The time of a successive history, although it is continuous, is not an indivisible unit. Consequently, [26]it is necessary in this history to take our course from two years previous, namely, that of 1635. That year was the third of the first provincialate of the father-commissary, Fray Domingo Gonçales. The intermediary chapter having been held on April 6 of the said year, on St. John’s day arrived two ships from Nueva2 España, the “Concepción,” and “San Luis” with the situado. In them came to govern these islands, Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, knight of the Order of Alcantara; the new governor brought much succor, and many soldiers from Perù; for he had made his voyage by way of those kingdoms. A band of twenty-two religious came to our province, under the vicarship of father Fray Diego Collado. Their names are as follows: the said father-vicar, Fray Diego Collado; father Fray Guillelmo Cortet de Visiers, of Francia, afterward [27]a glorious martyr in Japon (treated in the first part,3 book 2, chapter 61); father Fray Juan del Moral, son of [the convent of] San Pablo at Cordova; father Fray Miguel de Ozaraza, son of [the convent at] Victoria, a glorious martyr in Japon, and of whom the same history treats at the same place; father Fray Juan Mallen, son of [the convent of] Santa Cruz el Real at Granada, a collegiate of Santo Tomas in Sevilla, whence he sailed; father Fray Antonio de Montesa, of the Canaria Islands; father Fray Juan de los Angeles, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo del Campo at Zafra; father Fray Manuel de Berrio, son of [the convent of] Santa Cruz at Segovia; father Fray Pedro de Messa, son of [the convent at] Cordova, collegiate of Santo Tomas in Sevilla, whence he sailed; father Fray Gabriel de Montenegro, son of [the convent of] San Pablo at Cordova; father Fray Pedro de Chaves, son of [the convent of] San Estevan at Salamanca; father Fray Juan Uguet, son of [the convent of] Preachers at Valencia; father Fray Ignacio Muñoz, son of [the convent of] San Pablo at Valladolid; father Fray Juan Cazor, a Frenchman; father Fray Francisco de Hoyos, son of [the convent of] San Pablo at Valladolid; father Fray Antonio de la Torre, son of [the convent of] Regina Angelorum [i.e., Queen of Angels] at Sevilla; Fray Francisco de Armella, an acolyte, from the province of Aragon; Fray Tomas Ramas, an acolyte, son of [the convent of] San Vicente at Plasencia; Fray Placido de Angulo, an acolyte, son of [the convent at] [28]Xerez de la Frontera; Fray Juan del Villar, an acolyte, from [the convent of] San Pablo at Cordova; Fray Alonso de Villegas, a lay-brother, son [of the convent of] San Pablo at Sevilla; Fray Francisco Gomez, a lay-brother, son of [the convent of] San Domingo at Xerez. The above are the ones who arrived, while father Fray Juan Tellez, a son of [the convent at] San Lucar, was left in Mexico because of illness, and came the following year. Father Fray Marco Nuñez, a son of [the convent of] San Estevan at Salamanca, died at sea. Under the shelter of this mission came a student, who took the habit here, professed, and was ordained; his name was father Fray Diego Rodriguez.

The band was received with as joyful demonstrations of consolation as were the others. But considering the appearance of those who came in that band, which was so strange to this province, the joy was changed into wonder; for all of them wore long beards, a fact which was an immediate portent of some great trouble as it was the superscription of peculiarity. The first part, book 2, chapter 56 treats of this sufficiently; but, as it is so serious a matter, we have thought best to repeat considerable and to add somewhat. Father Fray Diego Collado, a native of Meazadas in Estremadura, and son of [the convent of] San Estevan at Salamanca, a truly exemplary religious, energetic in his ministry, and very zealous for the conversion of Japon and China, was a minister of this province for some years in Cagayan. But the devil—who, like an asp, converts the most medicinal flowers into poison—availed himself of the zeal of this father to divide the seamless and scanty garment of this holy province; and, [29]beginning to deface his government with less humility, created in his breast thoughts of being the reformer of the province (a self-love, at bottom, which was given shelter under the holy name of Virtue, in order that it might become more pernicious and incurable), by separating the congregation so that it should only be employed in the missions of other kingdoms, without paying any heed to the ministries to the Indians. He so arranged matters here, that from Japon (where he was a minister for four years) serious difficulties excluded him from that field of Christendom. Here also the superiors sent him for religious to España. He went there and to Roma, where he proposed to our most reverend father-general, Fray Serafino Sico, that, inasmuch as this province was embarrassed with ministries to Indians and assistance to Spaniards; and inasmuch as the missions of China and Japon and other kingdoms were an employment which ought to be their sole one: it would be a great service to God to have them separate, by that most reverend father instituting a new congregation, to apply themselves to this purpose, and this alone. They were to have houses of their own, from among those which the order possesses in these islands, where the languages could be learned without other exercise than that of the said missions. The most reverend father having examined and consulted regarding the new pretension, resolved to demolish it; and, even angered at such a proposal, he deprived the said father of his powers, ordered him to quit Roma, and not to return again to discuss the matter further. The father obeyed, but it happened that the father-general died in the year 28. In the year 29, our [30]most reverend father, Fray Nicolas Rodulfo was elected. Father Collado sought an interview with him, and painted his scheme in such colors that he obtained whatever he wished from him: the erection of a new congregation, under the title of St. Paul the apostle; the appointment of himself as the first vicar-general; and all things for that necessary end, with great amplitude of power and authority. The father went to España, and, first seeking the indispensable permission of the royal Council of the Indias, and finding that innovations were not resolved upon in those royal and most prudent courts, without first hearing a report from the governors and their audiencias, and that he was demanding an impossible thing, he concealed the facts of the division, and only made public the mission to Filipinas and his appointment as vicar. There was no difficulty in his obtaining the favor, orders, and help of the king our sovereign, and despatches from his royal Council, in order that he might conduct his band by the usual way. The father came to terms with the twenty-four said religious, and embarked with them. He always said, whenever any necessity arose to say it, that the letters of the most reverend father were so weighty and were so vigorously expressed that their execution in the province would be accomplished without the slightest difficulty. Father Fray Mateo de la Villa, procurator-general of this province, resident at the court, sent private information of whatever he could discover in regard to the business, proceedings, and efforts, and of Father Collado, in the same vessel. The latter, as a man of authority, of example and weight, and of experience, had sufficient time in the course of two so long voyages to infuse [31]his opinions into the religious. That was an easy matter, because of the lack of events contrary to the faith which they must give him; and more so if, fearful of the dangers so often exaggerated, of a ministry among the Indians, representations were made to them of the glory of a martyrdom, truly fantastic without great exercise of virtues, tears, and prayer. In this manner did he so bind them to himself in this holy province, and under the disguise above mentioned.

He presented his letters, in which the lack of so essential a part was immediately discovered. The matter was disputed, and the father-provincial, then the reverend father-commissary Fray Domingo Gonçalez, having briefly considered the matter, resolved upon a severe remedy. Before considering other orders, his first was that no permission was to be given the newcomers to say mass, unless they shaved as did the others. Thereupon, taking better counsel, they obeyed, and desisted from their attempts; and in a short time were scattered throughout the province in order to study the languages there, while the said Father Collado remained behind in the convent.

The new governor assumed his duties, and discharged them with close circumspection, and was well obeyed and esteemed by all the inhabitants of Manila, as well as those outside that city; for he was a man of great capacity. But he began to advance new opinions, which are not so safe a thing in these so remote lands, and are generally too arrogant. The matter that caused greatest mischief, and even scandal, was the violence with which he treated the archbishop of this city that holy prelate, Don Fray Fernando Guerrero whose lamentable tragedy, exile, [32]and attending circumstances were heard in Europa not without astonishment; and left this land so desolate that today it still suffers, and has not yet dried its tears. Reason of state calls the two opposite arms, the ecclesiastical and the secular, difficult to adjust [to each other], and this is true; yet in the last analysis they are arms of one body, and in order that they may live in peace, they must aid and supplement [each other’s] actions. If the secular arm, which boasts itself a faithful vassal, has to move as our most Catholic kings decree, it ought to make the ecclesiastical not its feet but its crown, such as the Constantines and the Honorios made it. And although there may be dangerous accidents, the science of the physician who relies on one medicine, and that a desperate one, is not very great. Such was the medicine of that time, and the Preachers, having caused notable disturbances in those districts, were obliged to perform their duties. Much more heavily did the hostility of the governor weigh down upon Ours, for he, scenting or discovering at this time the commission that our father Fray Diego Collado had brought (which had been forgotten for nine months), summoned him, and awakened him, so that he should again take up that commission. The governor encouraged him to present himself to the royal Audiencia (not paying any heed to the fact that it had not been passed by the Council), as his Lordship was well inclined toward it and had authority to pass it. Much persuasion was not necessary to obtain this result, with such a father. Although affairs were in the greatest harmony, still the spirit of the father was still rankling with the wound. Accordingly he immediately made his presentation, and his Lordship [33]decreed that those letters should be obeyed; and assigning the houses of his choice to Father Collado, declared that he would be protected in them. The father named the best, and those best prepared for his purpose, notwithstanding that some of them were ministries. Under military protection he was given possession of the house at Binondoc, the Chinese hospital, the Parián, Cassite [sc. Cavite], the house of Lalo in Cagayan, and that of Todos Santos [i.e., All Saints] of the island of Hermosa. Consequently, the province was violently despoiled, as well as the religious who were in those houses; and there was a new and never before seen confusion in that community, the Indians were angered, and the heathen were scandalized. The new congregation of San Pablo, victorious in its contention, rejoiced. Some of them, although few, made no disturbance. There were also two of the old fathers who went to profess in the new congregation (for the most healthy body has four distinct humors4). A distinct set of rules were made. Although it was ordained for an honorable purpose, yet truly, the observation of the rules of the province would perhaps aid that purpose more. Some very holy and venerated rules were broken; and at the end they did not pass one step in advance, but were on the contrary given a great setback. But the true and affectionate mother, who had given birth so gloriously amid so great travail, bewailed inconsolably the division of her offspring, seeing that it was caused by plots of the devil, so that the apostolic missions of those kingdoms should be neither of the one nor of the other congregation. She [34]had recourse to the only refuge for her sorrows, namely, the most holy image of the rosary, with continual prayer and litanies—an empirical remedy whose virtue had been so proved by the Order (especially in the protection from authorities ruled by passion). So was its efficacy experienced in this instance; for after sixteen months, during which time the pretended congregation of San Pablo lasted, the Lord worked his miracles by the following means. Among the many who were grieved at the archbishop’s case, and its consequences—which succeeded one another daily, with new causes for anxiety—one was our Fray Diego Collado; for although he was protected by the governor, yet being a religious full of zeal, necessarily such lawlessness struck him full in the face. After warnings and sermons, seeing that nothing was of avail, he was determined to write most fully to the king of España, or to his Council, of these occurrences and significant considerations. He sent his letter by the ship that sailed that year; he must afterward have told what he had done, so that it came to the ears of the governor. The latter summoned the said father, and, talking to him in friendly manner, and excusing himself for what he had done, said to him when he thought that the father was pliable: “I am a friend to your Reverence, Father-vicar, and indeed you know how I esteem you and how I have labored in your demand. I have learned that your Reverence has written against me, and I am not surprised, for your Reverence would not have been so excellent a religious had you not done it. The letter is now on its way to España, but you will do me the favor to give me the rough draft of it, in order that I [35]may clear up a doubt that I have, and for the satisfaction of your Reverence, for you are charged with writing false things, that are unworthy of a person of so great virtue.” Father Collado seeing that he was persuaded with so much affability, promised to do it. He took him the rough draft, and his Lordship on seeing it was so indignant that, after dismissing the father, he conjured up the greatest revenge that he could. He had the father provincial immediately summoned (at that time father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant), and restored to him all the houses of the new congregation, which he held to be dissolved from that time, since it lacked the previous authority of the royal patronage and his consent. Thereupon, the order was executed on the instant, namely, on September 6, 1637. The clouds cleared away, and the face of the sun shone forth, glad and resplendent with peace. Therefore thanks were offered to our Lord again and again; and to the most holy Virgin of the Rosary (ever Mary of victory), they gave joyful worship and a solemn and festival week. With this, when the royal decree arrived in the following year (which will be found on the last leaf of the first part), no further restoration was to be made, for it was already made. The father provincial ordered Father Collado to undergo penance then, and he observed, with example and humility, the laws of perfect obedience. In order to remove the scruples that might arise, he was retired to Cagayan, where he was to perform his penance. Having remained there until the following year, 1638, when an order came from his Majesty in the above mentioned decree to send him back to España, on his return to Manila, in order to prepare [36]for his journey thence, he embarked in a dilapidated champan in company with some men of the household of the alcalde-mayor of that province. They left under a good wind, but they were struck by a heavy northwester next day, before they doubled the cape of Boxeador, and the storm continued to increase with such fury that they were unable to withstand it, and the craft was driven upon a rocky reef. A lay-brother, one Fray Francisco Luque, who had accompanied the father, leaped into the water, together with an Indian, and got ashore. Father Collado was about to follow him, for he was an excellent swimmer; but such were the sufferings of the women and crew, who detained him that he might confess them, that he resolved to die with them. But a few moments after that, the boat yielded to another shock of the sea, and was broken into splinters, and all perished. Of the two who reached the shore, the lay-brother was killed, before he had gone far, by the attack of a band of heathen Negritos, who inhabit those mountains and whose solemn feasts are the killing of men. The lay-brother gave up his life because of the innumerable arrows [shot at him]. It was God’s pleasure to let the Indian escape, and he related all the tragic event. Such was the end of father Fray Diego Collado. [It is one of] the secrets of God that he, after so many years of voyages—twice to Filipinas, to España, and to Roma—should die at last within four brazas of land, in a very small boat. But he was already freed from his errors, and rendered obedient to his province; and he [died] in so honorable occupation as that of the last consolation of so many souls, for whose spiritual welfare he gave his life as a true brother. [37]

Election of provincial in the person of father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant, and events of that time.

