Handbook for translators of Spanish historical ... - University Library

APPENDIX A
TRANSLATION I
j
[To] Francisco Ramirez Brigeno, my Governor and Captain
General of the Province of Yucatan, or to the person in
whose charge the government may be:
Francisco de Figueroa, of the Jesuit Company, Attorney
General for the Indies, has reported to me that the aforesaid
company has recently established a house in the city
of Merida in that province, and that, because of the poverty
[Of this house J it has neither a church nor the means for
the sustenance of the religious stationed there, nor [the
meanS] to provide itself with many things necessary to devine
worship; nor [does it havej the means for purchasing
wine and oil for the celebration and illumination of the
holy sacrament; and jhe stated further] that the f\iiids left
by a settler for the aforesaid establishment, an [annual]
income of one thousand three hundred pesos, presupposes,
in view thereof, that the aforesaid wine and oil should be
donated in the manner in which they have been ordered donated
to other religious orders. After this [report j was
examined by the members of the Royal Council of the Indies,
it was agreed that I should cause this cedula to be issued
whereby I do command you with the aid of the officers of
my royal treasury in that province to make an investigation
of the poverty of the aforesaid house of the Jesuit Company.
If it should be so great that failure' to furnish it with
the said wine ajid oil would cause divine worship to cease
if it should be so great and the said circumstances should
prevail therein— such (Conditions] will be considered sufficient
for you to provide them therewith, through a certificate
given by my said royal officials, which is necessary
according to custom; you shall draw this jaid] as a pension
from a vacancy in Indian encomiendas . . You shall cause this
aid to be given to the superior of the said house or to
whomsoever should have charge of it in order that there may
be nothing lacking for divine worship, and in order that
my royal treasury may be relieved of this charge and obligation.
Dated at Madrid, on the twentieth day of March, in the
year sixteen hundred and twenty.
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I the King