Holiness may be sure that your Majesty, as the best informed of all, will do what is most fitting for the propagation of our holy faith.  What the Portuguese allege in regard to the religious who went to Japon being missed in the Filipinas is not sufficient; for there will certainly be some who, without being missed there, could go to Japon.  Thus, if personal interests and differences would cease, those religious might attend solely to the conversion of those heathen, with the discretion and moderation which is fitting, so as to relieve that king from the suspicion he has, that in that way they are trying to take away his kingdom.  For if he is assured of that, and sees that no other than religious come, and that these are engaged in no other business than that of conversion, it is to be hoped in our Lord that he will not hinder it; since by those same documents it is evident that the reason for his having made martyrs of the Franciscan friars was the suspicion which he had that they had other objects to the prejudice of his state.  It is likewise fitting that all the religious maintain friendly relations with one another, and be united, and that their duties be not ill performed.  For quarrels between them will be of much greater injury and less edification for the heathen than is the diversity of their garb; and, when it is seen that they are all working toward the same end, it will be recognized that all profess the same faith, and that religion is one.

The Marques de Velada said that the reports from the Council of Portugal are at variance with those from the Council of the Yndias; for the former say that in Japon they do not desire Franciscan friars, and the others that they are asking for them.  It therefore appears best to him that your Majesty should secure from the Pope a revocation of the clause in the brief which prohibits other religious from going to Japon unless it be by way of Yndia; and that his Holiness leave it to the choice of your Majesty to send them by the way which shall seem most fitting, as, in regard to the principal point—­which is that they should go, whether it be by Yndia or otherwise—­they are in accord.  Whether they are to go by that or some other route is such a minor consideration that it ought not to depend on that.  Accordingly he would order Don Juan de Silva [41] to investigate whether it be true that the king of Japon is asking for Franciscan friars; and if this be so he should not fail to send some, in the manner which has been stated by the chief comendador of Leon.  And even if the king does not seek them, let it be known that he will permit them.  Moreover, all kinds of trade should be totally prohibited, and the passing of any other people from the Filipinas to Japon, except such religious friars as are not only holy, but judicious and discreet—­although these qualities were not displayed by those friars who told the king of Japon that by means of them the Western Yndias had been conquered, because that was sufficient reason