The capitular fathers assembled in the convent of St. Dominic, May 2, 1637, and elected as provincial the reverend father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant, an Aragonese, and son of the Preachers of Zaragoça. He was an oldtime minister of Cagayan, had been definitor in the year 1633, and was elected provincial for the second time in 1648, of which we shall treat hereafter. Honorable mention was made in that chapter of some glorious martyrs whose lives and precious deaths were treated in the first part of this history [i.e., Aduarte’s Historia.]

Great deeds were performed at that time in the island of Hermosa, and abundant harvests were gathered, as the field was white for the harvest of the gospel. But it will be advisable for us to describe first the characteristics of that island, which was not touched upon in the first part. It deserves not to be passed by in silence, for it was for sixteen years the glorious theater of our Spanish arms and the greatest credit of these missions. [A description of the island and its products follows. Of the inhabitants Santa Cruz says:] As to the men they are tolerably clever; they are well-built and light-complexioned, although ruddy in some districts. They are valiant and strong, and greatly inclined to cutting off the heads of their enemies, with which they make merry in their celebrations, dances, and feasts.5 They have [38]no king, nor does their little ability allow such a thing. They get along better by families, where the father is the king. They have no idols or any other images which they adore with outward reverence. The devil only holds them deceived by many superstitions of chance, and of songs and flights of birds, which are consulted in their difficulties. They sacrifice the first fruits of everything6 to their Berroas, which are certain imaginary spirits there—to such an extent that, whenever they are about to commence a new jar of wine, they first take out a few drops and throw them outside, which constitutes their reverence. They throw some grains of their morisqueta (which is their rice bread) on the ground, and that is their grace. They do the same with the rest of their food and drink. They have good characteristics; they abominate theft and unchaste acts and accordingly watch out for such very rigorously. They immediately kill the illegitimate child and punish the parents severely.7 Their provinces, [39]languages, and settlements are numerous. We found those people who came to us in the city of San Salvador, which we founded, to be very sociable, accommodating, and simple. Had God preserved us in that post, they would have constituted a good work for us and a great company for the advancement of empires so extensive as those which are near it. China is less than thirty leguas away from it; Japon is eighty; Camboja, Cochinchina, and Tunquin are one hundred and fifty leguas or two hundred or somewhat more. But our Lord ordained that the Dutch enemy should drive us out of so important a Plaza de Armas. Accordingly, what pertains to us is to yield ourselves with humility, and to see whether we can again open so suitable a door by making our lives better.

During those five years five fathers of our order lived in the convent of Todos Santos [i.e., All Saints], which was the church of that city, and their superior was father Fray Lucas Garcia. They were attending with all fervor to their ministries—some of Spaniards, some of Indians, and some of both—[40]when Father Collado, vicar of the new and lately-formed congregation, despatched father Fray Juan de los Angeles8 to take possession of that house for that congregation in the year 1636. As associate he assigned to him father Fray Miguel de Corena,9 who had gone over to the congregation from the province [of Santo Rosario]. Those fathers, arriving there with their appointments and the orders of the governor for the governor of that island, deposed the vicar—although everything was adjusted amid great peace, and, until the first despatch, they all lived together as the closest of brothers. When opportunity offered, the former father-vicar, father Fray Lorenço Arnedo, and father Fray Felipe del Espiritu Santo, a Japanese, and Father Corena himself, who was unwell, went to Manila, leaving the said father-vicar, father Juan de los Angeles, father Fray Teodoro de la Madre de Dios, and father Fray Juan Garcia, for it was not advisable to leave the land without ministers who had been there some time. Father Fray Francisco Diaz (of whom a more detailed relation will be given later) also did his work, and it was great. He was an accomplished minister for China, and was detained in the island of Hermosa at that time, for [41]the following reason. He had left his missions in the above kingdom to attend to the solution of certain serious doubts, in company with father Fray Antonio de Santa Maria of [the Order of] our father St. Francis. Going to the island of Hermosa, it was determined that father Fray Antonio should go to Manila, and that Father Diaz should await him there, which he did. Therefore, as the latter could not remain idle, he employed himself during that time in aiding his brothers, paying his score for lodging in works of example and virtue.

Before going farther, it will be advisable for us to present a brief summary of the incidents that concern the new governor of these islands, in order that we may get through with him. It cannot be doubted that a person of so many good qualities and one so noble had a strong desire to do well, and, above all, since he was selected by our Catholic monarch who confided to him in these islands the most precious gem of his crown—a jewel that his most prudent grandfather had given him, when in standing god-father to them in sacred baptism, in the time of his monarchy, he was pleased that they should give his name to the islands. That was a very well founded reasoning, for considering their land, their climate, their location, and their distances, proportions and neighbors, Alexander the Great did not dream of placing his banners over an empire of greater reputation [than these constitute]. Notwithstanding, then, the good intentions of that knight [i.e., Corcuera], from that time they were obstructed by so many untoward events that, although he governed nine whole years, and had the good luck to return to España (a thing that no other governor had done [42]before him), and was there afterward governor of Cordova, and governor of Canarias, where he died, still he left few expressions of regret here for his departure—and, as says a Stoic, posts and dignities bear the letter of recommendation on their backs only. Few grieved over his absence, for he left the name of governor truly disgraced. The year after his arrival (namely, 1636), for reasons of state he sent no ship to España, although he should have considered the common good and the only consolation of these islands, which depends solely on the delicate thread of one poor ship of commerce and relief. The next year he did send it, and it happened to be received at Acapulco by a visitor, Quiroga, who ruined these islands by his rigor, although they ought to be treated with greater charity, for so many reasons. Our governor was over-zealous in the suit with the archbishop and in his exile, and was merciless in his decision—although the venerable prelate mounted to heaven, and protected himself with a sacred monstrance in which was present the person of God himself. But that did not avail the archbishop, for His [Divine] Majesty allowed human power to achieve its end. The governor proceeded with such passion in this holy province of ours that he gave it the stroke most keenly felt, by dividing it, without awaiting any order or authority. And although the Lord derived great glory from it, still that knight manifested his own character in dividing so holy a family, and again uniting it when that seemed fitting to him; and by such actions he showed his scant appreciation of persons so estimable, and whose profession is so sacred. In the wars that he waged in Samboangan and Jolo, in which he participated personally, it is [43]certain that he did his duty as a brave soldier; and God gave him honorable victories, which were of great consequence for humbling those enemies. But they were very dear to us, for the best people of these islands perished there, but rather as the result of their own disorder than from the valor of others. In order that those sorties might be made, presidios were dismantled, and others were weakened, so that even at the present time [i.e., 1693] the islands have not reached the period of convalescence. The thing that must grieve us most is, that although our arms had possessed the greater part of the island of Hermosa, as above stated, with so great reputation for sixteen years—a possession which all the nations of the world might well envy—command was given, in order to carry on these wars [i.e., in Mindanao and Jolo], for three of the military companies in its garrison to retire to Manila, leaving only one, composed of boys and cripples, under the immediate control of the chief governor. On that account it was necessary for our religious to abandon the place where they lived outside (which was a village of considerable size), and to live in the fort, crowded with the men. When the Dutch, who were settled at the other point of the island, called Tayguan, discovered that, they attacked us once; and, having better equipped themselves, [attacked us] in the following year of 1642, and besieged and defeated us with the loss of credit that can be understood (although the conditions were honorable), after seven days of brave resistance, and took our people in their ships to Manila. But this caused the ruin of large Christian communities of Indians, and the total downfall of the increased hopes which, in so advantageous [44]a post [as Hermosa], were continuing to grow, with greater effects in the service of both Majesties. Later, in the year 1660, the Chinese won that fort of ours and the land from the Dutch, so that that nation possesses it in peace today. The misfortunes of the governor went farther; and one of those years he despatched to our España the galleon “Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion”—the richest one that has ever been seen on that route and owned by citizens of this land (for then they had not invented the pernicious art of sending [agents] to buy here). It was in command of Don Juan Francisco de Corcuera, the governor’s nephew. Unfortunately it was wrecked during a storm, at an island of the Ladrones, and the cargo was lost, as well as the people—except some few who escaped by swimming, and afterward ventured themselves in the open sea, in a small boat made in those parts; and it was God’s will to allow them to reach Manila. At that time there was an insurrection of Sangleys—who hold in their grasp all the manufactures and trades of this community, and through whose hands passes all the bulk of the commerce. Consequently by the means of one lash they all perished, while we ourselves were badly wounded. Clearly our sins were the cause of all those calamities; but since the superior officer derives the greater part of the glory in prosperous affairs, there is sufficient foundation in adverse affairs for him to shoulder a great part of the misfortunes—and more so when, rendering himself inaccessible to counsel, he carries out his own resolution. Now his residencia has been obtained by his death, and the residencia which was taken here from [45]him was not so mild that it did not cost him five years of close imprisonment.

[The chapter closes with the narration of the happy death at the island of Hermosa of the Portuguese lay-brother Fray Antonio de Viana, who had taken the Dominican habit at Manila. He had labored five years in the island.]

Of the intermediary chapter; and of some religious who are mentioned in it as having died, leaving behind the reputation of virtue.

The intermediary chapter of the provincialate of father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant was held in the convent of St. Dominic in Manila, May 15, 1639. [The deceased missionaries given mention in that chapter are as follows: Jacinto de San Geronimo, who professed in the convent of Santa Cruz at Carboneras in the province of España, and died in the province of Itui, after a glorious life of labor. Geronimo Morer, of the province of Aragon, who professed in the convent at Valencia, and died at an advanced age in the missions of the Babuyanes; he had charge there of about one thousand tributes in two villages. Juan de Santo Tomas, who died September 5, 1638, one of the founders of the province. Next morning early also died the lay-brother Juan de San Dionisio, a native of Aguilar, who took the habit at the convent of Escala Cœli (i.e., the Ladder of Heaven) at Cordova; he was known, before his arrival at the Philippine province, as Juan de Heredia. He joined the Philippine mission in 1590, and on reaching that land was employed in various duties, [46]among them that of nurse in the Chinese hospital of San Gabriel.]

[Chapters iv and v deal with the life of Juan de Santo Tomas (alias de Ormaza), one of the founders of the province of Santo Rosario, and its fourth provincial. He was a native of Medina del Campo, and his father was a noted jurist. The latter desiring his son to follow in his footsteps, he was sent to the university of Salamanca; but the youthful student, developing a taste for the religious life, prevailed upon his parents to allow him to devote himself to religion. He entered the Dominican convent at Valladolid, where he professed. The first mission to the Philippines, which arrived there in 1587, found him among its ranks. Arrived at the islands he was assigned to the missions at Bataan, where he labored assiduously until the year 1600, when he became provincial by unanimous vote. Shortly after the completion of his term of office he was sent to Japan as vicar-general of the Dominican missions there, and after several years there he returned to Manila and resumed his old vicariate of Bataan. As old age came on he retired to the convent of Manila, where he died at the age of nearly ninety, on December 7, 1638. In the general chapter held in Rome in 1644, he received mention for his good life and works.] [47]

Of the intermediary meeting of the year 1639, and events of that time

In the year 1639 was held the intermediary meeting in the convent of St. Dominic in Manila, where besides the ordinary arrangements some rules were enacted, although only a few. One of those rules was much to the credit of holy Poverty: namely that no one could ask permission to spend any money, even to the extent of a small sum, unless he first declare the purpose of it to the superior. It was a very happily conceived rule; for supposing that to each religious is given whatever is religiously necessary for him in health and in sickness, it is right and proper, if the alms of any mass come into his hands—even though it be to give alms, or to aid religious friends who are in other villages with some trifles, which they do not possess—to tell it to the superior, and not to give any occasion for Poverty to complain, even in slight matters.

