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422 THE AFRICAN ORJGINS OF THE MISSIO ANTIQUA patronal claims and the local threats from some Portuguese in Luanda, were manifestly willing to prove their diplomatic obedience, commitment and loyalty to the papacy. Inevitably Vives' letter was based on a great degree of ignorance concerning the geographical realities of equatorial Africa, and this particular diplomatic demarche from the newly appointed Kongolese ambassador was doomed to failure, but his other, second initiative was destined to bring far more important consequences. The Portuguese refusal to permit the Spanish Carmelites, charged with a papal mission, to set sail from Llsbon had caused considerable distress and an– ger at the Kongolese court. Their arrival had been eagerly awaited, and in the letter appointing Vives as his ambassador, Alvaro II renewed the request that other missionaries should be sent similar to the Carmelites who had gained "much fruit with their example, teaching and charitable works". He contrasted this with the behaviour of the Portuguese Dominicans sent in their stead, who, he complained, "concerned themselves with business alien to their Order" 45 . In response to this royal request, Vives approached the Capuchins, and on 1 June 1618 the general chapter of the Capuchin Order formally decided to send to Kongo a Visitor General with six other Spanish friars "to investigate the situa– tion in that kingdom46, Vives may have hoped to overcome Portuguese objections by relying on the strength and influence of the Capuchins in Spain and by working through his own Valencian contacts with them. Diego de Quiroga, the Capuchin pro– vincial in Valencia, was present at the general chapter and was one of the Capu– chins selected for the Kongo mission out of the four hundred Spanish Capu– chins who applied for it. Diego was a man of considerable influence, and was later to become preacher and confessor to Philip III. Both Vives and Cardinal Trejo, a Spaniard who had been appointed Protector of the kingdom of Kongo, assured the Capuchins that they would be able to obtain Philip III's support for this venture, and the curia continued to take a lively interest in the proposal. During a visit to Portugal and Spain in 1619, the father general of the Capu– chins, St Lorenzo da Brindisi, recommended the intended mission to Philip III, and in July 1620 Cardinal Borghese, the secretary of state, again urged the col– lector in Lisbon to take up the question. On 19 March 1621, barely a month after his election to the papacy, Gregory XV assured Alvaro III that the Capu- 132. 45 Alvaro II to Paul V, 27.III.1613 in A. Brasio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, VI, 46 Decision of the general chapter in A. Brasio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, VI, 307.