Note 3 — Petition for Dominican Missionaries
Reading edition
Therefore the said province, and the said Fray Francisco de Villalva in its name, have recourse to the kindness and fervent zeal of your Majesty, with which you have always striven for the preservation and propagation of the Catholic faith; and prostrate at your royal feet he entreats that your Majesty will be pleased to take pity on so many souls and the conversions for which the religious of St. Dominic are caring and in which they are laboring in the said Filipinas Islands. They ask that you will grant to the said province forty religious,3 and a suitable number of lay brethren; and to the petitioner permission to conduct them thither in his company, and the necessary supplies for him and them, so that on the first opportunity when there is a fleet they may embark for their voyage. In this, God our Lord will regard himself as well served; and that poor and remote province will be anew constrained, in return for this favor and grace, to continue its prayers and sacrifices for the life and health of your Majesty, and for the welfare and increase of your entire monarchy.