In March of that year a very disastrous insurrection occurred in the province of Cagayan, in some villages retired among some mountains, called Mandayas (whose discovery and reduction to our holy faith is treated in the first part, book 2, chapter 48; and which was due to our Order, at the hands of father Fray Lorenço de Zamora, who accomplished it all). The affair was so disastrous that it cost considerable blood and not a few scandals (which are yet bewailed). The alcalde-mayor of that province was Sargento-mayor Don Marcos Zapata, the son of an auditor of this royal Audiencia. The alcalde, not paying much attention to so noble a trust, or [48]deceived by his own shadow—and, what is more, by the example of the governor (who was, as we have said, very decided in his opinions)—conducted his official duties by the method which he calls “the short cut” (which only shows little cleverness) namely, that of severity. (But this is an expedient which carries with it innumerable inconveniences. We know that the heathen, who drew gods out of the center of the earth, made Love a god, but it is not stated that they made Cruelty a god. The reason is, that, although it seems to one that he can do much by cruelty, he cannot do everything, as can love. Consequently, cruelty lacks qualifications for being called a god.) Following this his line of reasoning, the rigor of the said alcalde was great. Although by order of the central government he had made a fort with a new sentry-post, in the said Mandaya villages, and had a suitable garrison of soldiers, yet so many were the burdens that they put upon the shoulders of the wearied Indians for their support that the latter considered themselves as conquered, especially because of the ill-treatment that they experienced from the commandant of the said fort. The mine of anger exploded, because the said commandant punished one of the principal women, because she had displeased him, by forcing her to pound rice for a whole day; she and her husband were so angry thereat that they became the chief promoters of the insurrection. The nearby villages, which were tormented by the burden of the fort and the oppressions practiced by the soldiers, were invited [to aid in the conspiracy]. They entered the sentry-post at ten on the morning of March 6 with their arms, and killed the sentinel and others who [51]offered them some resistance. They went thence to the fort, and breaking down the doors, or having them opened by the spies inside, they killed about twenty unarmed and naked soldiers, who formed the garrison; only five soldiers escaped, by hiding; but later, the fire increasing, these perished. The Indians entered the convent, and killed a Sangley, at the door of the cell of the father-vicar, who had just been baptized that day (whose death, we must believe, would be most fortunate for his soul). They showed respect to the father-vicar and, all of them weeping with him on account of the bold undertaking in which they found themselves involved, they embarked him together with his clothes, the ornaments from the sacristy, images, crosses, and books, and carried them down to a secure place, from whence he went to the first convent. It was learned afterward that they proceeded with their frenzied sacrilege, and burned the church and the convent. Although the attempt has been made more than once to obtain satisfaction, yet those people are so favored by their inaccessible mountains that this effort has been abandoned, as it is impossible to subdue them.

[A short description of the revolt of the Chinese follows (see Vol. XXIX, pp. 208–258).]

Native women pounding rice in the province of Cagayán

[From photograph taken by Otto Fischer, 1888; procured in Madrid]

[52]

Continuation of the events of that year of 1639

On the seventh of August of that year, the desired news of two galleons which were coming from Nueva España, with the situado of these islands, arrived at Manila, which was decked in festival gladness [because of the termination of the Sangley insurrection]. One cannot easily imagine the general acclamation with which the news was received, and the festive demonstrations which were made [tokens of joy] in the hearts that were so full of mourning for the troubles of the above related insurrection, and other incidents which still kept the copious tears dropping from the eyes. Those were the results, doubtless, of our great sins, which to this very day have converted our joy into a tragedy, and a very painful one. For on the very day in which so famous news arrived at Manila—namely, that the said two ships were in Cagayan—because they had made a port badly sheltered, and had not been able to better it in so many days, at that unseasonable time so furious a tempest struck the same moorings, that all their skill was of no avail to them, and the tempest drove them upon some rocks, where both were miserably lost. Although it was God’s will that the money of the situado should be saved, and that registered as belonging to private persons, as it was already ashore, all the other things were lost—most of the infantry aboard, and all their goods, silver, and merchandise. That amounted to a great treasure and was the blood of this land gathered in those two hulks, and was so sadly shed in our very sight. Patience, hardly cured from the past blows, was much exhausted, when that [53]misfortune became known. Its causes were differently construed, for in such strokes grief has license to arouse opinions, however little foundation they may have. But the truth is that alleged above, namely, our sins, and no other—which, in order to double their strength, are trying to leave us querulous of others, the good abandoned, and the detection of our errors left in uncertainty. He who would know what kind of a city Manila is, the latitude in which our Lord located it, and its characteristics and its strength, must not be governed by degrees, elevations, or charts, nor by its gains (although these have been so great), but by its losses, which are much greater and more continual; its site, looked on with envy by all the nations of the world, especially by those surrounding it who are as haughty as populous; its nourishment, which, as this is the most remote part of the body of our España, when it arrives is at least cold, however great the warmth displayed by the royal heart of the Council of the Indias. Its governors are and have been excellent Christians, and brave, for in this regard it has had good fortune. But since the express from Madrid, even when it is swiftest, takes three years, it is necessary that the government change its nature. Although it is monarchical in its form, it lacks the quickness in its relation to the heart and to the head which is the better life of its members, so that without doubt it is most difficult to administer. Whence we infer that this city, with its remote provinces, is one of the greatest miracles that the providence of God has gathered in His temple, who is preserving it supernaturally for His predestined ones, dispensing with the order of secondary causes, to the no little glory [54]of our mother España. The latter is the instrument happily chosen for so lofty an end. España, with so Christian generosity, spends annually in its support a half million. That is the least thing, when one considers the so many and so competent sons in both estates [i.e., secular and religious] as are those of whom España is continually dispossessed, without hope of seeing them again. That does not happen in any other part of America. Fortunate is the Catholic spirit of the kings our sovereigns, who, following that honorable obligation, so free from temporal interests, have advanced this royal proof of the most Catholic zeal, and of a liberality without imitation among all the monarchs of the world! And happy a thousand times those who coöperate with their lives or their energy to so glorious an end!

Although the above-mentioned misfortune caused the loss of goods and lives of so much value, the royal despatches of his Majesty were saved, and the waves did not dare to profane their immunity. In the despatches was a decree for the father provincial of this province in regard to the division [of the province]—now buried in silence, but which disturbed it so greatly. As that decree seems highly significant of the care of our Catholic monarch, and of the warm place that his humble province has in his royal breast, we have thought best to insert it here. It is as follows:

“The King. To the venerable and devout father provincial of the Order of St. Dominic of my Filipinas Islands: I have been informed, by various relations which I have received, of the lack of peace and quiet enjoyed by the religious of that province, [55]because of the division made in it, by virtue of letters which Fray Diego de Collado bore from his general, and aid given him for it by my governor and captain-general of those islands, Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera. However the said briefs ought not to have been executed, as they were not passed upon by my royal Council of the Indias. Regarding rather the harmony of the orders and the quiet of that province, and believing that the said division will be the occasion for laxity in the order, I have ordered my said governor and captain-general of those islands, and my royal Audiencia resident therein, to suspend the said brief and all others that the said Fray Diego Collado may have carried, and not allow them to be executed; and that the division that has been made in the provinces be annulled, and conditions remain as they were before the said division. Therefore, I ask and charge you that you on your part cause those provinces to assume the condition that they had before the said division, and you shall immediately send the said Fray Diego Collado to España. In order that this may have effect, I am ordering my governor in a letter of this same date to have transportation furnished to him for his return. You shall advise me of what you shall do in execution of what I ask you, on the first opportunity. Given at Madrid, February twenty-one, one thousand six hundred and thirty-seven.

I the King

By order of the king our sovereign: Don Gabriel de Ocaña y Alarcon” [56]

This is the letter or decree written to the father provincial. In the one which follows, although it contains so many things worth considering, the clause rendering this province equal to the most observant one of the order is the most noteworthy; so that those who merit the possession of a mother who employs herself in the service of God, and who is so well accredited with her prince, may console themselves. In order that we may get through with this matter once for all (which is not very savory), we shall insert here the other decree of his Majesty written in regard to the same matter to the royal Audiencia of Manila. The king our sovereign well shows in it the care that we owe to him, for he expresses in that decree not only his royal providence, but the anger that such innovations caused him. It is as follows:

“The King. To the president and auditors of my royal Audiencia of Manila of the Filipinas Islands: In one section of a letter written to me by you on June 12, 1636, you say that father Fray Diego Collado of the Order of St. Dominic went to those islands in the former year of 35, bearing letters from his general allowing him to take over some of the houses owned by that order and found a new and distinct province, the sole business of which is to send ministers for the conversion of Japon. All of that carried with it great inconvenience, both because of the injury that that order would receive by a division of the province (which will bring about laxity in it, although that province has hitherto been one of those in which the rules of their order have been observed with the greatest strictness and punctuality), [57]and in sending ministers to Japon the said order has displayed so much solicitude that rather has it been necessary to restrain it because of the umbrage received thereby by that kingdom. That annoyance has been the occasion for cutting off the trade with those islands; and it was in great danger of being shut to the Portuguese of Macan, whom the Japanese have threatened severely if it be found that religious have gone to that kingdom from those islands, or from any other part. Consequently, it was certain that father Fray Diego Collado gave an inaccurate report to his general, and it was not advisable to carry out the terms of his letters—of which you gave me an account, so that I might have the evil corrected. The matter having been examined in my royal Council of the Indias, by a letter of this date I have ordered and charged you, my president—inasmuch as you did wrong in giving aid to that father because the brief which he held had not been passed upon by the said my Council—to cause this and all briefs which he had, that had not been passed upon by the Council, to be suspended, and not to allow them to be carried into effect. In regard to the division of the provinces, they shall return to their former condition. In order that my commands may have the due effect, I order you and my Audiencia to assist in the fulfilment of the aforesaid decree, so that it may be executed without any omission. When that is done, you shall advise me of it at the first opportunity. Given in Madrid, February 21, 1638.

I the King

By order of the king our sovereign: Don Gabriel Ocaña y Alarcon” [58]

One can see in this not only his Majesty’s favor toward us, directed to the ends of the providence of God (who holds the hearts of kings in His hands), but also the evil (which the Audiencia here regretted) of the separation which was made, and the official report which was made to the credit of this holy providence. And since at last they see us near at hand, and the good reputation that our Lord has given us here in His infinite goodness, those gentlemen are grieved at seeing us suffer—since at that time we were in so great danger of the destruction of this holy province; for giving it such a division amounted to the same thing. But God returned to His cause later; and as His divine mercies have been so abundantly revealed, greater troubles can well be reckoned as well past.

[The following six chapters are comprised mainly of accounts of the Chinese missions, and the lives of certain Dominicans.] [59]

Year 1625

The founding of the convent of Sevilla. Ours begin to preach the gospel in Baiug and Malanao in the Filipinas. Father Fray Diego de la Anunciation dies in a holy manner in Madrid.

[The first three sections of this chapter relate to Spanish affairs entirely.]

It had been decided by an intermediary chapter of that province of Filipinas that our laborers should go to the district of Bayug and the vicinity of Lake Malanao [i.e., Lanao], as there were many people there, and hopes were entertained of gathering abundant fruit for the Church. Since the minister of Cagaiang, to whom the visitas of Bayug and the other villages belonged, could not go there, father [60]Fray Juan de San Nicolas was appointed, a man well known for his invincible spirit, and his excellent procedure (howbeit at the cost of many hardships) in reducing obstinate ones, as was proved in the conquest of Cagaiang. Armed, then, with spiritual weapons, he went to the village of Bayug, where he was known and where there were a few Christians. He began to make much of the chief people, for if they are once subdued, the conversion of the common people is not so difficult.

Dolomayor,1 a man well affected toward the religious, was as it were, the ruler of those people. He immediately surrendered his children to baptism, although he remained in his blindness. For all that, however, he did not fail to help Ours greatly. With this good beginning, father Fray Juan endured his hardships with equanimity; and he had much to endure, for the Indians do not give alms. Consequently, it was necessary for the ministers to seek their food in the mountains, with the trouble that can be imagined. They continued to gain souls for God; but the heart of the zealous father was pierced because the inhabitants of the other river near by, called Lavayan, clung obstinately to their heathen rites, and refused to receive the evangelical law. On that account the father resolved to make a settlement in that district, in order that they might be subdued by perseverance. He did so, and left his associate in Bayug.

