It is an abuse that, although the spiritual administration belongs by right to the secular clergy, and the regulars possess it precariously ad nutum [misprinted mitum] regis propter inopiam clericorum in principio, [75] the greatest promotion which an unemployed secular obtains in Filipinas is to be the servant or deputy of the fathers. [76] Thence it results that the latter abound in so great wealth, collectively and singly, and the former suffer from necessity; and all of them are the sons of Spaniards and Indian women, and all vassals of the king. In view of this disclosure, what father will spend and what son will work without even a remote hope of reward? Remedy for this evil Since the reign of Don Fernando VI (in the years 53 and 57), all the curacies in both Americas have been taken from the regulars as fast as the latter have died. Let the same be done in Filipinas, and that will be in accordance with all right. The true religious will surely give thanks, the curacies will return to their center, and the ecclesiastical estate will be aided by what is in justice due to it. THIRD ABUSE It is an abuse that since the regulars have possessed the curacies for so many years and with so many troubles [ensuing therefrom], they have not, although the country is so wealthy and their fees and parish dues are so heavy, thought of relieving the king of the hard and intolerable burden of paying them a stipend in money, with rice, wine for the mass, and oil; and, in those curacies which they call missions, even the escorts for the guard of the father--who runs no risk and for that reason is not accustomed to have any escort, although the king always pays for them. [77] What vassal who has even the most lukewarm regard and respect for his king could keep still when the curacies of Binondo, Santa Cruz, and the Parian (which are under the cannon of Manila), and that of Tondo, which are, with but little difference, worth to the regulars, the first, six or seven thousand pesos in obventions, and the others but little less, nevertheless draw from the king the stipend in the things mentioned above? Remedy for this evil To create a university, as has been said, to send clergy for its beginning, and to make current the tithes--of which hitherto in Manila it is only known that they are inserted in corpore juris, [78] nothing more. By this just provision the king will save three hundred thousand pesos; the army will find that they can be supported with that amount; and the difference between these two investments will be evident, since the soldiers defend the king, and the regulars are his enemies, of which the past war was a good example. FOURTH ABUSE