In order to provide those who should go, and to find the number for whom your Majesty shall be pleased to grant permission, to obtain information about them, to examine into their virtue and learning, and to secure a judicious choice, the petitioner needs about a year, in which time he can go personally to the convents of the three provinces of Espana; for the importance of so delicate a matter will not permit that it be entrusted to letters alone. Accordingly, he should have at least the time until St. John's day next, or when the first fleet shall be equipped; otherwise he cannot sail from Espana and make a voyage to Filipinas with religious. To reach those islands, two years are usually required, and at the very least more than one year; and by that time eleven or twelve years will have passed since the last permission [of that sort]. In that protracted course of time, there must necessarily have occurred many deaths among the laborers who work in that vineyard--of whose labor and conversion of souls God has made watch-towers for our sovereigns the Catholic kings of Espana, and for their royal and supreme Council of the Indias, upon whom is laid this heavy weight of obligation--in fulfilling which they have always made every exertion, giving permissions, orders, means, and aid to the ministers who have gone thither to cultivate that field. Therefore the said province, and the said Fray Francisco de Villalva in its name, have recourse to the kindness and fervent zeal of your Majesty, with which you have always striven for the preservation and propagation of the Catholic faith; and prostrate at your royal feet he entreats that your Majesty will be pleased to take pity on so many souls and the conversions for which the religious of St. Dominic are caring and in which they are laboring in the said Filipinas Islands. They ask that you will grant to the said province forty religious, [31] and a suitable number of lay brethren; and to the petitioner permission to conduct them thither in his company, and the necessary supplies for him and them, so that on the first opportunity when there is a fleet they may embark for their voyage. In this, God our Lord will regard himself as well served; and that poor and remote province will be anew constrained, in return for this favor and grace, to continue its prayers and sacrifices for the life and health of your Majesty, and for the welfare and increase of your entire monarchy. EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1686-88 Diary of new events in Filipinas, from June, 1686 to June in 87 On June 11, 1686, the galleon "Santo Nino" discovered, twenty-two leguas from the island of San Juan, a new island, larger than any of those discovered in Marianas; it is named San Bernabe, because it was discovered on the day of that saint. On July 11 the bells were rung in Manila for the arrival of the galleon "Santa Rosa." On the twelfth they hanged five Sangleys, who were found guilty in the mutiny.