ovince,
called Sant Francisco del Monte, used for the training of novitiates;
and they have deprived us of it, together with the said province of
Japon. Besides, there are many other troubles that they have caused us
(of which the procurator of this province will inform your Majesty)
in order that the discalced branch should not proceed with the said
conversion, which has hitherto cost it so much.

For that reason has arisen in this province the resentment that
is just, and it is commended to our Lord with many fastings and
disciplines. Will your Majesty examine this matter with those royal
eyes, so void of passion, and set it right, as I have here petitioned,
for thus will it be expedient for the royal service of His Divine
Majesty and that of your Majesty. May His Divine Majesty augment, keep,
and preserve you, as we, all these your faithful vassals, desire--who
(and I, the most wretched of them) prostrate ourselves before the
royal feet of your Majesty, which we kiss a thousand times. Given in
Sant Francisco in Manila, July 31, 1620, and by your royal Majesty's
most unworthy servant,

_Fray Pedro de San Pablo_, minister provincial.

We, the provincial and definitors of the province of Sant Gregorio
of the Philipinas Islands, of the order of the discalced religious
of our seraphic father St. Francis, the humble and loyal vassals
of your Majesty, declare that, inasmuch as our Lord God took to
Himself and allowed to die the first fathers and founders who had
come hither, with great virtue and sanctity, from the provinces of
the discalced religious of the kingdom of Castilla, those who were
in this province set about appointing some heads from the religious
reared in this country. Because of that, this holy province began
to be divided into great factions some few years ago; and it has
been so divided that it would break the heart of one who knew it
[as it was] before. The sole cause of fomenting these factions is
that the fathers of the Observance have passed to this province and
these islands, in violation of a royal decree of your Majesty, and
dwell among us wearing the habits of discalced religious, fomenting
these factions and divisions, to the great loss and ruin of all good
and reform. Those troubles are prevailing in this province because
the latter is directly governed by the father commissary-general
of Nueva Espana, who is of the same observance and not a discalced
religious. We are suffering great det