In addition to the above, I am obliged to inform your Majesty that in the year 81, and at your Majesty’s order and decree, which the viceroy of Nueva España has for that purpose, I was sent to these islands with three others—one the priest whom I mentioned above as having served your Majesty in the expedition to China, and the other two well fitted for the service of this land, although one of them has died. We came to consider whether this land was a place where we could serve God and your Majesty. Now, inasmuch as we have to send our determination concerning the matter to our general as he is awaiting it, we find ourselves in confusion, for we had to write that we cannot stay here, or else to tell him in what way we can stay and to ask for more men. We have not been able to find any other way except to do our duty. Will your Majesty order that the Society occupy itself as in the other parts [of the Indias] where they are established, in rearing and instructing the children of this city and of these islands, and in teaching grammar to those who should be [fitted] for it. Let those who are now about to be able to do something take some lectures in philosophy, or theology, or at least cases of conscience, so that the Society may have something to do, and the community be aided. For now not only the children, but also many adults and those ordained by some of the orders are misguided. Both they and many others whom God influences and will influence to change their estate and become priests or religious have no relief or do one or the other thing, or else go to España. Many seculars and religious have not been completely reformed in their studies, or do nothing or do it wrongly. They are filled with doubts and have no one who can settle those doubts for them. They will not be able to take any Indians into the Society unless there is a house in Manila to serve as the mother of all the ministers who should go to the Indians; for, according to their custom, they do not fulfil their duty by having absolute and exclusive houses however few they be—one or two or three—but although they be among Indians, those houses must be subordinate to the large house so that the order may be preserved. If this house and seminary be thus established for the said teaching, your Majesty will save much of the trouble and expense of sending ministers from so great a distance as five thousand leguas, who after their arrival do not accustom themselves to the land or to the difficulty of the language. Some of them return and few of them really settle. But those here are already accustomed to the climate and are skilled in the customs and language. Consequently, in the time that it takes one to come from España, one is turned out here, and one of those already naturalized and with two years of grammar is worth more than a preacher who comes from España and at so great an expense. For the little with which your Majesty can establish this seminary or fount of ministers here, it appears that it would be sufficient to apply some little trifle from your Majesty’s treasury; and with that the Society will have a new obligation here and everywhere to serve your Majesty, in addition to the many that it has already. May God preserve your Majesty’s health and life, and prolong it for as many years as we see to be necessary here for His great honor and glory. Manila, June 17, 1583. Your Majesty’s unworthy servant in the Lord.