3. By reason of the said royal despatch, his Excellency formed the idea of completely removing the Recollects from Zambales and giving them in exchange the island of Mindoro. He set about that with great zest. The Recollect provincial resisted, alleging that it was contrary to their constitutions to abandon thus the province of Zambales. That would mean treating it as their own possession. It would be better to recognize it as a territory distributed by the universal patron; and, admitting that it was impossible to surrender it without his royal consent, individual laws communicate no right, especially when such mission fields are ad interim. He also pleaded that the Indians of Mindoro, both infidels and Christians, had as soon as they heard that regular ministers were to be given them, urgently requested Jesuits. On the contrary, the Zambals, when they were notified that it was the intention to withdraw the Recollects from their midst in order to introduce Dominicans, almost declared their opinion in a terrible tumult. The Recollects preferred, therefore, that such a change should not take place. But the archbishop was firm in his resolution, and trampled all obstacles under foot. He united with the governor, and both of them together forced the Recollect provincial, Fray Joseph de San Nicolas, by threats, to agree to the change. The governor pacified the Indians of Mindoro by means of his corregidor, so that they should receive the Recollect fathers; and the Zambals by means of the alcalde-mayor of Pangasinan, so that they should allow the Dominicans to enter. Thereupon, the three seculars who had been in charge of Mindoro were accommodated by suitable chaplaincies, and an act was passed by the royal Audiencia, charging the Recollect fathers with the administration of that island, with absolute clauses based on the royal decree, without any provision or obligation to leave the missions of Zambales for it. That decree was accepted when it was announced, and was extended to the judicial cession of those missions, when signed by the provincial of the Recollects, although protest was made against it in the name of their province, by two influential religious. On that account a second act was enacted in which those missions were adjudged to the fathers of St. Dominic, for the archbishop was very much in earnest in those arrangements.