ly and talk with me. I asked him why these orders
were issued and such things done, and promised to aid him in your
Majesty's name if he wished to demand his justice. He replied to me
that he saw that all things were in a very lamentable condition,
but that he did not dare plead anything; for very great scandals
would arise, and the superiors of his order would take it ill, and
severely punish those who had written and reported it Therefore, he
had resolved to be patient and to await their reply. The chief end
of all this [scheming] was the capitular election, and because the
father-commissary was trying to obtain the government of the province;
and although it was founded and continued by discalced friars, to make
it Observantine. Your Majesty has ordered that no Observantine friars
may come to this country, but that all who come be discalced. Beyond
question, it is not at all fitting for Observantines to come; for
so long as there shall be Observantine and discalced friars, there
can be no peace; and most serious troubles will result, both to the
order itself and to the natives under its charge. Will your Majesty
be pleased to order the father commissary-general to check these
proceedings, and to prevent these scandals which have occurred so
often among his friars; and that he obey your Majesty's decree not to
send Observantine friars. For, notwithstanding your Majesty's order,
they come here clad in the habit of discalced friars; and on their
arrival at the province, their sole aim is to turn it topsy-turvy.

Thinking that the troubles of this order could be obviated, I requested
the provincial to send that friar, Fray Jose Fonte, to Terrenate to
take charge of your Majesty's hospital there (a post so honorable
that the provincial himself exercised it before being provincial)--in
order to get him away from here, and prevent the discalced religious
from being ill treated and from being afflicted in mind; and so that
the provincial could better discharge the duties of his government
and denounce the invalid acts that had been committed. Although I
told the provincial that it was advisable for your Majesty's service
to have that religious leave here, for which I would be answerable
to him, he refused to do so, excusing him as being a definitor. And
although I told the provincial that, since he could not obey what was
suggested to him in your Majesty's name as fitting to your service,
no other religious nor any supplies