We have already mentioned, [when speaking] of the foundation in Cagaiang,2 the great hostility that [61]those of that village had incurred, and the Mindanao Moros. The latter could not endure to have our religious remain there, as they thought that it was the gateway by which an entrance would be made into their lands. Because of them the people of Cagaiang were so harassed continually that they could not go out to cultivate their fields. Father Fray Augustin de San Pedro3 was prior of Cagaiang in the year 1626. He was so valiant a man that, although he had been reared in the austerity and shelter of religion from childhood, he knew how to make himself so feared by those Mahometans that they called him “the Father Captain.”

He surrounded the village with a high stockade, with its sentry-boxes and towers for the sentinels who stood watch at night, by means of which they were safe from the continual ambushes of the enemy. He taught the Indians how to make sallies, to shoot, and to spy out those who were in ambush, and in fine carried himself as the most skilful captain. The [62]tyrant Cachil Corralat was very angry that a small village like Cagaiang should resist his power, and desired to finish it once for all. He launched his fleet of more than thirty caracoas manned by the best of his men and equipped with military supplies. The preparation of the enemy was learned, and the father prior sent to Caragha for some soldiers. Six soldiers and one hundred Indians came. A sudden alarm was sounded, to call in those who were distant in their fields. The enemy disembarked more than two thousand Moros in order to attack the village; but they found so stout resistance that they returned, fleeing in disgrace. All that gave great annoyance to Corralat, and he was grieved to his very soul that the [Father] Captain should be the one to check his boldness. Therefore, desirous of seizing him, Corralat ordered ambushes to be set, and took other means to secure his end.

That action was not kept hidden from the prudent father, who, caring for the guard of the village, also forbade the people at times to make sallies, that they might not fall into any of the many stratagems arranged by the enemy, notwithstanding that he had frightened them from the vicinity. Sometimes he sallied out on horseback, with unsheathed sword, trampling many under foot, and causing the rest to flee in terror. That military valor of father Fray Augustin is not to be wondered at; for there are many examples of priests in Holy Writ who fought like captains; and, in our España, many archbishops and bishops have performed great exploits, opposing themselves, clad in steel armor, in the field of battle to the barbarity of the enemies of the faith; and our religious opposed the Mahometans, because he was [63]defending those whom he had converted to the law of God.

The misfortune was, that the said father having gone out to visit his parishioners, the enemy—who were keeping close watch, and seeking the manner in which they might enter the village—obtained their opportunity in a certain part where the sentinels were careless; and, attacking the convent, they pillaged it of what they found. Father Fray Jacinto de Jesus Maria escaped, as by a miracle, through the midst of the swords which the barbarians raised against him, even he being quite careless inside his cell. The father prior grieved greatly over that blow; but, like the courageous man he was, he supplied the convent with furnishings and with what was most necessary for the fortification of the place.

At that time the father prior of Bayug, Fray Juan de San Nicolàs, was in Lavayan, whose inhabitants he was subduing with incredible labors; for they refused to build him a church or a house, or to supply him with food. He was supported by the fish caught by two Tagálog Indians, servants of his, while he himself was obliged to pound his rice and carry his wood. It was God’s pleasure to soften the hardness of those people, in a manner that appears ridiculous. I shall not hesitate to refer to it, so that the divine Providence may be seen even in what appears accidental.

Father Fray Juan de San Nicolàs fell sick of the fever, and found that he must be bled. That took place upon the occasion of a visit from an Indian chief. The latter was greatly surprised that the father allowed himself to be bled. He asked the cause for it, and the father told him that that was a [64]good medicine for fevers, and that the Spaniards were accustomed to its use. The Indian became quiet at that, but returned the next day to see the second bleeding. Then after several days he came with his hands to his head, and asked to be bled, as he felt sick. The father endeavored to dissuade him, but he insisted so much that the father had to order that he be bled. The barber, since the chief had refused to sell him a fowl for food, or anything else, thought to be revenged, and said that he would not bleed him unless he gave him a fowl or two pullets. The Indian had to give it to him, and although father Fray Juan laughed at the bargain, he was silent and overlooked it all, as he got some food. Other Indians fell sick, and were bled, paying for the bleeding in fowls. By that means the fathers, who were suffering from severe fevers, were able to cure themselves, God taking that means for the relief of his ministers, who had no relief in any other way. Thus the Indians became fond of them and many were baptized. Let us praise God in His infinite wisdom, since He can bring about the salvation of souls by so homely opportunities. Some curious things happened among those barbarous people, but we shall omit them in order not to enlarge this narration, and because those ministries were lost through the hidden judgments of God, and with them the fruit that could be expected.

[The remainder of the chapter does not touch Philippine matters. The sixth chapter is concerned with the life of Rodrigo de San Miguel or Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz (see Vol. XXI, p. 116, note 29, and p. 317, note 79). The four following chapters of the fourth decade treat of matters in Spain, [65]Spanish America, and Japan (where the Recollects also have their martyrs).]

“The latest news is that the enemy, the Dutch, have conquered Malaca with twenty-five ships, with which they surrounded it. Some slanderers say that the enemy could not have taken it had there not been traitors within who delivered it up—and I understand that it was known who they were, through letters by certain persons from Macazar who went to that city. This is the greatest loss that has been suffered in these parts. It is also said that by August next twenty-five ships will come here, and that they are to go to Manila; of this I am notifying the governor, that he may exercise vigilance. It is very necessary to strengthen the defenses of the fort at Hilohilo, and to garrison it with a hundred men, as it is there that the enemy goes first before sailing to Manila.” Thus writes the Governor of Terrenate. [117]

In regard to the fears that were prevalent, Father Antonio de Santa Maria, lecturer in theology and a trustworthy religious, wrote from Macan the following paragraph:

“During the month of August last it was said in M [blank space in original; probably “Macao that a”] grand mandarin of war, Yguan by name, intended to go to Manila to avenge the deaths of his countrymen. He was a notable pirate, but is now said to be a friend of the Dutch, though he formerly gave battle to them and sometimes burned their ships. He has with him a number of negroes, fugitives from Macan, who understand very well the management of firearms. It would not be a mistake to be on the lookout for them, and be supplied with provisions and munition, because the Dutch are very arrogant. In China they have lost their fear of the Spaniards; and Filipinas, when I left there, were without men or vessels. Thus it would be seen that this colony is actively threatened from all parts and has great reason for fear. With the insurrection and war of the Sangleys, and with the previous wars in Mindanao and Joló, the largest and best part of the troops were destroyed; and those who were left are occupied in many garrisons.” Here ends the quotation from the letter of Fray Antonio.

The three Dutch ships which, the governor of Terrenate wrote, had started for these islands about the eighth of April, arrived at the Embocadero and cape of Espiritu Santo on the twenty-seventh of said month; and thus far we know not whether they have [118]set out from there. On the other hand, daily advices come of the great vigilance with which they scour those waters in various parts, in order to seize the ships that are going or coming from Nueva España—for which purpose they have a patache which goes ten leguas to sea in the direction of the parallel of eleven and one-half degrees, which is the route by which the ships [from Nueva España] must come. They also have others, five or six lanchas or small boats, with which they run from place to place in order to give warning to the galleons that are in port. While this colony was in the distress that this emergency must cause, our Lord was pleased to bring the ship from Nueva España this year, miraculously, from among its enemies without their seeing it. It made port outside the Embocadero, at a place called Borongan, on the second of July this year; and on the nineteenth of the said month a Spaniard arrived in this city with a letter from a father of the Society, in which he announced that the ship had arrived that day. He said that it came with Don N. Pacheco as commander and that the commander who went from here had died; and that many of our religious were coming, and others of St. Augustine. Thus and thus writes the said father of the Society, because another had written it to him; it is now one week that we have been waiting for the packets and advices, and today, the twenty-sixth of July, we have no news of a soul that had been aboard the ship, nor even a letter from that place. Our perplexity begins anew, and some even doubt whether the ship has reached land. If it has arrived, God brings this city help, which will be a great defense for the future. And if on account of our sins it may not arrive, little [119]hope is entertained for aid if the enemy come; and much more is he to be feared should he ally himself with the Sangleys. May God prevent this, as He can.

“They say also that the following prodigies have occurred in the kingdom of China. In Pequin, where the court is, they say there was a dense darkness for the space of three days; cinders rained in other parts. The earth gushed forth blood, and a quantity of it was caught in vases. A bell in one of their temples rang of its own accord; and the rocks, when struck with blows, sounded like the beat of drums. Two or three towns, not many days’ journey from Macan, were swallowed up by the earth with their people and buildings. And even now in another town, not far from there, they say that serpents are coming out of the sea—very large and hideous, with horns—and with their assault they overthrow the buildings and houses, and slay the people; and that returning to the water they again come out, make a capture, and immediately return to the sea.”

Besides the above-mentioned news from Japon concerning our religious, the said father Fray Antonio, while drawing up authentic information on behalf of our order, writes in his letter the following paragraph:

“In the year 1637, they also say, there were in Japon some three or four religious of the Order of St. Francis who traveled through that country to the remotest regions of the kingdom on the far north, to a province of the said kingdom of Japan called [120]Canga.3 It is said that the emperor commanded that the tono, or petty king, of that province be notified that he should be most vigilant and careful that no Christian whatever should enter his lands; and that he responded to the emperor that quiet reigned in his territory, and that there was no necessity to treat his vassals harshly. This petty king, they say, is an uncle or relative of the true king of Japon, who has disappeared.4 This I saw in one of the relations written by the Portuguese there in Japon.”

I have just completed the official statements regarding our martyrs, and have finished transcribing them; two copies of them I send now, the other I will carry or send to your Lordship. The martyrs of whom this report is made are: Fray Luys Gomez, Fray Gabriel, Fray Juan Torrilla, Fray Gines de Quesada, and Fray Geronimo de la Cruz—who is that Japanese priest who, when I came from Spain, was in that church of the Japanese (in our war of Dilao5) at the side of, or a little behind the well. The holy Fray Luys Gomez is one of those who in former years were summoned by the emperor in order to question them about our holy faith; he was eighty-four years of age and had spent forty in Japon. [121]He died hanged in a cave, head down, with two Japanese helpers [dogicos], in company with Father Sebastian Viera, and four other native helpers of theirs. In the official account which the Society drew up about their father, our Fray Luys is also included. The holy Fray Gabriel de la Madalena, or Fonseca, after having suffered the torture of hot water was burned alive, in company with Fray Geronimo, a Japanese, in the little cottage of the latter, on the third of September, 1632; Fray Luis, on the sixth of June, 1634. Marvelous things, enough to fill a large book are related of Fray Gabriel. It is common knowledge that when he prayed he was many times raised above the ground, and that he often disappeared for a time from the eyes of those present. From various small herbs that he gathered he made medicines, with which he wrought miraculous cures. While he was being burned, they say, he rose in the air two cubits [codos], and while praying in the mountains this was an ordinary occurrence.

Besides the conversions in China and Japon, the Lord has revealed, through the medium of his servants the sons of our father Saint Francis, another and by no means small multitude of people who desire with all sincerity to receive holy baptism, and to attain the knowledge of the truth—regarding whom the governor of Terrenate already mentioned says, in the following paragraph taken from one of his letters: [122]

“Father Fray Juan Iranço,6 who is in Manados,7 states, in a letter which he has written to me, that there have been discovered more than fifty villages, large and small; that the people are numerous, for, counting men, women, and children, they number more than fifteen thousand. In this estimate he falls short, for the Spaniards who are there have told me that there are more than a hundred thousand souls, who desire to be Christians. In this connection I wrote to the governor last year, but his Lordship did not answer me in regard to this, nor about many things which I have written concerning the government. Reverend Father, for the love of God, agitate this with the governor, and send religious. The soil is fertile, the people are extremely industrious, of stout build, and white. Rice and other grains abound. I am now sending a champan with twelve Spaniards, and a religious of the order to accompany and aid Father Juan Iranço. The latter sent thirteen or fourteen Indian chiefs of Manados, in order that they might return to him as Christians; they were baptized in this convent of San Antonio, and are now returning in this champan. They made a great feast on the day when they were baptized, dressing [123]themselves with their shirts arranged after the Spanish fashion. All this, and the conversion of Manados and Tabuca, have been very fully described by father Fray Francisco Chavarria and the other religious who are here and in Manados and Tacuba, to whom I refer as being religious of exemplary life.”

This is a summary of the information from here, concerning the conversions as well as the state of these islands. May God our Lord dispose all things as best pleases Him, for His greater glory and for the good of all Christianity.

(Transcribed from the original letter in Ciudad de los Angeles [i.e., Puebla de los Angeles, in Mexico].)

