Note 1 — Letter from Corcuera to Felipe IV

Your Majesty was pleased to present for archbishop of this city Don Fray Hernando Guerrero, formerly bishop of Nueba Segobia. I avow to your Majesty, in all truth, that, [even] if I did not feel under obligation to give you an account of what is going on in these your islands, which are in my charge, I would not dare to inform any other person than my natural lord of the archbishop’s harsh, unbending, and irritable disposition. By the galleons which arrived last year came his bulls, which, with the decrees of your Majesty, he presented in the royal Audiencia. He was admitted to his church, whose canons and dignitaries he had often threatened because they had not been willing to receive him before his bulls came. In the royal court of justice, before which he appeared to be presented [to his see], he swore upon the gospels not to interfere with your Majesty’s jurisdiction, to respect your royal patronage, and to be always your royal vassal. All this he has violated, three or four times; and during the ten months while he has governed the church he has not failed in each of them to annoy me and disturb the peace. The first occasion was, that an artilleryman had killed a slave-girl belonging to the sargento-mayor; she had formerly belonged to the artilleryman, and he had maintained illicit relations with her. The said archbishop took her away from him, and made him sell her. [Then follows an account of the murder and the execution of justice on the criminal (the body of the latter “was borne to its burial by La Misericordia”), and of the early part of the controversy with the archbishop.] A fuller account of this will be given to your Majesty by the fathers Diego de Bobadilla and Simon Cotta,1 who are persons of great truthfulness, and have much authority in their order; they are going, as its agents, to Rome. From this your Majesty may be assured that they will give you truthful information about whatever you may be pleased to know regarding these islands. I entreat your Majesty, with all respect, that you will be pleased to command that their affairs shall be promptly and favorably despatched; for this religious order merits such favor for the services that they render to your Majesty. They furnish chaplains for your galleons that sail to Therrenate, on which service no one likes to go, on account of the danger. The said fathers are also rendering the same service in the galleons which go to Castilla; they receive twelve pesos a month as pay, which has been assigned to them on account of the convenience of this service to your Majesty—although the said fathers would serve without pay, most willingly, in order to show better the affection with which they always engage in your Majesty’s service.