erns this affair;
for his Holiness may be sure that your Majesty, as the best informed
of all, will do what is most fitting for the propagation of our
holy faith. What the Portuguese allege in regard to the religious
who went to Japon being missed in the Filipinas is not sufficient;
for there will certainly be some who, without being missed there,
could go to Japon. Thus, if personal interests and differences would
cease, those religious might attend solely to the conversion of
those heathen, with the discretion and moderation which is fitting,
so as to relieve that king from the suspicion he has, that in that
way they are trying to take away his kingdom. For if he is assured
of that, and sees that no other than religious come, and that these
are engaged in no other business than that of conversion, it is to
be hoped in our Lord that he will not hinder it; since by those same
documents it is evident that the reason for his having made martyrs
of the Franciscan friars was the suspicion which he had that they had
other objects to the prejudice of his state. It is likewise fitting
that all the religious maintain friendly relations with one another,
and be united, and that their duties be not ill performed. For quarrels
between them will be of much greater injury and less edification for
the heathen than is the diversity of their garb; and, when it is seen
that they are all working toward the same end, it will be recognized
that all profess the same faith, and that religion is one.

The Marques de Velada said that the reports from the Council of
Portugal are at variance with those from the Council of the Yndias;
for the former say that in Japon they do not desire Franciscan friars,
and the others that they are asking for them. It therefore appears best
to him that your Majesty should secure from the Pope a revocation of
the clause in the brief which prohibits other religious from going
to Japon unless it be by way of Yndia; and that his Holiness leave
it to the choice of your Majesty to send them by the way which shall
seem most fitting, as, in regard to the principal point--which is
that they should go, whether it be by Yndia or otherwise--they are in
accord. Whether they are to go by that or some other route is such a
minor consideration that it ought not to depend on that. Accordingly
he would order Don Juan de Silva [41] to investigate whether it be
true that the king of Japon is asking for Franciscan friars; and if
th