All this country has been afflicted, not only by the great drouth that prevails—for there has been no rain for eight months, which occasions excessive heat; and the rice, the usual food in this country, cannot be sown, and a great famine is feared—but because four Dutch ships are in the passage through which comes the succor from Mexico, the soldiers, silver, and other supplies; and as news [of the galleon] did not come, some misfortune was feared. But on the thirteenth of July God was pleased that it should make port in safety, leaving the Dutchmen hoaxed; it did not arrive at the port of Cavite, but at another, at a distance of three days’ journey by land, and it could not reach Cavite until September. With the ship came the news of the revolutions in Portugal and Cataluña, a very unfortunate and dangerous affair. The Portuguese who were here from Macan went to the governor, and on the part of that city rendered anew obedience to King Filipo [124]Fourth (whom may God preserve). They declared that in no event would they accept the Portuguese revolt, and that, in case India joined the said rebellion, they would always desire to remain under the protection of Castilla; and documents to this effect were drawn up in due form. May God be pleased to quiet those great tumults, and give peace to Christian people!

The usual enemy from Mindanao, Burney, Jolo, and Camucon, did not inflict any damage on the islands this year, because they did not sally out in force; but much trouble is feared for the coming year, on which account negotiations for peace are being conducted with the Mindanaos. For, although we have four forts in that island, it is so large that its people go out to plunder without our being able to stop them entirely. Joló is now at peace, for which much aid was rendered by Father Francisco Colin, provincial of the Society, who went to visit those islands; but I do not know whether the peace will last. The Christian villages of Mindanao and Jolo are very gradually being brought to a peaceable condition; and as those people are devoted Moors [i.e., Mahometans], the gospel makes little headway among them. Nevertheless, there are some conversions all the time; and at least the children will be good Christians. [Here follow reports of the news from the other countries named in the title.] This is a summary of the matters of which I have present information. Manila, July 25, 1642.8 [125]

This is properly a picture or hieroglyph of the events in Manila, the chief city and court of the Filipinas Islands, in the course of the years which have elapsed since that of 33, when ashes rained upon and hunger tormented that city; since 38–39, when occurred the losses and wrecks of the vessels which sailed to and from Nueva España, and the insurrection of the Sangleys in Manila and its environs; [214]since 40, when there were eruptions of volcanoes, and thunders were heard in the air, with the sounds of cannon and instruments of war, as at the time was stated; since 41, when the Dutch enemy, having been disengaged from the capture of Malaca (in Eastern India) appeared with a powerful fleet off the cape of Espiritu Santo3 and the coasts of these islands; since 42, when they seized the island of Hermosa; and since 43–44, when they were continually sending out squadrons of vessels, both large and small—the former going to the Embocadero and Cape Espiritu Santo to await the ships that carried our relief, and the latter stationed on the coasts of Ilocos and Pangasinán to intercept the passage, and pillage the vessels which were wont to come from China to trade with these islands.

Such was the condition of the islands at the end of June in 44, when Señor Don Diego Faxardo, knight of the Order of Santiago and member of his Majesty’s Council of War, who had been sent as their proprietary governor landed on the extreme point of this island of Manila after a difficult and long voyage, due either to the early beginning of the vendavals, or to having sailed late from Acapulco. He found the islands deficient in naval strength, since the few ships there were had been sent to Terrenate to oppose the threatened invasion of the enemy that [215]year. About the middle of August his Lordship made his entrance into Manila and took possession of the government; and early in September he despatched the galleons “Encarnacion” and “Rosario,”—which were waiting equipped and ready to sail—to Nueva España. At the end of October, reënforcements were sent to Terrenate and other provinces. As early as April, 45, the Dutch enemy had three small round vessels and as many others (or rather champans) off the coasts of Ilocos and Pangasinan for the aforesaid purpose. At that time there was neither a ship nor a galley in Cavite which could be armed to oppose the enemy, and therefore only champans and oared vessels were sent out, under command of Captain Sebastian Lopez (a man whose valor, spirit, and ability will be hereafter related; he had come with the governor as captain of infantry), and of other captains and leaders—all picked officers of this camp, and men so courageous that, although their fleet was so inferior to that of the enemy, they were enabled to frustrate the designs of the Dutch and save the Chinese merchantmen. On two different occasions they engaged the champans of the enemy, three to three, with such valor and good fortune that both times the enemy was ignominiously routed with great loss of men; one of their champans being burnt and the others destroyed, while our losses were but few. This was a happy beginning and augury of the victories and brilliant successes of our arms on the sea, although an expensive and dangerous expedition, as it obliged the enemy, on the following year, to bring all his forces against the islands, as will be hereafter related, at the proper [216]time, when an account is given of the melancholy and disastrous calamities with which it pleased our Lord to visit us on land.

In July the two galleons, “Encarnacion” and “Rosario,” arrived at the port of Lampon, on the coast opposite Manila, with abundance of aid from Nueva España, carefully provided by his Majesty (whom God preserve) on account of the information received by his royal Council regarding the reënforcements that were going from Olanda against these islands. With these galleons came his Lordship Don Fernando Montero de Espinosa, bishop of Nueva Segovia and archbishop-elect of Manila; he was a prelate of promise and ability, as is known to the [Spanish] court. Heaven did not will that Manila should enjoy his presence, or merit seeing him alive, but only when he was dead; for even while all the people were preparing a magnificent reception for him, with suitable festivities and rejoicings, they were called upon for tears and mourning in solemnizing his funeral rites. His illustrious Lordship reached the port with poor health. The land-routes which they had to take in traveling from Lampon to the lake [of Bay] and the river of Manila are very rough and steep, without any convenience or comfort of inns. His illustrious Lordship, by making the journey easier for others through his charity, traveled through those mountains so destitute of comforts that on the same day when he reached the lake he became seriously ill. He would not allow them to bleed him, and on that very night he was attacked by a hemorrhage of blood, so abundant that it caused [217]his death. On the morning of the next day, a crowd of handsomely adorned boats awaited him at the mouth of the Manila [i.e., Pasig] River; they looked like a garden of flowers, and contained musicians who played their instruments together. But they received his venerated body, with the trappings of grief, and with mournful lamentations.

This event was for Manila an omen of punishments, which were not long delayed. On the thirtieth of November, the day of St. Andrew, the patron of this city, there occurred the most lamentable and disastrous earthquake that has been known on these islands since the Spanish conquest and occupation. Manila, when it was first founded, was composed of wooden houses covered with thatch of palm leaves, which are used by the natives in their buildings; this [inflammable material] had resulted in many fires which in several years and on various occasions had burned and consumed the wealth of Manila. In order to provide against these disasters from fire, the Spaniards commenced to build their houses of stone and tiles, without any pressing fear of the earthquakes—which, although they usually occur here every year, have not [before] caused destruction [which could arouse much] apprehension. Accordingly, during the forty years, more or less, that have elapsed since the last fire, beautiful edifices were erected, and dwellings were built so high and spacious that they seemed like palaces. Magnificent temples, with stately and beautiful towers were erected within and without the walls of Manila, rendering it very handsome and distinguished; and [218]it was not less suitable for health and enjoyment. But the result has proved that the inhabitants of Manila, while avoiding in their buildings the activity of fire, fell into the terrible power of the earth.

On the aforementioned day of the apostle St. Andrew, patron of this city—[chosen] on account of the victory gained on that day by the early conquerors and settlers over the pirate Limahon, who with sixty Chinese vessels had attacked Manila, and would have gained possession of the city if, through the intercession of the holy apostle, a few Spaniards who had retired to the fort had not returned to the defense of the city—on the anniversary of this day, then, it pleased God again to deprive us of the city, on account of our sins. The banner had been brought forth4 in the morning, and the divine services celebrated with the customary pomp, and attendance and presence of the governor, Audiencia, and regidors. In the evening, at eight o’clock, they had just finished ringing the animas in the cathedral, the parish churches, and the convents; the sky was clear, the moon bright, and the air calm and still, after a long period, even months, of clear and dry weather. Suddenly a frightful crash was heard, and the earth began to quake so violently that it seemed as if it would become a sepulchre for all the inhabitants. As a result, during the space of four Credos—the time during which the first shock lasted, the earthquake passing from north to south, and then from east to west, with a rapid movement—in that brief time it flung to the ground the most beautiful [219]and magnificent buildings in this city. The stone walls were shaken and bent like sheets of paper or parchment fluttered by the wind; the towers swayed and bent like trees; and the largest trees [broke] like the masts of a ship in the midst of a fierce hurricane. Nothing was heard but the crash of buildings mingled with the clamor of voices entreating Heaven for mercy, the cries of the terrified animals adding to the horror. In the streets could only be seen the heaps of stone from the ruined houses, which hindered the flight of those who in frightened haste were leaving their homes. At the first shock of the earthquake, which filled all with fear, some tried to save their lives in the open spaces of their doors and windows; but this effort availed nothing to many, for the houses falling flat, buried them under the stones and timbers. Others sought to take refuge in the churches; but as many of these had fallen, and others were in a dangerous condition, they could not find a refuge there. Accordingly, all who could directed their flight to the plazas, and, the gates of the city being at once opened, they fled to the beach and the fields, where they whom the earth cast out might look toward the heavens.

Charity animated by religious zeal was at once displayed by the prebends, canons, and members of the [cathedral] chapter, and, following their example, by all the clergy; and by the religious of the four orders—Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans (those of the Society of Jesus), and the Augustinian Recollects—who flourish in these islands in holiness and in zeal for the saving of souls. All, vying with each other in good works, went about amid the greatest danger, risking their lives in the [220]ruins of the fallen houses, which were left broken and torn apart from each other, to disinter the dead, and to save the lives of those who were holding off death for a little time or lengthening their span of life in the clear space made by some timbers—which now were their defense, but soon would be the coffin or tomb of the very bodies which before they protected. Had this religious solicitude been wanting, the injured would also have failed to receive the last absolution, the remedy for the greatest sinners, since contrition is so uncertain, and in such dangers so difficult.

While engaged in this labor the religious experienced no little pain, although mingled with consolation, in hearing from the ruins voices entreating them to hear confessions. The sufferers were consoled by the religious, who exhorted them to [show their] sorrow for their sins by fervent acts of contrition; for these absolution was given to them, as is done on the battle-field or in a storm at sea. Thus all the religious incurred so great danger that no one felt himself secure; for the shocks did not cease, although they were less severe than at first. They were accompanied by so loud a crash that its noise could be heard, even before the quaking of the earth, far away—as when, in Spain, there is a hail-storm.

The night was everywhere very clear, as the moon was full; and for the sufferers night shone brighter than the day, for God greatly illumined their souls, and revealed the sins that had brought upon them this punishment. Even the children incapable of sin fell on their knees and begged to confess; nor was there any person so stony-hearted, although so many were made homeless by God, that he was not softened [221]and turned to Him. A Franciscan-religious carried the blessed sacrament from the convent of Santa Clara to the main plaza, where a great many people had gathered; so loud were the sobs, cries, and groans of the people that it seemed like a day of judgment. Some bemoaned their children who remained buried in the ruins; others, their parents and relatives. For some, there was no one to weep, since the entire family had perished. We all lamented our sins, as a punishment for which this calamity had befallen us.

In the first shock one hundred and fifty of the finest buildings, which in other cities would be called palaces, were totally destroyed; all the other houses were so damaged and dangerous that it has been necessary to demolish them completely. It may be said with truth that only a semblance of Manila remains. There has been no means of ascertaining the actual number of the dead; those known to be missing are four hundred and fifty, and the number would have been greater if the earthquake had occurred two hours later when all would have been sleeping.

This is a general account; and we will now proceed to make some special mention of the ruins.

