t abilities and learning,
and of long experience in everything relating to these islands, as
he has served your Majesty here for thirty years--in order that he
might petition your Majesty to be pleased to grant him permission to
bring as many religious as he can; for the said need is today greater
than what it was when Father Diego de Bobadilla came with the forty
men that he brought. For, since that time, sixty-one religious have
died here, and some of them of but moderate age, as the land and its
means of livelihood in general are so poor. The said order uses them as
sparingly as is demanded by the poverty that the land suffers at this
time. They are also placed under great restrictions by the continual
hardships and dangers of their missions, as they are so separated
in various islands--some of Moros and others of infidels--and by the
stormy seas and awful currents. In that said number of sixty-one who
have died, are nine priests who have gloriously given and sacrificed
their lives to our Lord at the hands of the infidels. Attested official
reports regarding three of these have been given before the ordinary
of the city of Santisimo Nombre de Jesus, while those of the remaining
six are being considered. For that reason the posts of the province
are suffering the said need of the workers who are necessary; for the
college of this city has one-half of the number of priests that it had
formerly, in order that they might attend to the so numerous duties
that they exercise--the school for children; chairs of grammar,
arts, and theology; and as preachers and confessors, because of
the great frequency with which people of all nations go to their
college for the administration of the holy sacraments of confession
and communion throughout the year, and especially during Lent. This
is something which does not receive due consideration; and with the
few religious that they have, they are necessarily very hard-worked,
for they have to go out day and night to confess the sick; to minister
in the hospitals, prisons, and girls' schools; and to the ordinary
preaching in the guardhouses--from which abundant fruit has been seen.

The colleges of the city of Santisimo Nombre de Jesus and of the port
of Yloylo, which formerly had five or six priests, do not now have
two apiece, so that it is impossible to attend to the many duties
that there present themselves.

Many of their Indian missions which formerly rendered two religious
indis