as we consider most necessary for your service. We are ordering that the collection of one and one-half per cent imposed on money coming to this land be discontinued; and, in order that the Chinese might bring us an abundance of supplies, with horses and cattle, as they had begun to do, it is decreed that no duties be imposed on the grain, biscuit, flour, and all other provisions brought by them, in order to encourage them to provide this land abundantly with these supplies. Moreover, besides the above reason, the amount collected from this source for your Majesty is very small. Your Majesty will order what you shall be pleased to have done in this matter.
Section 9.[1] By virtue of a royal decree of your Majesty, the bishop added another parish priest to the benefice of this cathedral church, so that there are now two priests and a sacristan. Orders have been given that their salaries shall be paid from the royal exchequer, in conformity with another royal decree lessening the amount to be secured from the tithes.
Section 10. Your Majesty ordered a royal decree to be issued, commanding us to send a report on the recommendation made by the bishop of these islands, that it is expedient that a brief be procured from his Holiness, in order that the authority which he granted to the bishop in the foro interior for twelve years be also granted to him in the foro esterior.[2] Since this concession has been made by other pontiffs to the religious of the mendicant orders, the claim
- ↑ In the original MS., section 8 does not appear—probably a mistake in numbering the divisions of the letter.
- ↑ The phrase foro (an old form of fuero) interior is but another expression for the ecclesiastical forum conscientiæ, or forum pœnitentiæ. The reference is to cases of conscience, which should in this case be left entirely to the bishop's decision.
