- cording to the report given to the said Fray Francisco de Ortega by friars of his order, at least forty ministers are needed there for the welfare, assistance, and conversion of those natives. Thus, all together, two hundred ministers of the gospel are necessary for the administration and conversion of the natives of those islands—which are under the protection and dominion of your Highness, to whom they have rendered obedience and whom they recognize as king and sovereign. This number is in addition to those who are there now, reckoning among these latter the descalced fathers of the order of St. Francis, who sailed in the fleet now on the way for Nueva España, in order to go to the said islands. And in order that your Highness may consider as excellently employed all that you have spent from your royal exchequer in the furtherance of this apostolic and sovereign work of conversion, he [Ortega] gives a report as to the monasteries of religious and the ministers of the three orders there, and the great results produced by the preaching of the gospel among those natives. This is to the great merit of your Highness, since they [the monasteries] have been the chief instrument of the relief and salvation of the Indians.
- There is one monastery with four religious of his order of St. Augustine, in the island of Çubu. They have baptized about six thousand, large and small, of the Indians in their charge there.
- There is another monastery of the same order in another small island, called Batayan. It has two religious, who have baptized three thousand souls.
- In the island of Panay, the best island after that of Luzon, are six monasteries of his order. The island has sixteen ministers, who have baptized more
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