Most of the ministers of instruction think only of acquiring and amassing money, in order thereby to solicit your Majesty in that court to give them these bishoprics. Surely, your Majesty is not well served thereby; and you should send a secular bishop, or at least an archbishop, so that the religious should not unite with him to oppose your Majesty's governors. And, if it please you, will you send a coadjutor for Don Fray Hernando Guerrero, archbishop of these islands, who is now so old that he is past eighty years of age, and his hands and head shake. Leaving his lack of learning out of the question, your Majesty can consider what the [ecclesiastical] government will be by having peace. In order that your Majesty may establish a thing so to your service, I will give that coadjutor two thousand pesos annually from my own salary. If he should assume the archbishopric during my term, I shall arrange so as to leave that sum to him as an income, besides the four thousand pesos that the archbishop receives--so that the two thousand may not be paid from your Majesty's royal treasury, from your royal incomes, or from those of your vassals. By that means the archbishopric will have an income of more than six thousand pesos, and its incumbent can get along excellently on that. Will your Majesty kindly send such a coadjutor for the succor of these islands and the consolation and protection of the clergy, from among the so many virtuous and erudite and moral seculars in that royal court. Should such an archbishop have a bishop _in partibus_, in order to go to confirm and to visit, your Majesty can very well dispense with the three other bishops of Cibu, Nueva Segovia, and Camarines, for they are in fact of but little use and service in their bishoprics. [_Decreed in the margin_: "Touching the matter that the archbishopric be given to a secular, when that post falls vacant, let this section be referred to. In regard to giving a coadjutor to the archbishop, have his letters collected, and what other letters treat of his health, age, capacity, and method of procedure. The secretary, Don Gabriel de Ocana y Alarcon, shall make a secret investigation of what occurs in this matter. In regard to the offer of the two thousand pesos which the governor offers from his salary, no steps will be taken at present; but have the governor notified to explain the means by which the sum that he mentions can be obtained without detriment to the royal treasury or to his Majesty's vassals, so that if it be a measure proper to adopt, it may be carried out. In regard to abolishing those bishoprics, let there be brought, for the better settlement of the matter, a report of the data concerning their erection, their respective distances [from Manila], and whatever else concerns this matter, and of what shall be found in the secretary's office."] [_In the margin_: "That the orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis have sent more religious than those granted to them."]