it is ruled that the regular curas may be removed from their curacies according to the will of one or the other superior, without its being necessary for either to declare to the other the causes of the removal. As a result of these continuous and obstinate quarrels between the regular curas and the bishops and civil authorities, and as if to cut the Gordian knot, the government ordered, in 1753, that all the curacies be handed over to secular priests of the country. The execution of this decree presented so many difficulties, and raised so many remonstrances that it was decided in 1757 that, until it should be ordered otherwise, none of the curacies administered by regulars should be granted to a secular priest under any circumstances, until it was really vacant, and that then the viceroy and the diocesan should agree together whether or no it were advisable to make it secular; and the opinion of both should be carried into effect, and that in equal accord they should execute the decree of 1753. By this decision, the governor-general had the power to deprive the friars of their curacies at will, since the bishops have almost always desired or solicited that. Carlos III, wearied at the obstinacy of the Augustinian religious in not submitting to the diocesan visit, ordered by decrees of August 5 and November 9, 1774, that all the missions should be secularized as they fell vacant. The governor, then Don Simon de Anda, in spite of being at open war with the friars--because they had intrigued in Madrid against him when the government was conferred on him--and of his being, perhaps, the governor-general most hated by them, inveighed so strongly against this order, asserting that it was not advisable to the service of God and the State, that the same Carlos III resolved that the decree of 1774 should not have effect, and that the curacies and missions which the religious had filled before the decree, should be returned to them. Nevertheless the government of Madrid was so annoyed and wearied at the continual strife which the friars maintained with the bishops and authorities, that it desired to cut the dispute short, at any risk; and in this same decree it was recommended that a body of Filipino secular priests be formed, so that the curacies could be surrendered to these as they became vacant--thus carrying into effect the decree of 1757, when they should be ready for it. This same order was confirmed by another decree of December 11, 1776, and another of September 7, 1778--although in this last, in consideration of a representation of Don Pedro Sarrio, which will be seen later, it was provided that there should be no innovation in what was contained in the decree of '76, without the express order of the Council and of the king. In 1822, in consequence of a decree of the Cortes, the curacies which fell vacant were presented at a meeting of opponents. In regard to the first, which was that of the village of