Letter to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Propaganda (16th November 1880)
Your Eminence,
I have waited until the end of your holidays before acknowledging receipt from Your Eminence of the decree by which you have deigned to raise the two missions of Nyanza and Tanganika to the status of apostolic pro-vicariates and to create the new missions of northern Upper Congo and southern Upper Congo, to be entrusted to our Mission Society. I can but be deeply grateful for this new token of confidence on the part of the Holy See and I assure Your Eminence that my missionaries and I shall do all we can to justify it.