Diego de Ibarra, 1582 
109 
offense is committed against them. For the maintenance of these religious 
it is necessary that your Majesty order your officials of the real hacienda 
to provide them with what it is customary to give them in food, wine for 
masses, and oil for the lamps of the holy sacrament. Up to this time I 
have supplied them from my own funds, to prevent the country from being 
abandoned, for the residents of the town of Durango and other towns 
settled by Spaniards are so poor that they cannot maintain themselves. 
I also informed your Majesty that since that province is making great 
progress it is necessary that a prelate be appointed, so that particular care 
may be taken of the natives, for the bishop’s 
see of Nueva Galicia is eighty leagues 
from the town of Durango, where the trea¬ 
sury of your Majesty is, and because of the 
long distance there is much carelessness. 
The tithes of Nueva Vizcaya are sufficient 
for the support of the prelate whom your Majesty may be pleased to 
appoint, if it be from the Rio Grande to there. As I have given a long 
account of this and other things that pertain to the service of God and 
your Majesty, it is useless for me to lengthen this out, except to say that 
in the ship commanded by Don Alvaro Manrique there were sent to your 
Majesty 5,600 marks in silver, the issue of that province for its royal 
fifths and duties. And although it is little, compared with what is ex¬ 
pected in the future, it is a good beginning. As your Majesty will always 
be informed of what may occur, I will not lengthen this out further than 
humbly to pray that your Majesty will be pleased to order that the reports 
that I have written be examined and measures taken upon them that will 
be most to the advantage of the royal service of your Majesty, whose holy 
Catholic royal person may our Lord keep and increase in more kingdoms 
and principalities, as we, the loyal subjects of your Grace, desire. Mexico, 
April 12, 1582. Sacred Catholic Royal Majesty, I, faithful vassal of your 
Sacred Catholic Royal Majesty, kiss your royal feet. 
Diego de Ibarra. 
Decree with this account 
that the viceroy and arch¬ 
bishop of Mexico shall make 
a statement of their opinion. 
Diego de Ibarra to his Sacred Catholic Royal Majesty, the king, our 
lord, Don Felipe, in his royal hands. (May [ October ], 1382.) 
Sacred Catholic Royal Majesty: By the fleet that left New Spain this 
year I wrote to your Majesty giving a detailed account of the state in 
which the affairs of Nueva Vizcaya were, and of the silver which its 
officials were sending to your Majesty by the said fleet, and, for that 
reason, nothing more is necessary than to inform your Majesty that I 
received by the fleet that just arrived the three decrees that your Majesty 
ordered sent to me, dated at Badajoz in September of last year. In regard 
to your Majesty’s orders on the point that I shall report on what is going 
on in the said province in connection with matters referred to in the 
9 
