To all the persons of both sexes who exist and dwell in our archbishopric, of whatever state, rank, and condition you may be, greeting in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the true salvation. [152] We cannot deny the great pleasure and satisfaction with which our heart is filled at beholding, in our own experience, the loyalty, obedience, and fidelity with which our beloved subjects, in proof of their most profound and humble vassalage to the royal person of our august sovereign and lord, Don Carlos III (whom may God preserve), have accepted the most just decisions of his Majesty in regard to the expulsion of the regulars of the association named the Society of Jesus from all his dominions of España, the Americas, the Philipinas Islands, and others adjacent. And this first royal decree having been followed, among others, by that one in which his Majesty, as a prince who professes the soundest doctrine with the purest religion, issues effectual orders that in all his kingdoms may be suppressed that most pernicious and consequently abominable doctrine which the said regulars taught even from the beginning of that order--in regard to which we were thoroughly instructed years ago, and now, in order to secure the general conviction of this truth, there has just been published by order of his Majesty a pastoral by our brother dignitary his most illustrious Lordship the present archbishop of Burgos--we have learned that by the coming of the ships from Europa directly to these islands there have been made public in this city various printed documents [153] relative to the pernicious maxims and teachings of the aforesaid regulars. These documents, according to the uniform answers of persons who have come in the said ships, are publicly distributed in Madrid and other cities of our España; and we have even noticed in the Mercuries of public news which have reached our hands (and the said Mercuries are not printed without previous notice to and permission from the court) the aforesaid documents conspicuously announced. We know that in this city they have produced in the minds of many persons who have read them the same good effect as there in España--that is, to confirm them more and more in that just judgment which they have formed of the uprightness, and of the justness of the reasons, which could induce our Catholic sovereign to decide upon the expulsion of the aforesaid regulars. And we have been informed that the circulation of those documents has ceased [154]--(we know not why, and only know that such is the fact), without the intervention of the public, superior, and legitimate authority--a singular thing, which of itself is sufficient to occasion a most pernicious result, that those who have read them will doubt the truth of what is said therein, at the same time depriving those who have not read them of the important information which they furnish in regard to the lax and mischievous nature of the moral maxims which are encountered at