tter reaches you, it will find your Majesty enjoying
the health needed by the interests of Christendom, and the prosperity
for which we, your Majesty's vassals and servants, pray; and may this
continue so for many long and happy years, so that the disturbed and
embarrassed condition of affairs which now generally prevails may be
reduced to order.

As I have written to your Majesty of our need here of ministers to give
Christian instruction, I have great hopes that your Majesty has done us
the favor to send a great force of missionaries to this vineyard and
to this new field of Christendom, which so sorely needs them. I hope,
too, that these laborers will not come from Mexico, but from Espana,
and that they will be among those who are most needed there; for this
land, so new and so distant from your Majesty's royal sight, demands
such men. Likewise they should be humble, peaceful subjects, loving God
and your Majesty, and attentive to their ministry of preaching the holy
gospel and the salvation of souls. They should not be men with selfish
interests, or have special objects or pretensions in view which would
divert them from their chief aim. I am hoping for them chiefly because
of the great need for them in the province of Tuy. This province was
rendered obedient to your Majesty without bloodshed and voluntarily,
by means of the fathers. At that time they paid some beads, and rice,
and some small articles of little or no value, only as a slight token
of recognition. I thought it better, according to our promises to them,
not to collect any tribute from them inside of one year; and although
this time has expired, still I have not thought it proper to collect
the tribute, because of our lack of ministers to instruct them, and
because I am thinking of founding a Spanish settlement there. This
latter I propose doing, on account of the fertility of that region,
and its superior climate, as well as the robustness of the Indians,
and their great vigor and intelligence. They have large villages
and houses, abundance of rice, cattle, fruit, cotton, anise, ginger,
and other products. In that region fifteen thousand tributarios are
subject to your Majesty's obedience. When the year, as above stated,
had expired, I sent to Tuy, about five months ago, thirty soldiers
under their leader, for the sole purpose of visiting those villages
and ascertaining whether they were obedient to your Majesty's service
and friendly to us. I sent the