Note 6 — Letter from Alonso Fajardo de Tenza to Felipe III
Reading edition
The fathers of the Society of Jesus say that they need more religious of their order than are here. They have asked me to petition your Majesty to grant them the accustomed grace in this matter. Page 265What I can certify is that whatever aid and concession your Majesty may grant them will be well employed, for they are men who bear considerable fruit, and not as many of them return [to Nueva España] as of the other orders, particularly that of St. Dominic. Of the latter I have heard that more of them than I would wish have left the order,”6 for they are well regulated men and furnish a good example. Although they deny it, I have come to believe that it is not because of the strictness of their life, and that they can all endure it, if your Majesty will order something to prevent it. Of the Order of St. Augustine, I can tell your Majesty that I have heard that they have always applied themselves very earnestly to their charge of facilitating and executing all that has been, and is, necessary to be done in your royal service. In what I have experienced hitherto, I am under obligations to them to confess it, and of especial indebtedness and gratefulness to the provincial, namely, Fray Alonso Barahona,7 and to the definitors; Page 266and inasmuch as it is a matter that concerns the service of your Majesty, I have wished in this letter to mention it to you. I shall close at this point, acknowledging the receipt of only one letter that has come to me from your Majesty in these vessels that have just arrived. It is dated El Pardo, November twenty, one thousand six hundred and seventeen. Consequently with what I have written, I have nothing more to reply to it than that I shall do all in my power, as I ought and as I am obliged to do in fulfilment of its commands, and in all that concerns your Majesty’s service. May God preserve the Catholic and royal person of your Majesty, as is needed by Christendom. Manila, August 10, 1619.