rest, and it seems as if ecclesiastics had never lived in this country. It is served by four secular clergy alone, to whom your Majesty orders a salary paid. The rest, although they have the title of canons and canonates, do not serve at all, except in their allotments and curacies. Accordingly, even on an apostle's day there is no one in vestments at the altar for the epistle and the gospel, which is highly discreditable. I have asked the governor, conformably with what your Majesty charges him in the third clause of his original instructions, to provide for this matter. But either he is unwilling to listen to me, or, if he listens to me, he does not wish to do so. Your Majesty will know what is fitting, but it would be expedient to add four other salaries to the four which your Majesty pays—namely two canonries and two half canonries, the incumbents of which could be vested before the altar for ministration. I must inform your Majesty that no one will be found to take them if your Majesty does not increase the stipend; for this country is not now, as it used to be, a cheap place to live, but the most expensive in all the Indias, on account of the irregularity in its government. Everything has been left in the hands of infidel Sangleys, who rob the country and sell us things at their own price, without there being any one to check them or keep them in bounds; in return for this, they are able to gratify and keep content those who ought to provide for it. I do not wish to complain of my griev-
sals, or choir-books for the service thereof; nor has there been paid over for that purpose any coins of gold, as appears by the said books and papers to which I refer. In certification whereof, and that this may be apparent, I have, on the petition of the dean and chapter, sede vacante, given these presents in Manila on the fifth of July of the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine."
