The Christian desire so proper to our obligation of attending to the preservation of the holy faith, in all the places and persons in which by the goodness of our Lord it is found already established, and to its propagation and extension in the persons and places (which are many) that have not been reached by the light of the holy gospel; and the strict religious observance of our profession, which at least for charity's sake constrains and obliges us to endeavor by all means that injustice and oppression shall not be suffered by any of the Indian natives of these islands--the spiritual administration and instruction of whom has been placed in our guidance and care by both Majesties, the divine and the human, entrusting, to the zeal that we are under obligation to exercise, not only the steadfastness in the faith and the good morals of all the natives who have been already conquered and brought back to the bosom of the holy Church, but also the promotion of new reductions and conversions: these are the motives, truly lofty ones, which impel us to set forth plainly to your Lordship the causes (of the utmost importance and gravity, and everywhere at work) which are producing lamentable effects in impairing the Christian native population, inflicting on them violence and injustice, and almost closing the door on that most desirable expectation of new conversions, and of the general relief for so many poor vassals [of the Spanish crown] who, as if they were fugitives from these islands, are engaged in foreign provinces with grief and almost ruin to their souls, among the infidelity of the heretics and the barbarous nations--whither are going, as from their own countries, their wives and their children, leaving only the memory of and pity for them. The objects of this memorial are two: first, the honor and glory of our Lord, and the exaltation and increase of His holy faith; and second, the hope that the Christian zeal of your Lordship will, by all the proper means that will present themselves to your great intellect, furnish effective control of evils so serious and so general, and cause them to cease--so that the Christian faith and justice may again flourish, the people who formerly possessed these islands renew their abundance of population, and the increase of our faith continue its progress, with the reduction of the infidels. With especial reason [may we expect this], when the remedy for all the evils which are stated in this memorial is [already] provided by the Catholic and pious laws contained in the "Recopilacion de las Yndias;" and if perchance they omit the medicine for some of the said evils, that is likewise anticipated and provided by the decisions of the Councils for Mexico and Lima, confirmed by the holy Apostolic See, and inviolably observed in these islands.