Note 2 — Foundation of the Province of the Dominicans in the Philippines

Not long ago you acquainted us with the fact that, some time before, Paul Conestabile, master-general of the entire order of Friars Preachers, gave you leave—with thirty or forty professed members of the said order, to be gathered by you from the provinces of Spain, Aragon and Andalusia, and ten from the province of Mexico and from Chiappa,2 to go to the [194] Philippine Islands and to the kingdom of China. Moreover, appointing you his vicar-general in the said Philippine Islands and kingdom of China, etc., he granted to you, all and singular, the privileges which had been granted by former generals to the province of Santiago of Mexico—to the end that you might there establish a rule of life in accordance with the same, and found provinces, etc.