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them in peace and justice, so that their labors may be satisfied. Therefore a most important means will be the care that you and the prelates are to observe in having divine worship celebrated with the greatest devotion and solemnity possible, at least on Easter and the holy days that the church is accustomed to solemnize and observe. You shall have especial care that the places of worship are kept in order and well served, and all this with due propriety, especially the cathedral church, inasmuch as it is the principal and archiepiscopal church, whose example must induce the same results in the other churches. Inasmuch as I was informed that things were quite to the contrary; and that the said church, besides being poorly roofed with wood and straw, was not properly served; and that it needed and lacked what it should have—a thing to which the former governors should not have consented—I charged your predecessor, Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, strictly that, immediately upon his arrival at the islands, he should have the said church rebuilt. I assigned for this work the sum of twelve thousand ducados in three parts: one from my royal exchequer, another from the encomenderos, and the third from the Indians. These said twelve thousand ducados were to be spent on the said building within four years, at the rate of three thousand ducados annually. In order that it might be done more easily, I gave an anticipatory order for two thousand ducados on the account of my third, on the treasury of Nueva España, whence the said Gomez Perez took them. Notwithstanding that he wrote to me in his last letters that the work was nearing completion, and although I think it ought to be finished now, yet, because it is in the gaze of so many enemies, idolaters,