municate this matter to you, in order that you may enact whatever reform is advisable and possible. You shall advise me of what is most suitable for reform, in order that the matter may be examined and determined here. If any of the said preachers or confessors shall not observe this order, or shall offend people by any new proposition of doubts, or in matters of government, you shall advise their superior thereof, in order that he may correct and reform it. Should the latter not attend to this, then you shall enact what you think advisable for the welfare and tranquillity of the country. You shall discuss such matters with the archbishop and Audiencia, in order that success, as is so important, may be more surely obtained. You shall advise me of whatever is done.
Gomez Perez was also ordered to enact and provide that the encomenderos pay tithes according to the method, habit, and custom in Mexico; for, inasmuch as the church did not have any bishop, curate, or organized government before that time, the tithes were not paid. Inasmuch as it is proper that this be determined, executed, and observed according to the precepts of the church, you shall order all the Spaniards to pay tithes on their farm and stock products. You shall proceed rather with care and prudence than with rigor, and also with the knowledge and opinion of the archbishop and Audiencia. As I have been petitioned, in the name of the said city of Manila, to order that the three per cent duty imposed by Don Gonzalo Rronquillo be not paid in the city, because the country is very poor and needy, and the citizens have many other expenses for the city, I answered that I should be very glad to relieve them of it, but that, on account of the very heavy expenses that
