Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 07).djvu/134

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130
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
[Vol. 7

cia will give information caused no little scandal in this city. Likewise he refuses to obey the ordinances of the Audiencia, making light of and disputing over them, for which he may be restrained and condemned in temporal matters.

It is quite common for controversies to arise between your governor and the bishop as to which of them is to assign the salary to be given to the ecclesiastics who administer instruction, both in the encomiendas of your royal crown and in those of private individuals. Since the salaries in the encomiendas of the crown are paid from your royal exchequer, it is but just that your governor assign them, or at least that they do so jointly. In this way your royal patronage will be better guarded, and it will be known for whom the bishop is providing. I beg your Majesty to be pleased to have suitable orders given in this matter, and that it be done shortly, for every day more and more difficulties arise.

A case has been considered in the Audiencia, between the bishop and the order of St. Augustine, as to whether the said order and the religious thereof are to administer instruction to the Chinese living in the village of Tondo. Ever since the settlement of this town, they have had a convent there, ministering to the natives in their own language. They say that they have also instructed the Chinese, who understand what they say. The bishop placed in this town friars of his own order, the Dominican, so that they could minister to the Chinese in a chapel there. The Augustinians complained, saying that by a brief of his Holiness, and a royal decree which they presented, two monasteries of different orders should not be situated in the same town, or in its vicinity. The