with the necessary despatch. It has been shown by those who have had experience that many inconveniences result; and after this was investigated by the members of my royal Council of the Indias, and counsel taken upon it, with the object of correcting these evils, it has seemed to me both fitting and necessary for the fulfilment of the obligation that I am under of procuring the salvation of the souls of those my subjects—according as I am enjoined by the holy apostolic see and bidden by my conscience—that the cathedral church of the said city of Manila be elevated into a metropolitan see and its territory into an archbishopric; and that three new bishoprics be created and established suffragan to it, so that they may hold their synods according to the orders of the holy Council of Trent, and without coming to Nueva España, as the bishop of Manila, who was the suffragan to the archbishop of Mexico, was compelled to do. From one region to the other, the journey is more than three thousand leguas; and, besides, it is evident that those islands could thus be better and more fittingly governed in spiritual affairs.
Therefore I command you upon receipt of this despatch, to propose to his Holiness, and supplicate him, in my name, that he may be pleased to elevate into a metropolitan see the said cathedral church of Manila, and to create the three bishoprics aforesaid—one in the church of the city of Nueva-Segovia in the province of Cagayan in the island of Luzon, under the protection of the Conception of Our Lady; one in the city of Cáceres in the territory of Camarines, in the same island, under the protection of St. John the Evangelist; and the other in the aforesaid city of Santísimo Nombre de Xesus, in the island of
