795. He began, then, to discuss the matter without the loss of any time, and he did not stop until his designs were obtained, notwithstanding that he had to conquer innumerable difficulties. For, in the first place, our provincial, then father Fray Joseph de San Nicolàs, opposed it very strongly. The latter alleged that it would be a violation of the municipal constitutions of the Recollects to abandon the ministries of Zambàles, for the constitutions expressly stated that none of the convents once possessed should be abandoned except under certain conditions, which were not present in the case under consideration. Besides that the Indian natives of Mindòro, both Christians and infidels, scarcely knew that there was a question of giving them minister religious and begged Jesuit fathers with great instance, for they preserved yet the affection that they had conceived for them, since the time that the latter had procured for them with their preaching at the cost of many dangers their greatest welfare, omitting no means that could conduce to their withdrawal from the darkness of their paganism. And when the Zambals heard that the Recollect fathers were to be taken from their villages, in order to surrender them to the Dominicans, they declared almost in violent uproar that they would not allow such a change under any consideration, for they were unable to tolerate, because of the love which they professed for their spiritual ministers, to be forever deprived of their company, by which they had obtained so great progress in the Catholic faith.