preparing, wherein may be found a more extensive treatment of what I
have here set down. In that document your Lordship will find complete
proofs of what is contained in this summary, accompanied by arguments
so cogent and convincing that there is neither room nor possibility
for doubt in this matter.

Two other points are to be found in the clauses furnished to me by
the secretary, Juan de Cuellar, drawn from the instructions which the
king, our lord, gave to your Lordship for the good government of this
land. In one of them there is a discussion of the two reals which his
Majesty ordered to be added to the tributes hitherto collected. It
also contains the views of the theologians of this bishopric, and
my own, concerning this increase. Your Lordship will find them all
in the document which, as I said above, I am preparing. Inasmuch as
the execution of that clause is not immediately pressing, it has not
seemed to me necessary to discuss it here.

The other clause deals with the means to be employed in establishing
religious instruction in the small encomiendas and districts where
the said instruction does not exist. Concerning this we shall have
but little to say at present, not because the affair is free from very
great difficulties, in undertaking to accomplish his Majesty's orders
as contained in the aforesaid clause; but because there is no present
occasion for anxiety regarding the establishment of this instruction,
inasmuch as there are no ministers to undertake the work. I will only
say that, if his Majesty does not decree that the small encomiendas
be made into a few large ones, it will be most difficult (and indeed
almost impossible) to establish therein religious instruction.

In conformity with this, your Lordship will see how you are to give
permission to the encomenderos who do not maintain instruction, so
that they may collect from their encomiendas, if your Lordship wishes
to make secure your own encomienda [46] which I, by this statement,
have enabled you to do.

May Jesus Christ, our Lord, bestow upon your Lordship the light of
His grace, so that in all matters you may be enabled to accomplish
His holy will, and secure the welfare and protection of these natives,
which they so sorely need. From our house, on the twelfth of January
of the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-one.

_Fray Domingo_, Bishop of the Filipinas.

Summary of the Decision Reached by the Bishop of these Philipinas