For the honor of God and of your own service, will your Majesty be pleased to command that all these matters be amended, or else to send another governor, so that one shall take care of ecclesiastical affairs, and the other of the temporal, for one man alone cannot do both; for the hindrances which these religious orders put in his way are many, and he has no time left for the political government or military affairs, or for considering the general welfare of the provinces. May our Lord guard the Catholic person of your Majesty, as Christendom has need. Manila, on the last day of June in the year 1636. Sire, your Majesty's vassal kisses your feet.
I, Alonso Vaeça del Rio, public notary, one of the number [allotted] to this city for the king our sovereign, attest and give truthful testimony to the persons who shall see the present, that today, Friday, which is reckoned the ninth of May in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six, at about eight o'clock at night, a little more or less, Christoval de Valderrama, notary of this archbishopric, stationed himself at the corner of the archbishop's house, near the dwelling of the master-of-camp, Don Lorenzo de Olasso, to read a document. This he did by the light of a taper, in loud and intelligible words; and at the noise I, the present secretary, and several other persons went to the windows in the house of Captain Luis Alonso de Roa (which forms half a square), on the side where the said notary was standing. Continuing his reading, he said that inasmuch as the most reverend prelate of these islands had been making his official visitation on Master Don Andres Arias Jiron, a beneficed cura for the district of La Hermita; and in order to interrupt him, so that he could not continue that visitation, Don Sevastian Hurtado de Corcuera, governor and captain-general of these islands, had nominated the said Don Andres for archdeacon of the cathedral of this city; and besides, in order that the archbishop should accept him and bestow upon him collation and canonical installation, had issued against the said archbishop a royal decree in which he commanded him to give Don Andres the said collation--which was contrary to the bull _In cena Domini_: [accordingly,] the said governor and the licentiate Don Marcos Çapata de Galves, auditor of this royal Audiencia, had rendered themselves liable to excommunication; and he therefore commanded them that, within half an hour, they should withdraw the said royal decree--under penalty of four thousand ducados of Castilla to be applied for the Holy Crusade, and of the major excommunication, _late sententia, ipso facto incurrenda_; and he would place them on the public list of excommunicated persons. The aforesaid statements--with another, that he would proclaim an interdict, and would today impose a wholesale suspension of divine services--are those which I could understand; and I came to give an account of it to the said governor. Being in the apartment of the royal court, his Lordship, having sent away all persons except me, commanded that I should make an official statement of the affair--with a solemn declaration (which I made) that this demand was made with no intention of proceeding against any ecclesiastic, but only for the purpose of rendering an account of this occurrence to his Majesty and to his royal Council of the Indias. By this command I give the present; and it is witnessed by Captain Lope Ossorio de Soto, Eugenio de Rui Saenz, Captain Diego Diaz de Pliego, Captain Luis Alonso de Roa, and Alférez Francisco Mexia--who all were with me, the present notary, in the house of the said Captain Luis Alonso de Roa, when what I have related occurred; and they also heard it. And, as witnesses that I attest the present deposition, were present Don Pedro de Arredondo Aguero, Alonso de Çornoca, and Antonio Dias. This deposition is dated on this said day, at about nine o'clock at night, a little more or less; and I sign it, in testimony of the truth.