long and happy years, so that the disturbed and embarrassed condition of affairs which now generally prevails may be reduced to order.
As I have written to your Majesty of our need here of ministers to give Christian instruction, I have great hopes that your Majesty has done us the favor to send a great force of missionaries to this vineyard and to this new field of Christendom, which so sorely needs them: I hope, too, that these laborers will not come from Mexico, but from España, and that they will be among those who are most needed there; for this land, so new and so distant from your Majesty's royal sight, demands such men. Likewise they should be humble, peaceful subjects, loving God and your Majesty, and attentive to their ministry of preaching the holy gospel and the salvation of souls. They should not be men with selfish interests, or have special objects or pretensions in view which would divert them from their chief aim. I am hoping for them chiefly because of the great need for them in the province of Tuy. This province was rendered obedient to your Majesty without bloodshed and voluntarily, by means of the fathers. At that time they paid some beads, and rice, and some small articles of little or no value, only as a slight token of recognition. I thought it better, according to our promises to them, not to collect any tribute from them inside of one year; and although this time has expired, still I have not thought it proper to collect the tribute, because of our lack of ministers to instruct them, and because I am thinking of founding a Spanish settlement there. This latter I propose doing, on account of the fertility of that region, and its superior climate, as well as the robustness of the Indians, and their
