[The chapter opens with a notice of the so-called "holy year" or jubilee of 1650, proclaimed at Rome. That same year the general chapter of the Dominican order was held at Rome, and resulted in the election of Fray Juan Bautista de Marinis as general of the order.] That same year this province celebrated a junta and intermediary chapter of the second provincialate of the father commissary Fray Carlos Clemente Gant, in the convent of Santo Domingo at Lalo, in Nueva Segovia or Cagayan, as was ordered by number one in the general chapter of 1647, at Valencia, for this province. This was to the effect that the chapter-sessions should be held alternately between the convent of Santo Domingo of Manila and the aforesaid convent of Lalo, for reasons alleged by the ministers of that bishopric. They had to sail, every two years, one hundred and more leguas exposed to very great dangers and violent seas [in order to attend the chapter], and thus left their missions discommoded; and they needed a great sum of money to procure large boats, to pay the rowers and sailors, and for the other things that they considered. Notwithstanding that, experience, the mistress of prudence, afterward disclosed great inconveniences, and that those were only the opinions of a few religious and that they themselves experienced the greatest dangers that follow. For although it is a fact that the voyage is dangerous, yet if it be made at the proper season and the return be made by the first of May, without making any way-stations, the sea is quiet. By God's mercy, prosperous voyages have always been made; and the fathers provincial make them two or three times during their four years. It is also advantageous for the religious themselves [to make that voyage to Manila], for then they can get what their houses and churches and the Indians need; and they can arrange it personally, and satisfactorily to themselves, and they act as agents for those who remain there. The chief advantage is that the chapter-sessions have the authority that they require in the capital of Manila, where all the orders and their congregations hold them with more definiteness and less trouble in general. Although some individuals do suffer somewhat, yet with that they acquire merit; and absences are easily filled in their ministries, for vicars-general remain who attend to that. For the above and other reasons, a petition was made in that general chapter of Roma in that year 1650, where the reasons were stated, and the said order was revoked (titulo pro provincia Filippina, number 4); and it was confirmed in the general chapter held in the said holy city (number 1). Consequently, from that time thenceforth that difficulty has been removed, and all the fathers come [to Manila] very willingly. Some letters were received in that junta from the most illustrious Fray Domingo [sic] de Marinis, then vicar-general of all the order; and others from our