The King. To Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, knight of the Order of
Alcantara, my governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands,
and president of my Audiencia therein: your letter of June 30, 636,
touching ecclesiastical matters, has been examined in my royal Council
of the Yndias, and answer is [hereby] made you.
You say that the religious of the Order of St. Augustine need to be
reformed, for they pay no heed to the bulls of his Holiness, or the
decrees despatched in regard to the rotation; and that it would be
advisable not to give them any more religious for eight years--both
because they have many, and because of the causes that you mention for
such measure. I have thought best to charge you to have the rule for
rotation put in force strictly, without allowing more religious in each
mission station [doctrina] than, in accordance with my royal patronage,
shall be necessary for it; and that the others be occupied in missions
[misiones] and in preaching, for which purpose they were sent.
In regard to what you write me concerning the advanced age of the
archbishop of those islands (who is so aged that his hands and head
tremble), namely, that it would be best to give him an assistant;
and that you are arranging to give such assistant an income of two
thousand pesos in addition to the four thousand pesos enjoyed by the
said archbishop, without taking that sum from my royal treasury, or
from my vassals: I charge you to explain to me the method or means by
which you can get that money without damage to my royal treasury and
the vassals who serve me, so that, if it be worth while to allow it,
you may execute it.
So that the Order of St. Dominic, and the other orders resident in
those islands, may live with the regulation and good example that
is proper, and so that they may not increase the number of mission
stations granted them by my decrees, you shall allow no new elections
in them, which shall not be in harmony with my patronage. With
the advice of the archbishop, you shall endeavor to unite some of
the stations; and in those that shall be newly founded, you shall
endeavor likewise to have secular priests introduced, if you find
them intelligent and competent. Madrid. September 2, 1638.