churches should permit the reading, publication, or posting of any edicts, or of any other kind of letters or bills whatsoever, except those of his provisor, or of the tribunals of the Holy Inquisition and the Crusade--as if my tribunal, jurisdiction, and authority, which is that of the supreme head of the Church, and resides in me, were inferior to those of the said provisor and the said tribunals. In the second edict, increasing the penalty of major excommunication with the reservation to himself [of absolution], he commanded that no one in his archiepiscopal territory should exercise any jurisdiction--whether ordinary, delegate, or subdelegate--even if it were from your Holiness, unless the originals of the bulls or despatches that he carried be first presented to his Lordship, in order that he might give them the license and fulfilment which by right they should have. But he does not consider that my bull and brief is, and has been for more than 140 [9] years since the foundation of the bishoprics of these islands, current and put into practice in them, as also has been its free and independent exercise in this archiepiscopal territory. And I have exercised this freedom, on the only two occasions which have been presented to me--the first time, while the very reverend archbishop Don Fray Felipe Pardo was alive, and the second in the year 91--with the knowledge and approbation of the cabildo close by, sede vacante, both which are proved by authentic documents. These I do not send at this time, as they are in my archives in the city of Nueva Caceres, which is distant from this city of Manila sixty leguas; but I promise to send them at the first opportunity, which will be next year. Notwithstanding all this, the said very reverend archbishop published the said two edicts, endeavoring to impede and embarrass, by all possible measures, means, and ways, the said my jurisdiction as delegate, and to subordinate it to his own, in order that I should not exercise or avail myself of it, either in person or through intermediate persons. On account of this, the superiors of the said religious orders found themselves obliged to resort again to me; and they entreated me to come in person to this city of Manila, to defend my jurisdiction, and with it the ecclesiastical immunity of their property. I did so, notwithstanding my advanced age [10] and the painful infirmities that I suffer, since both these causes are so important a part of my responsibility and obligation. I came to this city on the twelfth day of the past month, May, and with my secretary went to a house on the river where the said very reverend archbishop was residing. After a short conversation, I begged him to be pleased to listen peaceably to an act of which I had come, as delegate of his Holiness, to notify him. I told him that this business should not be conducted more castrorum [i.e., in hostile manner], but that we should listen to each other, and each should state his rights.