Likewise it was argued that since the Royal warrant of July 8th, 1826, monastic orders had been returned to their charges in the state and conditions they had when these were secularized by the Royal Warrant of December 11th, 1776, the curacy of San Rafael must be included because of the situation within the territory ceded to them. One must, however, remember that this curacy could not be secularized, because from its foundation it had been secular, and the two Royal warrants mentioned are not applicable except by making the laws retroactive, since the curacy was created thirty years before the Royal Warrant of 1776 was issued. These arguments, with others of the weakest character, were set forth in a lengthy and hazy brief fathered by the Administrative Council, and as the Vice Royal Patron endorsed it without changing a letter, the matter was closed, because, although the undersigned petitioned the Vice Royal Patron to submit the case to the Supreme Government's decision, enclosing an opinion from two attorneys, he could not gain this point and out of respect to the highest authority of the Island (whose prestige he has ever endeavored to sustain) he desisted from further effort. This result produced a real scandal among the native priests and greatly enhanced their grief over so great and repeated losses. The chief cause of the obstacles which in every direction the clergy of the country encounter is a public sentiment in vogue for some years back, which unreasonably opposes having any native parish priest. Those who think thus entirely forget the facts, allowing their imagination to freely rove in the realm of imagination. Certain is it that if the ecclesiastical establishment of the Archipelago were being for the first time set up and it were possible to bring from Spain enough priests to attend to the spiritual needs of its populous parishes, scarcely would there be found a Spaniard of any intelligence to whom such an arrangement would not seem the politic course. But the question is not theoretic, on the contrary it is eminently practical, and before it is settled there is no escape from the previous examination of others which offer serious difficulties, for example, considering the present cooling of religious ardor, what likelihood is there of obtaining a considerable number of young men willing to abandon their home country and go to lend their services in spiritual ministrations in so distant a clime, especially one which is reputed bad for the health? Could the public treasury without difficulty meet the expenses necessary for establishing colleges and maintaining professors and students, and for fitting out and paying the fares of so many persons from the Peninsula to the Philippine Islands? And even if this offered no difficulty and putting aside present conditions, is there nothing to fear from keeping the native clergy in their present growing bitterness? Let anybody put himself