governor and bishop should make
investigations as to whether it would be useful and advantageous to
have the said hermitage granted for the said purpose, and that they
should send their report, together with their opinion on the matter,
to the royal Council of the Yndias. In fulfilment of this direction,
the said governor has sent the said documents to your Majesty. He
[Ortega] entreats you to have it examined and, in accordance with it,
to provide and order what is deemed of most advantage to the service
of God our Lord, and of your Majesty--considering that, if the said
Recollet religious are established there, from their good instruction,
life, and example great results will be obtained, both among the
natives, and from the devotion of the Spaniards. [_In the margin_:
"Let the governor undertake the establishment of whatever religious
of the order of St. Augustine he thinks advisable."]

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

Advice on Fourteen Points of Great Import for the Service of God and
His Majesty, and the Increase of His Royal Estate

Sire:

Fray Francisco de Ortega, of the order of St. Augustine,
visitador-general of his order in the Philipinas Islands, by apostolic
authority, and by the royal authority of your Majesty, and the
authority of his general, declares that he has spent thirty-eight years
in the Yndias--sixteen of them in Nueva Espana and the rest in the
Philipinas Islands--preaching the word of God, and administering the
holy sacraments to Spaniards and Indians. In this period is reckoned
the time spent in voyaging to and fro between this kingdom and those
districts twice (and with this last time, thrice) to your Majesty as
a suppliant, and voyaging twenty-two thousand leguas and undergoing
many dangers and hardships to inform your Majesty of the condition
of those islands, and of what, in his opinion, by reason of his long
experience in that country, was fitting for the service of God our
Lord, and that of your Majesty. His purpose was that, with your royal
clemency and magnanimity and most Christian zeal, you might decree a
reform, and provide what should be most convenient for the aforesaid
objects--which reform your Majesty decreed, and it has been placed
in execution. He has conducted the religious whom your Majesty bade
him take for the conversion of those natives--forty in number, except
for those who died on the voyage; he has founded twe