48. But in regard to the point of the islands, which was discussed in general council, the regulars excused themselves from voting, by saying that their rules forbade them to vote on war questions, and that they feared to act irregularly. The archbishop was unable to overlook this pretext, and told them that they had voted in like assemblies at the time of the siege, and had permitted or given license to their subjects to take all kinds of arms, to patrol the walls, and to guard the posts which were entrusted to them; and had sent the Indians from their villages to take part in the conflict. They had not done otherwise in their missions exposed to the dangers of the Moros, than to manufacture and buy all sorts of arms, and importune the superior government to supply arms to them, and afterward to handle them and make use of them in defense of their parishioners, and to fight the enemies of the faith and religion. At present it was not necessary to take these arms or to make use of them, but it was necessary to declare what was advisable in regard to conceding or denying the submission of the provinces in which religion and the instruction of their neophytes were at stake. But nothing was sufficient to get them to give their vote, that which the archbishop had alleged causing them great irritation. As their obstinacy angered the archbishop still more, he did not have them summoned to the second council. 49. In the voting of that council of the twenty-sixth, it happened that the engineer, by whom the voting commenced, refused strongly to pass any opinion, saying that he was prevented from doing so, as he was a prisoner of war. This murmur spread among the other military men present, and they added that the license of the generals was necessary in order that this council might be held. Consequently, it was necessary for the archbishop to explain these matters, by telling them that this was not a clandestine council, but one called openly and in plain sight and with the knowledge and suffrance of the generals. In it they were not discussing the taking of arms by the prisoners for the defense of the provinces, but whether the islands were to be yielded under present circumstances by the archbishop-governor. Thereupon, the voting went on with varying results. When it came to the fiscal's vote, he again was obstinate on the points prisoners of war and the license of the generals for the council, and he said that he would accordingly take his position on the principle of it. The archbishop answered what he had said in regard to the said points, and that this was to place in doubt what he had signed. Thereupon, there was great altercation, anger, and notable incivility, with visible signs of the agony which the archbishop was suffering from this blow. But the altercation having subsided, and all of them having quieted down, the fiscal and other ministers declared their vote. Since it was now very