cular clergy in Puerto Rico was nominated in
1511. The Catholic princes besought Pope Julius II to make it a
bishopric, and recommended as its first prelate Alonzo Manso, canon of
Salamanca, doctor in theology, a man held in high esteem at court. His
Holiness granted the request, and designated the whole of the island
as the diocese, with the principal settlement in it as the see.

The subsequent conquests on the mainland kept adding vast territories
to this diocese till, toward the end of the eighteenth century, it
included the whole region extending from the upper Orinoco to the
Amazon, and from Guiana to the plains of Bogota. Manso's successors
repeatedly represented to the king the absolute impossibility of
attending to the spiritual wants of "the lambs that were continually
added to the flock." They requested that the see might be transferred
to the mainland or that the diocese might be divided in two or more.
This was done in 1791, when the diocese of Guiana was created, and
Puerto Rico with the island of Vieyques remained as the original one.

The bishop came to San Juan in 1513, and at once began to dispose all
that was necessary to give splendor and good government to the first
episcopal seat in America. Unfortunately, he arrived at a time when
dissension, strife, and immorality were rampant; and when it became
known that he was authorized to collect his tithes _in specie_, the
opposition of the quarrelsome and insubordinate inhabitants became so
violent that the prelate could not exercise his functions, and was
forced to return to the Peninsula in 1515. He came back in 1519,
invested with the powers of a Provincial Inquisitor, which he
exercised till 1539, when he died and was buried in the cathedral,
where a monument with an alabaster effigy marked his tomb till 1625,
when it was destroyed by the Hollanders.

Rodrigo Bastidas, a native of Santo Domingo, was Manso's successor. He
was appointed Bishop of Coro in Venezuela in 1532, but solicited and
obtained the see of Puerto Rico in 1542. He was a man of great
capacity, virtuous and benevolent. He advised the suppression of the
Inquisition, asked the Government for facilities to educate the youth
and advance the agricultural interests of his diocese, and commenced
the construction of the cathedral. He died in Santo Domingo in 1561,
very old and very rich.

Friar Diego de Salamanca, of the order of Augustines, succeeded
Bastidas. He continued the constructio