The building of the palace and royal Audiencia was mostly overthrown; and the governor, Don Diego Faxardo, who at the time had retired to his apartments, was in danger of being buried in the ruins. But it pleased the Lord that he escaped, without injury, to the Plaza de Armas, where a field-tent was set up for him, in which he lived for several [222]months, until a suitable dwelling of wood was built for him. The greater part of the royal chapel also fell, and what remained was in so bad condition that it will be necessary to build it practically anew. The cathedral was totally destroyed; tower, roofs, chapels, and even the foundations, were overthrown. The hospital for the Spaniards was ruined, but no one was killed; for to those who were very ill, and unable to move their bodies, necessity gave swift feet to carry them to a place of safety. The seminary of Santa Potenciana, which is a refuge for orphan girls and the wives of deserving men who are absent, was greatly damaged; one wing fell, and carried down many girls, eight being killed, and thirty wounded. At the seminary of La Misericordia, which also is a refuge for girls, the house was not much damaged; but the church, which was handsome and elegant, was so injured that a great part of it has been pulled down, in order to rebuild it. Outside of the city walls, the parish church of Santiago and its tower were overthrown; and an Indian, who was ringing the animas, said that a cavalier told him that he would save him; and the Indian was actually found lying on the ground, without any injury. It seems a miracle, although it can be easily understood that the great St. James, whose church that was, rewarded the good deed of ringing the animas by saving the Indian. The churches of Nuestra Señora de Guia and San Antonio were rendered unserviceable. The Order of St. Dominic lost its convent and church, and a great part of the college of Santo Tomas; but neither the religious nor the students were injured. Another building, that of the seminary called San Juan de Letran—for orphan boys, [223]who are under instruction by the fathers of that order—fell to the ground; and it was through the providence of the Lord that all the boys, more than one hundred and twenty in number, escaped alive. The church of the fathers of St. Francis was badly shaken, and the walls surrounding the convent were ruined, as well as a hospital for the mulattoes, in which some perished. It was necessary to remove the nuns from the convent of Santa Clara and shelter them in the orchards belonging to the house of a gentleman, who piously lent that place so that they might sojourn there with the satisfaction and propriety of their own cloister. The order that suffered least was that of the fathers of St. Augustine, although their convent was considerably shaken, and the church tower fell. The Recollect fathers of the same saint were not so fortunate; a great portion of their convent and church fell, killing a religious who was a faithful servant of God and thus regarded by all. The Society of Jesus did not fare the worst: the class-rooms for arts and theology (which was an old building) fell, and a part of the main structure in the new building, which is very handsome and costly. The church, although it is the tallest in Manila, stood firm—except that the tiles fell from the cupola. At the college of San Joseph (which is in charge of the same order) one wing fell down, and was entirely demolished; and the rest of the building was badly shaken, especially an elegant chapel which was adorned by pictures of the twelve apostles. Not one of these pictures was thrown down by the earthquake, except that of St. Andrew, in token that on his day his church and even the city were destroyed.

Outside of Manila and within its district many [224]churches, and convents of different orders which ministered to the natives, were ruined. Notable among these was the church in the village of San Miguel, administered by the fathers of the Society; both church and house were totally ruined. In the house, at the time, were Father Francisco de Roa, the provincial, and Father Juan de Salazar, who had been provincial six years before. Father Francisco de Roa was buried up to his shoulders in the ruins, from which he was rescued badly injured. Father Juan de Salazar lost this earthly life, but gained the divine life of heaven, which he had already imitated on earth; he was removed, mortally injured, from the ruins, but there was time to absolve him and administer the sacrament of extreme unction; he expired shortly afterward, with the peace of spirit which his great purity of conscience had secured him. Also near Manila, in the village of Minondoc, in charge of the fathers of St. Dominic, their magnificent church, the erection of which had been completed a few years before, was overthrown; the convent of San Francisco del Monte, and its church, which belongs to the religious of St. Francis, were destroyed; and the convent of Santa Ana was so much damaged as to be uninhabitable. A great many handsome and delightful houses for recreation, on the banks of the river, were also destroyed. It may be said, in a word, that the whole of Manila was destroyed; for neither within nor without the city was there a building which did not need a great deal of repair to make it habitable. [225]

All this occurred in that night; at dawn on the following morning, most of the people left the city and took shelter in the suburbs, [even] in the humblest huts of the Indians, which are built of bamboo and nipa. Others built huts in the plazas and on the beach, to which they came as exiles from their own houses and native land, yet in sight of it.

Surrounded, as we are, by so many thousands of infidels, the fact that no lawless acts occurred was due to the foresight and care of Don Diego Faxardo, governor of the islands. He ordered the sargento-mayor and commander of the troops, Manuel Estacio Venegas (who is at present the officer nearest to the government, and with faithfulness and care puts into execution its official acts and those belonging to the military department), to man the walls; and that the cavaliers should be occupied by the infantry companies and the inhabitants, which was done. Troops were also sent outside of the city, and detachments were formed to protect those who had left it and taken shelter in the suburbs.

Processions and public prayers then followed, and all were accompanied with as many acts of penitence as in Holy Week; many confessed, and few contented themselves with what had occurred since their last confession, but confessed the sins of a lifetime. To this end the religious hastened through the fields, the beach and the plazas, and were untiring in the labors of their ministries; they preached penitence to those who did not need many arguments to move them to comply. The dead were buried by the [226]dozen; every one prayed to God for mercy, and entreated that He would withhold His scourge.

On the fifth of December, five days after the first shock of earthquake, another one occurred as violent as the first, at eleven o’clock at night, but no fatality occurred, as all were prepared; the destruction of many other buildings was completed; and the city was left in such condition that one could not walk through it. The effects of these shocks were terrible, also, in other provinces of these islands. Whole Indian villages were overthrown, as their huts are built of so light materials, bamboos and palm-leaves; and hills were leveled. Rivers were dried, which afterward flowed again; others, leaving their beds, inundated the villages; great fissures, and even chasms, appeared in the open fields. In the Manila River the disturbance and commotion in its waves was so great that it seemed as if they would flood all the country; for their fury urged the river from its bed, and its waters flowed over the bridge.5

The anxiety and disquiet in the country continued throughout the year, until the corresponding moon,6 which was in December, 1646; in that month, and in the forty days, succeeding, the shocks, disturbance, and quaking were lessened, giving to philosophers abundant material for discussing natural causes, and to theologians and preachers cause for revering the divine judgments and exhorting sinners to contrition [227]and repentance. Great changes have taken place in lives and morals; the important thing is, that these shall endure.7

In this unfortunate condition had God placed Manila, when the infernal dragon again brought his power to bear against her from the direction of the sea. The heretic Dutchman was piqued and even enraged that, after so many years and so much expenditure, he had not secured any of the relief ships from Nueva España. He was also angry at the little reputation that he had gained in the battle between the champans in the preceding year; and at the little advantage that he had obtained from the attempt against the fort of Jolo, as will soon be told. Accordingly, to obtain satisfaction for these debts, they determined, in the great council of their Nueva Batavia (which we call Jacatrâ) to make, this year, a last attack upon these islands. For this purpose (according to advices from Macaçar) they equipped eighteen vessels and divided them into several squadrons. The first, of five ships, was for the coasts of Pangasinan and Ilocos, against Chinese vessels; the second, of seven vessels (their most powerful ships, the sinews of their [naval] power), went to the Embocadero, to seize the money and supplies [228]that were expected from Nueva España; the other six were despatched to cut off our relief ships to Terrenate and Macaçar, and finally they were to go, after the monsoon, to rejoin the twelve ships in this bay of Manila, in an attack upon the city. This, according to report, was their plan, and therein Manila has much for which to thank God; for it was a scheme of Heaven for our benefit, that these squadrons should come to us separately.

The news of the first squadron arrived on the first day of February. The two galleons, “Encarnacion” and “Rosario,” which had brought the succor from Nueva España, were already at Cabite; for with especial forethought and vigilance orders had been given them to stop unlading the silver that they carried, and to come to that port. Although it seemed an act of temerity for two ships to oppose so many, his Lordship—urged on by his great valor and resolution in these matters of war—after a conference and council which he summoned for this purpose, decided that the two galleons should make ready for battle. In the flagship (which was the “Encarnacion”) were mounted thirty-four pieces of artillery, all of bronze and of the reënforced8 class, which variously carried balls of thirty, twenty-five, and eighteen pounds. The almiranta (which was the “Rosario”) was equipped with as many as thirty pieces, of the same capacity—although, on account of the deficiency in this sort of artillery, it was necessary to dismantle some posts in the fortifications of [229]this city and of Cavite. Munitions and supplies of every kind with devices for carrying fire, and other necessary articles, were furnished to them in abundance. These two ships were supplied with men—in each, two companies of a hundred soldiers (all picked men, of the nobility and youth of Manila), eighty mariners, artillerists according to the number of cannon, and a suitable number of deck-hands and other servants, making, in all, over four hundred persons on each galleon. As commander-in-chief his Lordship appointed General Lorenzo de Orella y Ugalde, a Biscayan, under whose charge the vessels had sailed from Acapulco; this choice was made, not only because of his proved bravery, his experience in the art of war, and his services and commands in both the Northern and the Southern Seas, as well as in these islands (particularly in Mindanao, where he fought hand to hand with a gigantic Moro and killed him), but because of his well-known Christian spirit and modesty—which, for success, are no less important than valor. Captain Sebastian Lopez, an Andalusian, was appointed admiral, with the right of succession to the commander. This post was due him because he had distinguished himself, the previous year, in the fight with champans, against these same Dutch, of which I have already spoken. The post of sargento-mayor was given to Don Agustin de Cepeda, a cavalier of nobility and acknowledged courage—displayed in the most difficult and honorable posts of these islands. The heads of the infantry companies were: on the flagships, Captains Juan Henriquez de Miranda and Gaspar Cordoso; on the almiranta, Captains Juan Martinez Capelo, and Don Gabriel Miño [230]de Guzman. The chief pilots were Captains Domingo Machado and Estevan Ramos; their associates were Francisco Romero and Andres Cordero—all persons of courage, bravery, experience in their craft, and resolution, as the result will show.

For spiritual aid and ministry to all this armada—which, since the galleons were named “Encarnacion” and “Rosario,” went forth under the protection of our Lady the Virgin Mary—his Lordship accepted on this occasion the offer of chaplains and ministers which was made to him by the order of the glorious patriarch St. Dominic. Accordingly four religious (who were priests) were assigned to this post and embarked on the ships, two in the flagship and two in the almiranta. As a result of the excellent teaching and the fervor of these fathers, arrangements were made that all the men should, in the first place, purify their consciences with the holy sacraments of penance and communion; that they should take as their special patron saint the Virgin of the Rosary; that, in order to bind her further, they should vow to her a feast-day in thanksgiving for the victories which they expected to receive through her agency; and that every day all should recite prayers aloud, on their knees, and in two choirs—the prayers of the rosary before our Lady’s image, the litanies of the most holy name of Mary, and finally an act of contrition. All this was done, accordingly, throughout the period of six months while this expedition lasted—especially on the days and occasions when they had to fight.

Matters thus arranged, and all preparations made that were required for both their spiritual and corporal needs, on the third of March in the year 646, [231]before the galleons raised the last anchor, the governor, Don Diego Faxardo, came in a falua to the ships. He made a set speech to the men, reminding them of their obligations and the reputation of the Spanish arms; and he promised them, beforehand, the reward of their deeds which in the name of his Majesty (whom God protect) he had recently offered them. He expressed his regret that he could not embark with them, and courteously took his leave; and acknowledged the “Pleasant voyage!” with which he was saluted, according to marine usage. Then the ships immediately weighed their anchors and set sail. At the same time, by a special order which his Lordship had left behind, the blessed sacrament was exposed in the royal military chapel, and in other churches of this city—a devotion which was continued during the entire period while the galleons were out.

On arriving at the entrances of Mariveles, the ships were placed in battle array, the artillery loaded, the matches lighted and the linstocks ready, the rigging free, and other preparations made. This was done because the sentinels [on Mariveles Island] warned our men that the enemy were, with their squadron, not far from that place, in the port of Anus; and that they might expect at any moment to encounter the Dutch—although in fact the latter were not descried until the fifteenth of the said month of March. At nine o’clock in the morning of that day, our almiranta—which had pushed ahead of the flagship perhaps half a legua, and was sailing with a northwest wind—fired two cannon-shots and [232]lowered the maintop-sail as a signal that it descried the enemy. The flagship put about, and followed her, and from the maintop they soon saw a sail in the distance, but it was impossible to overtake it; and it soon disappeared, because it was favored by a fresher wind than our ships had. After that, our galleons were left becalmed until one o’clock; and at that hour were descried from the flagship four hostile sails, which were sailing toward her aft, with an east wind. It was two hours before they reached the flagship, and in that space of time the men were stationed, the ships cleared, the posts reconnoitered, and all other arrangements made, both spiritual and temporal, required by the occasion. The almiranta fell two ship-lengths astern of the flagship, and in this position the ships awaited the enemy, in order to fight them. As soon as the enemy came near, they extended all their ships, and, without attempting to give a broadside to our flagship, passed, in line, to larboard, and the enemy’s flagship began the battle by firing a cannon. Our commander immediately commanded that response be made with two shots—one with a thirty-pound ball and a cylinder of the same weight, which tore open all their cutwater at the bow; the enemy’s ship went on in this condition, and the others continued to exchange shots with our flagship. Recognizing their own strength, the enemy tried to approach the almiranta, which they supposed was not so well armed, being a smaller ship. But they were received with equal valor and spirit on our side, our vessels firing so often and throwing so many balls that they could not be counted. The fight lasted about five hours, and the mortality and damage were so great that all the [233]anxiety that the heretics had felt to reach our ships when they thought to conquer us was now directed to separating themselves from us. They anxiously awaited the night, which was now approaching, to make their cowardly escape, which they did with lights extinguished. But the enemy’s almiranta did not succeed in doing this in safety. It had been the most persistent in the attack upon our flagship, and remained to our leeward; it was so badly damaged that its cannon could not be fired, and hardly could it flee. Our ship was so near it that our commander had the men ready at the bow to board the Dutch ship; but the darkness of night forced us to abandon the chase, on account of the danger from the shoals which the pilots declared were in that place.

