That royal decree is in the book of advice to confessors of Indians
which father Fray Juan Baptista, of the Order of St. Francis, published
in Mexico, in the year six hundred; it is on folio 380. On folio
259, it contains what the provincials of the orders of St. Dominic,
St. Francis, and St. Augustine, of the province of Mexico, answered
to it on the twenty-eighth of November, of the said year, 585. That
answer was to accept the said missions _non ex votis charitatis_,
but with the obligation of _in se et justitia_; and in regard to
being visited, they say that, inasmuch as the obstacles of their
disturbance and relaxation of discipline were always to be found,
which induced the apostolic see to exempt them from the visits of
the ordinaries--which obstacles would be more and greater in the
Yndias, if authority were given for it--they would not refuse the
reverence, respect, and submission due to the bishops, as prelates
and shepherds of the Church of God. They said that they were under
greater obligations to them than to any one else, and would respect
them and receive them into their convents with proper reverence,
as they had always done; and that, obeying what his Majesty ordered,
they would be very glad to have them visit in their churches the most
holy sacrament, the baptismal font, and what concerns it; but in all
matters outside the above-mentioned, they petitioned his Majesty not
to give the bishops authority or entrance, for that would mean the
perpetual disquiet and ruin of their order.

But as for that which the said orders of Nueva España declared in that
reply, namely, that the obstacles of disturbance and relaxed discipline
were bound to follow the visits of the bishops, for which the apostolic
see was induced to exempt them from their jurisdiction; nevertheless,
it will be considered that a very different reason will be found