_Fray Pedro de San Pablo_, minister provincial. We, the provincial and definitors of the province of Sant Gregorio of the Philipinas Islands, of the order of the discalced religious of our seraphic father St. Francis, the humble and loyal vassals of your Majesty, declare that, inasmuch as our Lord God took to Himself and allowed to die the first fathers and founders who had come hither, with great virtue and sanctity, from the provinces of the discalced religious of the kingdom of Castilla, those who were in this province set about appointing some heads from the religious reared in this country. Because of that, this holy province began to be divided into great factions some few years ago; and it has been so divided that it would break the heart of one who knew it [as it was] before. The sole cause of fomenting these factions is that the fathers of the Observance have passed to this province and these islands, in violation of a royal decree of your Majesty, and dwell among us wearing the habits of discalced religious, fomenting these factions and divisions, to the great loss and ruin of all good and reform. Those troubles are prevailing in this province because the latter is directly governed by the father commissary-general of Nueva España, who is of the same observance and not a discalced religious. We are suffering great detriment at present, and many scandals have arisen, to the great loss of our credit and the welfare of these conversions. This is especially true of that of the kingdoms of Xapon, which the said father commissary-general of Nueva España has attempted to wrest from us with great violence, although that is greatly to the disservice of His Divine Majesty, and that of your Majesty. Such also would be the case if our holy order cannot be established in that and other fields of conversion--discalced, poor, and reformed, and with as great admiration as that with which it has been hitherto established and preserved amid all these nations. The remedy for the avoidance of these evils lies in your Majesty again ordering that not any of the said fathers of the Observance shall come to these regions, as they are wont to come, feigning by their habits to be discalced religious; and in your assigning us a resident commissary-general, subject forever to a province of the discalced branch of Castilla, so that the said reform may be preserved, and that he may govern the province better, as having been reared in the said discalced branch, of which this province has more experience. If this be impossible, then we petition your Majesty to be pleased to order that we may be freed from obligation to the father commissary-general of Nueva España, and to allow this province to be immediately under the government of one of our fathers-general, a commissary-general of all the Yndias resident in your court, as thus it is advisable.