by so reverend a person, not considering that the prejudice of a person from a nation so opposed to us, and who had not found at Manila what he was expecting, rendered his account unreliable. From these reports ensued many royal decrees, which came [to Manila] years afterward, with mandates which were very difficult to carry out; because, as all the peoples [here] are different, they need different laws and rules. From this also originated the ordination of Indians as priests, of which there had been no previous example [here]--a wise precaution against the inconveniences which the Portuguese had experienced in Eastern India from ordaining canerines [54] under the pressure of necessity. This is a usage which even the Dutch heretics abominate, saying that it is one of the three causes through which India has been ruined. And as in Filipinas that necessity does not exist, because of the admirable arrangements which the Catholic monarchs of España have made for sending, at the cost of their royal exchequer, religious from their kingdoms as missionaries, there was no need of resorting to the extreme measure of ordaining the Indians as priests--as the Portuguese of India had done, and as now do the bishops sent out on the part of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in their missions of Eastern India; and the latter do so because of their urgent necessity, since the said holy Congregation has not the funds for the support of European priests. On the contrary, the few whom they have in China, Tunquín, and other regions are supported by the alms which the citizens of Manila send them--except the bishops and priests of Siam, who have more means of support from fixed incomes in France.