INDICATIONS OF AUSTRALIA,
ETC.
A MEMORIAL
ADDRESSED TO HIS CATHOLIC MAJESTY PHILIP
THE THIRD, KING OF SPAIN,
BY DR. JUAN LUIS ARIAS,
RESPECTING THE EXPLORATION, COLONIZATION, AND
CONVERSION OF THE SOUTHERN LAND.
Sire,—The memorial of the Doctor Juan Luis Arias showeth: That in consideration of the great advantage which will accrue to the service of Your Majesty, to the extension of the Catholic Church, and to the increase of our holy faith, from the conversion of the gentiles of the southern land, which is the principal obligation to which Your Majesty and your crown are pledged, he now earnestly begs (great as have been his former importunities) to solicit Your Majesty's consideration to that which is here set forth. At the instance of the fathers of the Seraphic order of St. Francis, and in particular of the father Fray Juan de Silva, he has composed a treatise dedicated to his most serene highness the Infant Don Ferdinand,[1] from which a judgment may
- ↑ In the collective volume in the British Museum which contains the original of the present memorial, are several memorials to the king from the Fray Juan de Silva, advocating the same cause on general religious and political grounds; but the editor has been unable to find the treatise here referred to as dedicated to the Infant Don Ferdinand, nor is any mention made of it by Nicolas Antonio or Leon Pinelo, both of whom speak of the memorials addressed to the king.