It was noticed that the enemy did not use lanterns as they had formerly done, seeking protection for their armada. Our commander ordered that they be used in our ships, and that the lights be allowed to shine very brightly, in order that the enemy might come to look for us. Our people fully intended to renew the pursuit at daybreak, to finish their defeat; but when day came our two galleons found themselves alone, and did not know what course the enemy had taken. They followed the Dutch, in the direction which they thought most probable, as far as Cape Bojeador, which is at the farthest end of this island of Manila. From there our ships returned, as the coasts were now secure, to the port of Bolinao, in order to send to this city despatches announcing the result of the battle. This was regarded as a brilliant victory, not only because of the disparity in the number of ships, but because of the little damage our side had sustained. In that battle not a man was [234]killed, and comparatively few were wounded. It was evident that the enemy’s loss was great, although we could not then ascertain it correctly; but afterwards we learned that many had been killed and wounded, and that two of their vessels were rendered useless.

Our squadron took some rest at the port of Bolinao, and while there it received orders to sail to the Embocadero and there await and escort the galleon “San Luis,” which was expected from Nueva España. Our ships set sail, and, after encountering many calms and head-winds, made port on the first of June, in the island of Ticao,9 within sight of the Embocadero.

About this time news came to this city from the forts at Samboanga, that the enemy with ten vessels, was at that place, and it was known that they came intending to attack again the fort at Jolò, which, the previous year, they had attacked with three vessels, at the instigation and with the aid of some native insurgents. It was gallantly defended by its governor, Captain and Sargento-mayor Estevan de Ugalde y Orella (a brother of our commander-in-chief), who with the aid and succor that came to him from the forts of Samboanga under command of the governor there, Don Francisco de Atienza y Ibañes, compelled the Dutch to raise the siege, and to retreat as fugitives to their ships—our people pursuing them until they drove out the Dutch from that country [235]and sea. For that reason the enemy returned this year with three times as great a force; but their plans were frustrated, because at that very time orders had been sent to withdraw honorably that garrison, for pressing reasons of convenience which existed therefor, in regard to his Majesty’s service. Seeing, therefore, that they had nothing to do in Jolo, and that in Samboanga our forces gave them as little opportunity to accomplish anything of importance, they undertook to push forward the completion of the other projects which they were engaged in by orders from Jacatra. As the chief of these was the one regarding the Embocadero, they made their appearance there on the twenty-second of June, when one of our sentinels reported seven ships, which were heading toward the port in which our two galleons were anchored. With gallant resolution, our commander immediately gave orders to weigh anchor and go out to meet them; but afterward, when he complied with the obligation resting on the general commanders of fleets and armies, which is on such occasions to hold a council, it was decided therein that it would be more proper to let the enemy waste [their powder], and not to engage in battle with them until the galleon should arrive from Nueva España with succor, for which they were waiting, or until it should make some other port in safety. The port in which the ships were anchored lies open to the sea, in the form of a semicircle, and is entered by a passage through which vessels can go only one after another; and this entrance was guarded by our two galleons, to prevent the heretics from entering. On the twenty-third of the said month of June, the enemy descried us with [236]two of their ships, and fired a gun to summon the others. Our ships returned the fire with two guns, to show that it was not cowardice, but design and strategy, which made our galleons remain at anchor. On the following day, the arrogance of the enemy brought them nearer, and they very haughtily sailed in view of our two ships. The squadron was composed of seven vessels, and sixteen lanchas with their crews; they sailed down the coast of the Embocadero, and then, returning, anchored at the very mouth of our port, blockading it with their ships, stationed at convenient intervals along the entire bar, so that we could not leave the harbor. On one side of it the land formed an eminence, which, if seized by the enemy, might cause great damage to our vessels. This fact was not overlooked by the attention and vigilance of our commander; and he immediately sent ashore a hundred and fifty infantrymen, under command of Sargento-mayor Don Agustin de Zepeda, and Captain Gaspar Cardoso as his subordinate, to fortify that point. This was done at once, and was a very important measure; for at ten o’clock at night the enemy sent four armed lanchas to that point to reconnoiter the port. Our soldiers, who were cautious, but vigilant, allowed them to approach within gun-shot, until they were embarrassed by [the approach to] land, and gave them a volley, which caused them to retreat hurriedly, with the loss of several men who were killed. Every day, not once but often, these lanchas sallied out to reconnoiter us—their ten challenging our two vessels, which always went out against them, and always remained victorious, because, as soon as they saw our vessels approach, they always retreated [237]toward their own ships. If our vessels pursued them, one of their ships would come forward to protect the lanchas. Thirty-one days passed in these manœuvers. One day, our lanchas having sailed out, as usual, to reconnoiter, our people saw the heads of some men who were swimming from the enemy’s ships to ours. At first it was feared that they were daring Dutchmen bent upon burning our galleons; but soon all doubt was over, for it was found that they were a negro and four of our Indians whom the enemy had captured and who were coming as fugitives to gain their freedom. They were taken aboard the flagship, where the negro was known; he gave a very clear account of the plans of Antonio Camb, who, as he said, was the commander of the Dutch fleet. He also said that other squadrons were coming to join this one in raids on these islands; that this one had brought from Jacatrá eight hundred Dutch soldiers; and that the said Dutch commander had promised to carry back to his governor the relief ship which was coming from Nueva España. He said that among the seven vessels two, which were the smallest, were fireships; that the flagship was as large as ours, or larger; that it carried forty-six pieces of excellent artillery; and, as for the other vessels, the smallest carried thirty cannon, and already they considered us as their booty.

This information was of no little importance, and threw light upon what should be done. On the twenty-first of July our commander, considering that it was now time for the ship “San Luis,” which was expected from Nueva España, to have made port in some one of the many harbors that these islands contain, decided to set sail at dawn on the [238]twenty-fifth, the day of the glorious apostle Santiago [i.e., St. James], to cannonade the enemy in the midst of his fleet, and to challenge him to battle. In order to do this without the enemy knowing his intention beforehand, he gave orders two days previously that the anchors should be gradually raised, so that on the eve of St. James’s day each galleon should remain held by one anchor only. These arrangements having been made, the enemy, who also must have thought that it was getting late, fired a salute on the same day of St. James’s eve—the flagship firing five cannon, and the almiranta, and the vice-admiral’s ship, each two guns. The squadron weighed anchor and took the route for Manila.

Our commander was much grieved that his plans should be frustrated by the enemy, and gallantly set out in pursuit of them, determined to force them to fight, wherever he might encounter them. He regarded himself as fortunate when, on the twenty-eighth of July, he sighted two of the seven [Dutch] vessels above mentioned. When they recognized our galleons, like cowards they backed toward the land, in search of the five ships which were out of sight. During the rest of the day, and all night, our ships continued to approach them; and at daybreak on the twenty-ninth we discovered all seven of their ships together, who were coming from the windward side to look for us. At midday they halted, and again they tacked in another direction, until five o’clock in the afternoon—when our commander, unable to endure such delay, challenged them to battle by firing a cannon.

Apparently they did not wish to fight by day, but thought the night more suitable for their design, [239]which was to send their two fireships against our galleons. At that time, the nights were very clear and calm, and the moon shone brightly. They waited, then, until sunset; and about seven o’clock, between Banton and Marinduque, they came down with an east wind ahead of our flagship, and surrounded it, the fearful multitude of their artillery filling it [with balls]. Our flagship also did its duty, responding to them as they deserved. Our almiranta followed in its wake firing the artillery at its prow, and inflicting much damage on the ships that were fighting astern of our flagship. The enemy’s flagship came up with ours, to the sound of loud clarions and trumpets, and well garnished with lanterns of various sizes, all lighted. Its sails were so trimmed as to let it go no faster than our flagship, as arrogantly as if they had already conquered us. It came so near that our men heard distinctly the noise made when our ball hit the side of the enemy’s ship. From both sides there was an incessant fire of both artillery and musketry, from the maintops, forecastles, and poops. In both the Dutch and the Spanish ships were seen heaps of cannon-balls, cylinders, and palanquins,10 which caused great destruction of masts, yards, and rigging, and even damaged the sides of the vessels. The battle went on, as keenly and fiercely as might be expected from our persistent valor and the great strength of the enemy. At the height of the battle our flagship, undertaking to bear down upon two ships that were hard pressed, found itself entangled with their almiranta, and this was the greatest danger that had arisen, on account of the ease with which the enemy could then work [240]havoc among our men. The brave mariners came to the rescue, cutting the ropes and separating the galleons, with great courage and promptness. Meanwhile, our artillery and musketry kept up an incessant fire on the enemy’s sides, which were unprotected—displaying as much dexterity and order in their firing as they could have done if the galleons were apart. It pleased God, through the agency of His glorious mother, that the ships should quickly separate. Then one of their fireships approached our flagship; but our artillery checked this rash boldness, hurling at the fireship terrible volleys on the starboard quarter until it came under the stern-gallery of our flagship. Then our commander gave orders to attack it with the stern-chasers, which pierced the enemy from side to side, and with such volleys of musketry that the heretics became demoralized and retired toward our almiranta, which received the fireship with a volley from ten guns at once, so opportunely that its destruction was completed; for its fireworks being thus kindled, it was sent to the bottom. Soon came the lancha from our flagship—which our commander, with military foresight, had equipped with musketeers and seamen, to hinder the fireships—and picked up a Dutchman, the only one left alive. This man informed us of the enemy’s plans, and of their signals, and said that they had another fireship—his statements entirely agreeing with those of the captives already mentioned. This fierce and stubborn battle lasted from seven o’clock in the evening until daybreak, without the loss of a single man on our flagship, and only two wounded; the almiranta did not lose over five men killed. This must be one [241]of the most unusual records known in naval warfare; it was a favor, evident beyond doubt, from God and His mother, who protect the Catholic power in these islands, on account of its importance to the propagation of His holy faith. The damage sustained by the heretics was well understood from the care with which they began to retreat as soon as daylight came. The whole day was spent by both sides in cleaning and repairing their vessels; but the enemy continued to retreat. Although our commander gave orders to summon them again to battle, by discharging a gun, and began to bear down upon them, they made no reply.

Two days afterwards, on July 31—a day consecrated to the glorious patriarch St. Ignatius de Loyala, founder of the Society of Jesus—our commander trusting to the fact that the saint was his countryman and patron, besought him, with ardent faith, to further, as a matter of justice, the accomplishment of the hopes which we based upon his patronage. Finding that he was sailing with a north wind, to windward of the enemy, our commander, with eager courage, ordered all sails to be spread, and started in pursuit of the enemy; he soon overtook the Dutch ships between the island of Maesse de Campo11 and Mindoro, At two o’clock on the same day, he courageously forced our two galleons among the six vessels of the enemy, and another horrible battle was fought. The artillery was all fired as often and as skilfully as musketry could have been used. The enemy attacked our [242]almiranta, but it defended itself and assailed the enemy so bravely that it inspired fear and astonishment. Our flagship was so veritable a volcano that no vessel dared to give her a broadside. The enemy’s flagship attempted to do so, but was so badly damaged that it had to retreat, setting more than twenty men to work the pumps; but, finding it impossible to keep afloat, they raised a piece of canvas in our sight, a sign that she was in great danger of sinking. Throughout the afternoon the fight continued with the same obstinacy and vigor, with the determination on our part not to stop until we should reduce the enemy’s ships to splinters, or send them to the bottom. The heretics made their last effort by attempting to send close to our flagship their second fireship, which was large enough to carry thirty cannon; it was escorted by two other ships and towed by some lanchas. Our commander, as one so experienced in military affairs, ordered the musketeers to fire on the men who were directing the lanchas, and at the same time, the artillery on the starboard from which the fireship was coming, to fire at its sides; the guns on the lookout and the poop were fired with such effect that the vessel quickly sank in sight of all, listing to port and going down bow first. The heretics were so badly beaten and cowed that, spreading all their canvas, they basely fled toward the land. Our squadron followed in pursuit, but as night was approaching, and there was a squally wind from the northwest, accompanied by thunder and lightning, the enemy escaped by spreading their canvas aft and extinguishing their lights.

This signal and miraculous event was attributed by our commander and by the entire armada to the [243]special patronage of the blessed Virgin of the Rosary and to the glorious Viscayan St. Ignatius, in whose names the cannon-shots on our side piously succeeded one another, that day. The disastrous rout of the enemy was publicly known, and our victory was proclaimed all the more by their cowardly flight. The losses on our side were as insignificant in this as in the previous battle; and, in both, the courage, spirit, and skill of our men—leaders, captains, pilots, and private persons—was very great, as was evident in the result. By their ignominious flight the insolent heretics left our coasts free, and departed from the islands well sheared by the Embocadero, where they had come for wool, or for the money brought from Nueva España for our relief.

