721. It is true that the bishops have always made the strongest efforts to subject the parish priests who are religious to their jurisdiction; but they have never been able to succeed in it, for the religious are unwilling to accept the charge with that burden. The first bishop of Manila and of all the islands, Don Fray Domingo de Salazar, tried to establish that subjection. The Observantine Augustinian fathers and the Franciscans made use of the means which prudence dictated, in order to quiet their scrupulous consciences. Seeing that nothing [else] was sufficient, they resigned their missions before the governor, as vice-patron, protesting that they would care for the conversion of the heathen, but that they could not keep the parochial administration of those who were converted, without the enjoyment of all their privileges. Therefore, his Excellency was forced to desist from his attempt, as he had no seculars to whom to entrust that administration. In 1654, the attempt was made to establish in Philipinas the practice recently adopted in the kingdoms of Perú and Nueva España by petition of the fiscal of the royal Audiencia. That body ordered that plan to be carried out, by a decree of October 22; and since the chapters of the two provinces of the order, the calced and discalced, were to be held in April of 55, that decree was communicated to them, with the warning that if they were not obedient they would be deprived of their missions, and the missionaries of the emoluments which had been assigned them for their suitable support. All the orders opposed that change, following logical methods in their defense, and averse to seeing the necessity of abandoning their missions. But at last, as there was no other way, the venerable fathers-provincial were reduced to handing over to the governor and bishops all the ministries in their charge, so that, as the former was the vice-patron and the latter were the ordinaries, they might appoint whomever they wished to the curacies.