hereby
obeying your Majesty's orders. He did not answer me, but called a
meeting of the religious of the three orders. All decided not to remove
the provisor, and, in good Romance, not to obey the royal decree, but
to oppose it--as they said, even to the death, if necessary. In order
that your Majesty may see for whom the archbishop and religious made
so great a pledge, Don Pedro de Monrroy is a secular priest, who does
not possess, as your Majesty orders, the education that provisors must
necessarily have (since he possesses no degree in any faculty); still
more, it is apparent to this whole community that his house is a public
gaming-house for all this city, where the gambling is so extravagant,
and men lose their possessions so recklessly and preposterously that
I am obliged to correct it efficaciously by forbidding all persons,
under penalty of fines, from going to play in his house. He is a
secular priest who says mass throughout the year, except now and then;
and is, finally, a restless fellow and one who likes [to stir up]
revolutions. In the time of Governor Don Alonso Faxardo, he was the
cause of a great disturbance in the community, by excommunicating the
auditors. He was sentenced to exile from the kingdoms for that reason
and the temporalities were taken from him, as your Majesty will see
by the enclosed testimony of the royal decree that was despatched for
that purpose. But since justice in these islands is in the charge of
protectors, the said decree, at the request of certain persons, was
not executed. Although I might execute it, in order to cut the root of
the disturbances, I did not do so, in order to obviate difficulties
and murmurs in a community so small. Therefore, seeing that there
was no other way that was milder, I offered the said provisor the
chaplaincy-in-chief and vicariate of the island of Hermosa--as will
appear by my letter and his reply, which I enclose herewith for your
Majesty. [16] That was with the intent of getting him away from Manila,
so that he might not embroil us. But that offer which I made to the
said provisor aroused innumerable disputes. The archbishop declared
that I was the violator of the ecclesiastical immunity. He immediately
convoked a meeting of the religious, the ecclesiastical cabildo,
and other seculars. The seculars, and the bishop of Nueva Segovia,
Don Fray Diego Duarte, excused themselves--the fathers of the Society
of Jesus, in very courteous terms, also beggin