The above is in respect to the mandates of his Holiness. Coming to that which is ordered in this regard by the decrees of his Majesty, it appears that his Majesty having despatched his royal decree on the sixth of December, 1585, that if there were any capable clergy they should be preferred, in the benefices and missions of the Indians to the religious who held them, and who should have held them, by virtue of another royal decree of May twenty-five, of five hundred and eighty-five, his Majesty gave notice to the Order of St. Francis, of Nueva España, that he had ordered the suspension for the time being of the execution of this decree; and that the said missions be held, as hitherto, by the orders and religious; that there be no innovation in the manner of presentation and appointment; that the bishops in their own persons (these are the words of the royal decree), without committing it to any others, shall visit the churches of the missions, where the said religious may be, and in the missions inspect the most holy sacrament, the baptismal font, the building of the said churches, and the service of divine worship; and that they also visit the religious who should reside in the said missions, and correct them in matters concerning curas. That royal decree is in the book of advice to confessors of Indians which father Fray Juan Baptista, of the Order of St. Francis, published in Mexico, in the year six hundred; it is on folio 380. On folio 259, it contains what the provincials of the orders of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Augustine, of the province of Mexico, answered to it on the twenty-eighth of November, of the said year, 585. That answer was to accept the said missions _non ex votis charitatis_, but with the obligation of _in se et justitia_; and in regard to being visited, they say that, inasmuch as the obstacles of their disturbance and relaxation of discipline were always to be found, which induced the apostolic see to exempt them from the visits of the ordinaries--which obstacles would be more and greater in the Yndias, if authority were given for it--they would not refuse the reverence, respect, and submission due to the bishops, as prelates and shepherds of the Church of God. They said that they were under greater obligations to them than to any one else, and would respect them and receive them into their convents with proper reverence, as they had always done; and that, obeying what his Majesty ordered, they would be very glad to have them visit in their churches the most holy sacrament, the baptismal font, and what concerns it; but in all matters outside the above-mentioned, they petitioned his Majesty not to give the bishops authority or entrance, for that would mean the perpetual disquiet and ruin of their order.