third certificate is contained the number of offices that
this province furnishes; there are eighty-four of these, in which must
be counted the sixty-six convents of the order which are residences
of ministers, and three others which are communities. The archbishop
accepted these certified statements, and commanded, by an act which
he issued officially, that the two religious who acted as attorneys
for the religious who had taken the habit in the Indias should be
notified of these statements; and that when they had examined and
understood the papers, they must declare under oath whether these were
authentic and legal, and if they had anything to add to them. After
the said attorneys had examined and understood them, they declared
that the statements were accurate and truthful; and likewise, by
a juridical act of his Lordship, the same notification was made to
seven or eight other religious of the same faction of the Yndias,
who also under oath declared that the statements were accurate and
truthful. Notwithstanding this evidence, the archbishop began to allow
petitions from the said attorneys for the party of the Yndias, in which
they promised to furnish evidence that the narration made in the said
brief was false--saying that the word _paucisimi_ [_i.e._, "very few"],
which is in the said brief, signified no more than two or three; and
that the words _inepti ad administrationem populorum_ [_i.e._, "not
fit for the charge of those peoples"] meant unfitness of the intellect;
and they endeavored to prove that they were competent and capable for
the offices that the province had. The religious of Espana opposed
this, evidence, saying that such was not the signification of those
words; for _paucisimi_ was understood with respect to the offices, and
_inepti ad administrationem populorum_ meant lack of strength in their
numbers--as farther down the same brief explained it in the words:
_Quod dicti patres in numero suficiente apti non sint_, and _oficiorum
prefatorum distributione_. [15] And as for the arguments adduced at
Roma when this matter was presented in course of appeal--which were
stated in the testimony, as is most clearly evident--those religious
did not oppose these allegations, or many others which were made to
his Lordship. To him were also presented several protests against the
injuries which this province, in their general opinion and belief,
had to suffer, and, as many individuals of their number thought,
diff