two. First, the father commissary offered to
the father provincial and his definitors one of the greatest insults
that have been known in your Majesty's kingdoms. For Fray Jose Fonte,
as is the general opinion of the community, is a rather free-and-easy
religious; and the reason why the father provincial deprived him
of his guardiania--although he had, as was true, the said Don Juan
Cereco so strongly on his side--was doubtless because his mode of life
and his government of the convent were such that he could under no
consideration be endured. Your Majesty can have no doubt of this, for
it is proved beyond question by the loud murmuring of the community
at the lack of devotion displayed by that religious. Therefore,
your Majesty will reflect whether the removal of a provincial and
the whole body of definitors, in order to reinstate this man, is an
affront worthy of consideration. Second, I assert that his chapter was
illegal, and that beyond question; for the father commissary-general,
Fray Francisco de Ocana, sent a very necessary letter of obedience
throughout the provinces of the Indias, which has, among its other
sections, one of the following tenor:

"_Item_: We ordain that the fathers commissaries-general and the
fathers commissaries-visitors shall render sentences in the causes and
processes that shall be brought to trial [_i.e._, in the tribunals of
the order], one week before the provincial chapters; and on the actual
day of the chapter-meeting these shall be pronounced and made known,
in the manner generally used by the order--so that the matter may
be apparent to those members capable of voting who assemble from the
said province; and so that the electors in the chapter may enjoy the
liberty that is proper. Whatever shall be done in any other manner,
now and henceforth, we annul and revoke it."

The father commissary-visitor sentenced and deprived of their offices
the father provincial and his definitors immediately, in the first
month of his visit, and five months before the week assigned by the
father commissary-general, Fray Francisco de Ocana. Therefore, since
the law is so clear, and in the Romance tongue, there is scant need
of lawyers to judge that the manner in which Father Gabiria performed
his commission is null and void. I was informed of these things,
upon my arrival at the islands, by fathers of all the orders as
well as by other persons of the city. I ordered the ex-provincial
to come private