240. I find the letter of the most illustrious cabildo to be couched in these terms--"Sire: As this see is vacant, it is incumbent upon us in obedience to your royal decree to assure your Majesty that the Augustinian Recollect religious attend to their ministry punctually. The poverty that they suffer is great, for they are obliged to beg alms from door to door as they lost the incomes of some of their chaplaincies in the earthquake and their convent was ruined. They are very observant in their rules, and in their administrations to the natives in the missions in their charge. As those missions are among the most unconquerable and fierce people in these districts, many of the religious have been killed and captured. Consequently, they suffer from a great lack of laborers; but they have not for that failed in the service of your Majesty on the occasions that have arisen by sea and land--all, motives that should impel your Majesty with your royal liberality to be pleased to continue the said alms, and to concede them a goodly number of religious for these islands. May God preserve, etc. Manila, April 29, 1648." 241. That of the city of Manila speaks of the Recollects in the following manner--"Sire: This city of Manila has informed your Majesty on various occasions of the great importance in these islands of the order of discalced Recollects of St. Augustine; of the apostolic men in that order; of the great results that they obtain by the preaching of the holy gospel; of the singular example that they have always furnished, and do now, with their strict and religious life and their so exact mode of observing their rules; and of the so considerable effects that have through their agency been attained in the service of our Lord and that of your Majesty, with the aid of your royal arms, in the great number of infidels whom they have converted to our holy Catholic faith, and how they have been brought to render to your Majesty the due vassalage and tribute, which they have generally paid, and are paying, annually. [We have also told your Majesty] that they have engaged in all this with the spiritual affection that belongs to their profession, with singular care--both in the conservation of what they have attained and in their continual desire, notwithstanding the many discomforts that they suffer, to carry on their work, steadily converting new souls to the service of our Lord and to the obedience of your Majesty. [We have also reported] the great peace and quiet which they preserve among themselves so that they have always been and are, one of the most acceptable and well-received orders in these islands--although they are the poorest, as all their missions are in districts very distant from this city, and among the most warlike people that are in all the provinces of these islands, as they are recently conquered; and the danger in which, for that reason, the lives of those fathers are. Indeed, some