careful reflection which is demanded by the strict account of our deeds which we must render to God, he should do what was most safe for the discharge of our consciences in the service of God and his Majesty. To this advice he gave me no answer, either written or verbal; and when I was waiting for one, in order to choose the safest [course] and avoid consequences which always are injurious to the public welfare, on October 8 (which was Sunday), a little before twelve o'clock, I was annoyed by a second royal decree--in which, professing not to understand the reasons which I had for doubts, he insisted on the surrender of the said records. Having answered that in order to make my decision I was waiting for his reply, I pressed him for it [on the next day,] the ninth, with another [written] communication of substantially the same tenor as the first one, exhorting him to make the best decision, that is, the one which he would at the hour of death wish to have made; but he declined to receive it for that morning, on the pretext that he was ill--although it was plain to me that he was well [enough] to hold conferences with the single auditor of whom the Audiencia was composed. In the afternoon, he gave orders to receive my communication, at the repeated insistence of the chief notary of my archbishopric, who carried it; but he would not allow the notary to enter the palace or to see him. From this stoppage of friendly relations and lack of civility which I began to experience in regard to this matter, and on account of the news that I had of the repeated deliberations that he held [with the auditor], I could only expect very evil results in the banishment of myself and of the ecclesiastics--which I mistrusted from the twenty-seventh day of September, when I had sent my provisor with the cura of Balayan, for them to certify to the said governor the information which on this very point had been privately given to the said cura by an alférez named Antonio de Torres, who had much familiar intercourse with the said governor. This information was reduced to the statement that a certain alférez had told how his Lordship had resolved to banish me from this city by the middle of October, because he had made ready to demand from me, about that time, that he might remove to the most distant of these islands all the persons who had taken refuge in these churches, both within and without this city; and, taking for granted, at the start, that I would not permit it, with that ground for action he would proceed to carry out the said banishment. When I learned that the said alférez, when summoned to the governor's presence, confirmed his statement, although he exculpated himself with frivolous pretexts; and when I did not see any punishment inflicted on him for this insolence, and knew, moreover, that they only gave him orders that the matter should be kept secret (as it was): I had sufficient grounds for the said suspicion. And