tery here large enough for a city
of 2,000 inhabitants,[79] and there are many friars in it. They
possess farms, cattle, negroes, Indians, and are building horse-power
sugar-mills; meanwhile, I know that they are asking your Majesty for
alms to finish their church ... It were better to oblige them to sell
their estates and live in poverty as prescribed by the rules of their
order."

The Franciscans came to Puerto Rico in 1534, but founded no convent
till 1585, when one of their order, Nicolas Ramos, was appointed to
the see of San Juan. Then they established themselves in "la Aguada,"
and named the settlement San Francisco de Asis. Two years later it was
destroyed by the Caribs, and five of the brothers martyrized. No
attempt at reconstruction of the convent was made. The order abandoned
the island and did not return till 1642, when they obtained the Pope's
license to establish themselves in the capital. Like the Dominicans,
they soon acquired considerable wealth.

The privilege of administering parishes and collecting tithes, which
was the principal source of monastic revenues, was canceled by royal
schedule June 13, 1757. The monks continued in the full enjoyment of
their property till 1835, when all the property of the regular clergy
throughout the Peninsula and the colonies was expropriated by the
Government. In this island the convents were appropriated only after
long and tedious judicial proceedings, in which the Government
demonstrated that the transfer was necessary for the public good. Then
the convents were used--that of the Dominicans as Audiencia hall, that
of the Franciscans as artillery barracks. The intendancy took charge
of the administration of the estate of the two communities, the
mortmain was canceled, and the transfer duly legalized. A promised
indemnity to the two brotherhoods was never paid, but in 1897 a sum of
5,000 pesos annually was added to the insular budget, to be paid to
the clergy as compensation for the expropriated estate of the
Dominicans in San German. Succeeding political events prevented the
payment of this also. The last representatives in this island of the
two dispossessed orders died in San Juan about the year 1865.

Bishop Monserrate made an effort to reestablish the order of
Franciscans in 1875-'76. Only three brothers came to the island and
they, not liking the aspect of affairs, went to South America.

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The first head of the se