It seems suitable to my ministry to give a categorical reply to what has been asked, the impediments imposed on my jurisdiction by the Governor of said Island when the exportation was carried into effect, with me to the extent of opening my private letters, suspecting others might be enclosed in them for me. This deprived me of all news regarding the exportation, which by means of some who came from said Islands brought me news of my Vicar-General by word of mouth, it being impossible to write under the circumstances, that the families were all Catholics and passed over with the free use of their religion having accompanied them two Ecclesiastics to serve as Parochial Priests, and I am persuaded they were the same who gave rise to the representation. During the opposition of that Governor to the exercise of my authority I many times resorted to carry from the Island to the Court, to men who were worthy to protect the benignity of our Catholic religion with messages to your Ambassador at the Court and at my instigation they were placed at your Royal feet by the Marquez of Grimalde with whose powerful help and meditation we finally obtained a hearing of the private Council of the King of Great Britain which took place on last June, when a Decree was sent stating that no state, and I have placed myself in communication with the Vicar to whom I have written that without loss of time he informed me of all that had occurred in the exportation, how executed, the circumstances of the two Ecclesiastics and if they went with this permission, and all else conducive to a satisfactory reply. This I will fulfill immediately I receive a reply. In the meantime the exportation being undoubtedly public and notorious, also that it was occasioned by the want and suffering endured in that Island by many families on account of poor crops for several consecutive years which obliged me to grant dispensation from the eating of lactenacious food and meat on prohibited days. Most of the families who went to Florida had come to this Island to colonize the unhappy city of Aludia, and if I rightly understand, I do not doubt but that some went to Cierra Morena or other places in Spain, from the manner in which the Vicar-General communicated to me the exportation, I doubt if the Ecclesiastics went with his permission, he would only have allowed and tolerated it for the good of the religion and not to irritate the Governor more by reports which, when I first arrived on this Island, he gave me of all the Ecclesiastics. It results that Dr. Campos was a good and laborious Priest, devoted strictly to his ministerial duties, and had been Vicar for some years. That he was Vicar of a village of that Island. This is confirmed by several persons of Minorca who, in this unsettled state, are still here, and although some of the clergy do not give such good reports, those they have given of his conduct are not bad, but being obliged to state all that I