This truth being so well known--as also is this other, that in the religious provinces of those islands there have been and are now many religious of distinguished virtues and learning, and very zealous for the salvation of souls--affairs have arrived at such a state, as is known by the said letters of February, 699, that the regulars refuse not only to be ordinaries [parrocos de justicia] and subject to the jurisdiction of the reverend archbishop, but also to act in that capacity in the manner which has been hitherto in vogue. They ask your Majesty, with the utmost possible reverence, to be pleased to regard them as exonerated from the responsibility which they hitherto have held of ministering as parish priests to the Indians, and to take measures that other persons may look after the Indians in the manner which the reverend archbishop desires; and that the religious for whom there is no room in the few convents and colleges which the religious orders possess in those islands may return to their own provinces--in accordance with what your Majesty commands, in one of his laws, for the consolation of the distressed religious in those kingdoms. And since actions so grave in themselves and in their consequences as are these--the refusal of the regulars to be parish priests subject to the jurisdiction of the reverend archbishop, and their renunciation before your Majesty of the assignment of the territories allotted to them for ministrations--appear not to have originated only from disinclination, but to have sprung from [their claim to] liberty alone, their representatives set forth to your Majesty in this document the reasons and very weighty arguments by which they are constrained to act in both those proceedings. They also offer to present another, more copious, in which will be related in sequence and order all the occurrences and the exceedingly grievous injuries which the religious orders have suffered and still sustain, occasioned by the visitation of the curas. [It will also recount] the lands that they possess; the tithes [29] that the reverend archbishop has established; the testimonies and appeals that he has denied; the arrests that he has attempted; the banishments that he has urged [upon the Audiencia]; the very sharp reprimand that on account of him was given by your Audiencia to all the provincials together, with other religious of high standing, without permitting them to open their lips--and all with a method of procedure so unlike that which the pope, your Majesty, and your supreme Council employ on occasions like these, even in cases when there is certainty of guilt; and finally, the investigations which he makes to obtain information against them which he can use to carry out his purposes, and disturb them at Madrid and Roma, in this imposing [threats of] excommunication on the witnesses in order that everything may remain a secret, and the reputation of the religious orders be left more exposed to attack.