and intercourse with us. From this would result at
least the favorable disposition which you wish them to have for the
time when there may be religious instruction for them, as his Majesty
orders in his charge regarding presentations. I have proposed this
to your Lordship on several occasions, but you do not set about it
or reply to it. Since your Lordship [knows(?) _--illegible in MS._]
what persons will be fitted for this ministry, I beg you to tell
me of some who are suitable; for, as I am new here, am not as well
able to [select them(?)--_illegible in MS._] properly; and those
whom I brought and know are occupied in other duties and neither
[know(?)] the language nor are acquainted with the country.

The dependence which the Indians have upon your Lordship as one to
shelter them and to defend them as bishop and father; and, beyond this,
as protector, to try and relieve them and to negotiate with the person
whom the king shall maintain here concerning all that shall be to
their good, and to ward off all that would be grievous to them--all
this is very just and proper in your Lordship, and very necessary to
the Indians as poor, wretched beings. Although I have always told them
to go to you or to the alcaldes-mayor, who would report their suits
or troubles to your Lordship or to me, I did not, my Lord, intend to
give them occasion that on pretext of this, or of protection, they
should come with every childish trifle to Manila from their villages,
perhaps very far away. And it is not two or four Indians who come,
but often a whole village, with their women and children. But whether
they come in small or in great numbers, they stay here, spending
in petitions more than the thing which they are suing for is worth,
while they are needed at home by their sowed fields, their plants,
their young cattle, their wives, their children, their houses, and
for their services to the community and the church and others. One
might come on a business of importance, as I have ordered. Now your
Lordship sees how annoying this is, and how you should wean them
from repeating these comings and goings, in which they work their
own harm and ruin themselves; and so, except in very important cases,
their trouble and our time might be spared by preventing their coming
and wasting time with their troublesome affairs.

The dignities, prebends, and canonries of your Lordship's cathedral
you will fill the first time, according to the apostolic priv