Don Sevastian Hurtado de Corcuera, knight of the Order of
Alcantara, my governor and captain-general of the Philipinas Islands,
and president of my royal Audiencia therein. Your letter of June 30,
636, on ecclesiastical matters has been examined in my royal Council of
the Indias, and reply is now made to you. You say that the religious
of the Order of St. Augustine need correction, since they had not
obeyed the bulls of his Holiness nor the decrees which have been
issued in regard to the alternation; and that it was expedient not
to allow them any more religious for eight years. Because they have
many religious, as well as on account of the reasons that you bring
forward for that, it has seemed best to me to charge you that you
shall cause the decree for the alternation to be punctually executed,
without allowing any more religious in each mission than the number
which, conformably to my royal patronage, shall be enough for its
needs; and that the rest of them occupy themselves in missions and
preaching for which they were sent there. As for what you wrote me
about the advanced age of the archbishop of those islands--who is so
old that his hands and head tremble, and that it would be desirable
to give him a coadjutor, and that you would arrange for giving him
two thousand pesos of income besides the four thousand which the said
archbishop receives, without drawing it from my royal treasury or from
my vassals--I charge you to make known to me the measure or means by
which that sum could be obtained without loss to my royal exchequer
or my vassals, so that I may consent to your carrying it out if it be
worthy of acceptance. In order that the religious of St. Dominic and
of the other orders who are laboring in those islands may live with
the concord and good example which is proper, and that they may not
appropriate more Indian villages than those which are allowed them by
my decrees, you shall not permit them to select any new ones beyond
what shall be conformable to my patronage; and you shall, with the
agreement of the archbishop, endeavor to unite some of the villages
to others; and in those which are newly established you shall make
the same effort, by introducing secular priests when you find them
intelligent and competent. Madrid, September 2, 1638.

I the King

Countersigned by Don Gabriel de Ocana y Alarcon, and signed by the
Council. (Conserved in Archivo Historico Nacional, in the Cedulario
Indico, tomo 39, fo