in straitened circumstances, and the others do not receive the half of what is necessary for their sustenance; many of these have no recompense. Although our possessions are so scanty, we have been content therewith, inasmuch as we consider them as being a reward which we have won with our blood and so great labors; for we are thereby encouraged to serve our Lord and his Majesty—enjoying, as we do, these tributes and encomiendas in tranquil and peaceable possession of them, after they have been assigned to us. The king, our lord, also is profited by those who hold positions in the service of his royal crown; for they, with the tributes, assist in the great expenses which his royal patrimony incurs for the churches, religious orders, and ministers of the evangelical teaching, and for the supplies necessary for their maintenance. In this state of affairs it seems that on the part of the bishop of these islands and some of the religious thereof—not only generally, in sermons and in the pulpit, but privately, in the confessional—obstacles and difficulties are imposed upon our consciences by maintaining that we cannot exact the [illegible in MS.] his Majesty those which he exacts, and that we are going straight to hell [illegible in MS.] and that we are under obligation to make restitution for them. For this reason they refuse us the sacraments of absolution and communion; and, finally, they so obstruct us in the collection of this slender means of livelihood that we, and in fact the whole colony, are continually disconsolate and afflicted, and our consciences disturbed and ill at ease. We know not what plan we are to pursue in making these collections; for if we submit to the constraint which the aforesaid bishop and a portion of the religious would impose upon us,
