"Long live Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
"R. P. Fr. Miguel de Petra.
"My dearest nephew, brother and Sir.
"It was not for want of love that I did not answer some of your letters. For it was not merely bodily that I left my beloved country. I could have been communicating with many persons by letters and friends, both in and outside our order, but, if our minds were constantly intent upon what we once left, what would be the use of leaving it?
"I wrote a long letter to your reverence after your religious profession. Besides, your reverence heard of me through the Padre Lector Verger, who is at present our guardian. I received your letter when I was among the Gentiles over three hundred leagues away from any Christian settlement. There is my life and there, I hope, God helping, to die. When this hour comes, some member of our province will take care to notify our brethren that they may pray for me, and then, your reverence will know it. What else does your reverence desire? Your reverence lives among saints, and, therefore I do not deem you in need of my advice and counsel, which indeed would be the only justifiable motive for my writing.
"Let us improve and make good use of our time, let us walk worthy of the vocation in which we were called, let us work out our spiritual salvation, with fear and trembling, and that of our brethren, with the most ardent charity and zeal, and let all glory be to our great God. In connection with this, I took great pleasure in learning that your reverence was preaching a mission at Ivisa when Padre Commissary Verger passed through there. The time given to this apostolic ministry with the blessing of your superiors, preaching in your words and deeds, hearing confessions with love and patience, I believe, will be the best and most fruitful you ever spent.
"Though a lukewarm, bad and an unprofitable servant, I remember every day in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, my only and most dear sister Juana, your mother, her children, and specially my Capuchin. I hope all of you do the same for me that the Lord may secure me from all dangers among these naked and barbarous peoples. Let this be our mutual correspondence, and let God do the rest.
"And that I may give your reverence some news of my destination, I beg your reverence to look on the maps of America. You will see in the shores of the South Sea, most improperly called Pacific, the Peninsula of California [Lower California]. I was there for a year in the capacity of President of the Missions already founded by the exiled Jesuit Fathers. Then followed north along the same coast and just a little before what is called Cabo Mendosino, you will find in some maps, the title or name the Port of Monte Rey.
"There your uncle lives, among those poor people. There I went with the first Christians in 1770. There I sang the first Mass and there I have been in company with Fr. Juan Crespi until the latter part of August. Then I left for this college in order to transact some very important business with the Most Excellent Lord Viceroy concerning the maintenance and increase of those Christian settlements and the establishment of those already proposed and planned, or that may be planned.
"Thanks to God, I have been kindly received and given close attention by His Excellency and he has granted me whatever I have asked of him; so, God helping, I hope for a quick and very extensive expansion and spreading of our Holy Faith and of the domains of our Catholic King.