ies powerful men, "who
are the bone and sinew of commonwealths." Besides, the labors and
responsibilities of these men increase in proportion to the size of
their encomiendas; accordingly, they should be duly recompensed. The
services rendered to the natives by the king and the encomenderos are
enumerated; even those which are secular help to maintain religious
instruction, and are also more costly than that; they should then
be well recompensed. The restitution to be made by the encomenderos
is a matter to be decided by the secular rather than the religious
authorities; and such restitution need be only one-fourth of previous
collections. A curious piece of information is here furnished:
"It is known that a priest's district, even if it is not very large,
yields him eight hundred to one thousand pesos; and besides this he
has fees for burials, marriages, etc. There are reports, and even
numerous complaints, from both secular and religious sources, that
for lack of means to pay the fees, many persons do not marry, but
live in concubinage." The Jesuits think that this fee-system is wrong,
and that the priest should be content with his stipend, at least among
the poor, whether Indians or Spaniards; this applies both to regular
clergy and to friars. The bishop is urged to remedy this abuse.]

[This is followed by another paper, which discusses minutely,
from the standpoint of the logician and theologian, the question of
collecting tribute from infidels who are not provided with religious
instruction; it contains abundant citations from the Scriptures and
from ecclesiastical writers. As it simply elaborates the opinions they
have already stated, we do not here present it.] (_To be concluded_.)

Bibliographical Data

_Relation of 1586-88_.--The text of this document is obtained from
_Cartas de Indias_, pp. 637-652; but the location of the original
MS. is not indicated by the editor of that work.

_Decree of August 9, 1589_.--This is obtained from the "Cedulario
Indico" in the Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid; its pressmark is:
"Tomo 7, f