideration of the fact that it has been burned twice, and has
been in part rebuilt from the alms that the religious have acquired
with great difficulty. Another ground is the m