sented to the royal Audiencia of
Manila by Sargento-mayor Don Sebastian de Villarreal, October 31, 78,
and since his Majesty's fiscal had nothing to oppose, it was obeyed
without delay, and it was sent for fulfilment to the said archbishop,
December 14 of the same year. On that account, his Excellency formed
the idea of taking Zambales from us in order to augment his order
and give the island of Mindoro to our discalced order.

795. He began, then, to discuss the matter without the loss of
any time, and he did not stop until his designs were obtained,
notwithstanding that he had to conquer innumerable difficulties. For,
in the first place, our provincial, then father Fray Joseph de San
Nicolas, opposed it very strongly. The latter alleged that it would
be a violation of the municipal constitutions of the Recollects to
abandon the ministries of Zambales, for the constitutions expressly
stated that none of the convents once possessed should be abandoned
except under certain conditions, which were not present in the case
under consideration. Besides that the Indian natives of Mindoro,
both Christians and infidels, scarcely knew that there was a question
of giving them minister religious and begged Jesuit fathers with
great instance, for they preserved yet the affection that they had
conceived for them, since the time that the latter had procured for
them with their preaching at the cost of many dangers their greatest
welfare, omitting no means that could conduce to their withdrawal
from the darkness of their paganism. And when the Zambals heard that
the Recollect fathers were to be taken from their villages, in order
to surrender them to the Dominicans, they declared almost in violent
uproar that they would not allow such a change under any consideration,
for they were unable to tolerate, because of the love which they
professed for their spiritual ministers, to be forever deprived of
their company, by which they had obtained so great progress in the
Catholic faith.

796. But the archbishop found means in the hidden recesses of his
prudence by which to conquer such obstacles. For in unison with Don
Juan de Vargas Hurtado, governor and captain-general of the islands,
he softened the provincial, Fray Joseph de San Nicolas, and obliged
him to agree to the exchange. He quieted the natives of Mindoro by
means of their corregidor, so that they might receive the ministers
of our discalced order, and availing himself of the serv