722. That resignation was handed to the fiscal, and in view of it, in order that the most suitable provision might be made, with full knowledge, he asked that writs be made out--first, to show how many secular clergy were in the four bishoprics; second, so that the officials of the royal treasury might attest the amount of the stipends paid to the religious employed in the missions, and third, so that the provincials might send the names of their subordinates employed in the missions. That was ordered by a decree of May 10 in the said year 1655. It resulted that, in all, 254 religious were occupied in 252 missions; that the royal treasury only paid stipends corresponding to 141 missionaries; and that there were only 59 suitable secular priests in all the islands. The fiscal, seeing that according to the report the procedure that had been taken could not be maintained, in order to obviate the inconveniences that would ensue to the natives and inhabitants of those dominions if the religious were withdrawn from the villages, petitioned on January 4, 1656, that without innovation the orders be maintained in the missions, until it should be proved that there was a sufficient supply of secular priests to take care of them; and that they be assisted with the usual emoluments. He asked and charged the reverend fathers-provincial to look after the spiritual administration with their accustomed zeal. The royal Audiencia having so ordered in toto by an act of February 17, the holy orders returned very willingly to apply their shoulders to the work. Those acts were sent to the royal Council of the Indias. The cause having been discussed there, in view of the reports of the governor (which were throughout favorable to the orders), and of the manifestos presented by the orders in justification of their rights, the documents were approved on October 23, 1666, and the result was to make no innovation in what had been decided, and it does not appear that any other decree was enacted against the observance and practice that the religious have always maintained in those islands. Therefore the archbishop, having claimed that the appointments for the missions devolved on him by the form of canonical collation in cases where his Majesty did not make use of the privilege which belonged to him as patron; and endeavoring by that means to deprive the orders of the right which they possess of making those appointments without the intervention of his Excellency: the royal Council by a decree of September 26, 1687, ordered that the matter be continued in the form in which it had been administered until then, and that no change be permitted.