me to be right that the person who represented
your Majesty should discontinue the dignity which was required to
represent you. And in order that your Majesty in the future may be
pleased to provide this land with a governor who shall be capable
and worthy to use his authority, I beg your Majesty to approve this
and send him the order to continue and make permanent the practice.

The twelve thousand ducats which your Majesty has ordered to be paid
in three installments for the work on this church, were necessary
enough, although I fear that they are to avail as little as the
rest; because, although your Majesty has so often commanded it,
and we on our part have exercised the greatest possible diligence,
it has not been possible to draw out from the royal treasury what was
due from it for the said work; and so it has come to a standstill,
or so little is done that it never advances. It really is a pity to
see a cathedral church, in a city containing so great a concourse of
heathen, where divine offices are celebrated in a church of straw,
in which, on the coming of a storm, no one can remain. Your Majesty
will see what the condition of the rest of the churches must be. It
certainly is a pity to see the little care there is in this matter,
and the scandal occasioned to the heathen and the recent converts by
the little veneration that we who have so long been Christians bestow
upon the temples in which we worship our God, for really many of them
are not fit to serve as stables. I have given your Majesty an account
of this before now. The two thousand ducats which your Majesty ordered
paid from the treasury of Mexico for this work were not brought,
because the governor could not bring the securities that were necessary
to obtain that sum there, because of his hurried departure. Moreover,
it should be understood that it will be very difficult to collect the
portions to be paid by Indians and encomenderos, because of their want
and poverty. And for this reason we do not dare to press them much,
deeming it better that the work should be done slowly than to harass
one who is unable to do more; and it has been the treasury of your
Majesty which has aided us least.

Your Majesty's command that the religious should not depart from the
bishopric without license of your Majesty, or that of the governor and
myself, is a very just thing, and therefore it will be carried out;
because it also seems fitting to me not to let the religiou