The governor and captain-general, Don Diego Faxardo, was informed of all this; and by his orders our armada retired to the port of Cabite in the latter part of August, after a six months’ voyage, in such need of repairs as can well be imagined from the foregoing account of the three battles. As soon as they landed, all our men marched with their commander to the church of the glorious patriarch St. Dominic, to return humble and tender thanks to the blessed Virgin of the Rosary for victories so signal.

About this time the galleon “San Diego,” recently built, sailed from this port for Nueva España. Regarding it as certain that the coasts were clear of enemies, the authorities did not carry out their first intention of sending our armada to escort the “San Diego” as far as the Embocadero. But, as the enemy had so many squadrons (as I mentioned at the outset), [244]it happened, a few days later, that our galleon, having left the port, found itself, while still in sight of Mariveles near an islet called Fortun, at nightfall near a Dutch ship, one of three that were in that quarter; these were part of the third squadron, which had come to join the twelve ships of the two squadrons before mentioned. As the commanders of these ships did not know what had happened to the others, they dared to await the fleet thus near Manila. Our galleon carried her guns on the ballast and the various decks were littered with boxes and utensils, as is usually the case when one of those ships sails on so long a voyage. The enemy recognized, at once, that our vessel was not a warship and attacked it furiously. They approached so close that the conversation of various persons could be heard, but they did not venture to board the galleon; for General Christoval Marquez de Valençuela, commander of the galleon, a brave and experienced soldier, hurriedly disencumbered five iron cannon, and, bringing them to bear on the enemy, stood on the defensive. That action was sufficient to secure his retreat toward Mariveles; entering the bay, with the loss of a few killed, he arrived at the port of Cavite and made a report of the occurrence.

This new accident did not depress the brave heart of his Lordship [the governor]; he ordered that the two strong galleons should be immediately prepared to go out again, in convoy of this third one. As promptness was so important in this matter, his Lordship, recognizing the energy and ability of his sargento-mayor and commander of infantry, Manuel Estacio Venegas, ordered him to proceed in person to the port of Cavite to despatch the galleons. This [245]task he performed admirably, for by his efforts there was accomplished in one week what by other methods would have seemed much to do in a month.

His Lordship had previously rewarded General Lorenzo de Orella y Ugalde with one of the best encomiendas in these islands and he therefore, on this second occasion, appointed Admiral Sebastian Lopez commander-in-chief of the armada, and Sargento-mayor Don Agustin de Zepeda admiral—thus rewarding these officers for their achievements in the first fight by giving them the highest rank in the second one. To Captain Don Francisco Roxo was given the post of sargento-mayor, and Captains Salvador Perez and Felipe Camino were placed in command of the infantry companies on the flagship, and Juan de Mora and Francisco Lopez Ynoso on the almiranta. An excellent galley was also equipped with a cannon amidships, carrying a thirty-five pound ball, and small culverins [moyanas] carrying fourteen-pound balls; it contained also an infantry company of one hundred picked men. Admiral Francisco de Esteyvar, commander of his Lordship’s company of arquebusiers, was made commander of this galley. He was a soldier of well known bravery and experience, and as admiral, a post which he held in these islands, he showed himself a match for the Dutch, in carrying the relief to the forts of Terrenate. The galley was also accompanied by four brigantines of good capacity, well equipped with musketry, and each carrying a cannon at the prow; Captains Don Juan de Valderrama, Juan Martinez Capelo, Don Gabriel Miño de Guzman, and Francisco de Bargas Machuca were respectively in command of these vessels. [246]The chaplains of the fleet were: on the flagship, two friars of the Order of St. Dominic; on the almiranta, two of the Order of St. Francis; and on the galley, one of the order of the glorious St. Augustine. By order of his Lordship the vow which had been made in the first expedition, of a magnificent festival to the Virgin of the Rosary, was renewed; and the devotion was continued of reciting aloud prayers every day, in concert, all kneeling before the image of that sovereign lady.

On the fifteenth of September the three galleons, “Encarnacion,” “Rosario,” and “San Diego,” sailed from the harbor of Cabite, accompanied by the fleet of oared vessels formed by the galley and the four brigantines aforesaid. Continuing their voyage, they arrived at Fortun and saw, toward a point called Calavite,12 on the island of Mindoro, three of the enemy’s ships under sail. Our brave commander was glad of the opportunity and at once invited them to fight by firing a few cannon. The heretics did not dare to measure their forces at close range with ours; nor was the wind favorable for our galleons to sail in among those of the enemy. This gallant war was therefore waged with the artillery of longest range, the conflict lasting from four o’clock in the afternoon until nine at night. At that hour our almiranta—either because it was swifter, or because it was carried on by some current—found itself in the midst of the enemy’s three ships, and fought with them a furious battle, lasting four long hours—doing considerable damage to the enemy and [247]being itself not a little injured as to masts, rigging, and sails. Admiral Don Agustin de Cepeda showed himself, on this occasion, as brave in sustaining the combat as he was skilful in engaging the enemy. In the thick of the fight he ordered the artillery to stop firing. The enemy taking this for a sign of weakness, their vessels came very close to our ship on both sides, in order to vanquish it; then our almiranta reopened fire with her artillery on both sides, so vigorously that the enemy, unable to endure it, basely retreated. As soon as the sun rose, our flagship bore down upon the enemy and offered fight. But the foe, who had more need for repairs than desire to fight again, put in at a place near Calavite point whence he had sailed, among some shoals where our galleys could not follow.

Our commander then decided to continue the voyage, to furnish an escort for the galleon “San Diego.” But, as it was a recently-built vessel, and had not yet been tested, it was soon discovered that it did not answer its helm, or carry its sails well. As, too, the vendabals had now ended, and the north winds prevailed, which are unfavorable for a voyage to Nueva España, General Sebastian Lopez, in accordance with the opinion of a council called for this purpose, decided that the galleon “San Diego” should put in at Mariveles, and remain until his Lordship could be informed of the matter and despatch new orders. The “San Diego,” then, anchored off Mariveles, and our flagship remained outside, held by one anchor, since the almiranta was carried far to leeward by the currents; and its efforts to join the flagship were unavailing, for in those places the force of the currents is irresistible. [248]

The enemy, being on the alert, knew that our vessels were far from one another; and at daybreak on October 4, the day of the seraphic patriarch [i.e., St. Francis of Assisi], they bore down on our flagship with their three ships. The commander gallantly decided not to leave his station, for, if he did so, the currents would carry him too far to leeward, as they had the almiranta, and would leave the passage open for the enemy to attack the galleon “San Diego” (which was still in sight), and thus deprive us of the glory and satisfaction of all the previous victories. For this reason he decided to await, still anchored, the three ships of the enemy, until, coming up with him, they should begin to attack us; and then, slackening the cable with a buoy, and unfurling the sails, he began at the same time to discharge his artillery. Finding himself master of the situation, in the midst of the three vessels, he fought a hot battle, which lasted during four long hours—with little damage on our side, since only four men were killed; while the enemy’s loss was so great that, as on previous occasions, they were obliged to make a dishonorable retreat.

The wind then subsided, and Admiral Francisco de Esteyvar availed himself of the opportunity to approach the enemy with his galley; and, pointing his prow against the enemy’s stern, opened fire against them with cannon and culverins, and raked the vessels so furiously that the enemy regarded themselves as lost and the men attempted to throw themselves overboard. But soon the sea-breeze arose, and the enemy lost their fears; and our hope of securing so valuable a prize vanished. Notwithstanding, the result might be considered very [249]fortunate, and the exploit so daring that it bordered on rashness—for it is well known from experience that galleys are in such encounters exposed to great risk. On this occasion, although the enemy’s flagship was supported by a ship on each side, and all of them were firing terrible volleys at once, not a single person was killed on our galley, which seems miraculous. Our commander, seeing that the enemy were retreating, followed them all that night, with lighted lanterns; but, as usual, they fled with their lights put out. In this sixth fight, our arms came out with the same reputation and splendor as in the others.

All these exploits are worthy of great praise, this last one no less than those preceding, considering the circumstances; and in all these shines brightly the favor of Heaven toward our people. According to the estimate made by well informed persons, although we fired, in these battles, over two thousand cannon-shots, and the enemy over five thousand, we had only fourteen killed, and comparatively few wounded; while the enemy, besides the vessels which we sank, arrived at their forts so damaged, and had lost so many men, that for many a year they will remember the two stout galleons of Manila. Nor will they forget the gallantry, courage, and experience, and the excellent arrangements of their generals, captains, officers and other men who took part in this fight under orders of the governor and captain-general Don Diego Faxardo y Chacon, whom God protect.

Thanksgiving [for this victory] was celebrated by a solemn fiesta—a procession, divine worship, and [a parade of] the squadron, with other demonstrations[250]—in fulfilment of the vow made to the Virgin of the Rosary, the city making a new vow to continue this anniversary every year.

These exploits are all successful, and with them we might have congratulated ourselves on having maintained our good fortune on the sea, if our success against the enemy’s guns had also marked our conflict with the elements. The galleon “San Luis,” commanded by General Fernando Lopez Perona, left Acapulco late in the season and encountered the vendavals so prevalent in these islands that before land was sighted it passed through fierce tempests, lost its masts, and finally made the unlucky port of Cagayan. There, driven by the currents, it struck on the rocks and was torn open at the keel—not before, however, the commander had placed in safety the men, and the registered silver (which is the most essential part of the succor sent), and afterward removed the artillery. Nevertheless, the loss is great, owing to the lack of vessels on these islands at present, the many failures [which it occasioned] to business men, and the lawsuits to which such disasters give rise. It cost no less than the life of the commander, who died in that same city of Cagayan a few days after his arrival—giving up his life, as a proof of his honorable devotion and of his zeal in fulfilling his duties in the service of the king and the welfare of the colony.

After this event, and after the aforesaid battles and victories, our armada retired to the port of Cavite for necessary repairs. The galleons were already in the shipyard when the heretical Corsairs again appeared on the coast with three ships. They had captured a rich Chinese vessel of large size; and they [251]thought best not to destroy it, but to send it to Jacatra intact. Twenty soldiers were placed aboard it, in charge of an officer, and fifty of the Chinese traders and mariners who came in it were left to work the ship; while the rest of the Chinese, with some Indians whom they held as captives, were set free and put ashore. The Chinese traders who were left on board managed so well that before they cleared the coast, they seized a suitable opportunity to turn against the Dutch, and killed them all; and they brought the vessel to this city, where they were received with great applause and general satisfaction. And, to crown our joy more fully, it pleased God that the pirates should depart—either driven by unfavorable winds or constrained by some other accident—and leave free passage to the Chinese. They, since December, when this occurred, until May of 647, the time of this writing, have continued their voyages to Manila as usual—although with fewer vessels and less merchandise than formerly, on account of the wars of invasion in that great monarchy, which has been almost conquered and subdued by the Eastern Tartars. According to information in letters of February and March of this year, received in this city from trustworthy persons, and the statements of the Chinese themselves, who arrive here with their hair cut in the fashion of the Tartars, the natives offer but little resistance.13

Lavs Deo

By permission: at Manila, in the printing-house of the Society of Jesus. In the year 1647. [252]

As the haughty heretic had not shown himself on these coasts during the months of April and May of this year, some believed that he was so severely punished, and even weakened, by the encounters and battles of the previous year, that they declared he would not dare return this year to molest these islands. But although it may be the fixed rule of the good soldier always to suppose the worst, Don Diego Faxardo, governor and captain-general of these islands, with his caution and long experience, determined that all precautions should be taken as if it were certain that the enemy would come to Manila this year, and with a greater force than before. To this end, in the council which was called for the despatch of the relief ships from Nueva España, opinions agreed that, for this year, only one vessel should sail; and order was given that the building of another ship should be completed as speedily as possible in the shipyard in the islands of Leyte; and that in the port of Cabite the galleons, galleys, and other vessels there should be repaired. He ordered his sargento-mayor and commander of the garrison in Manila, who has in charge the fortifications, to exert every effort and spare no expense in making the walls of the city impregnable. The royal cavalier of San Diego, which commands the bay and that part of the shore which would be most dangerous [in case of attack], has been finished; it is truly a regal work, and the largest of its kind that has been seen in these parts. In like manner the ramparts are going up on both sides [i.e., sea and land], causing general surprise and admiration that so great a work [254]can be carried on, without special cost or oppression to the colony, and with economy of the royal funds. The artillery was brought from Cagayan and other places, and provisions and ammunition were continually collected and stored; and finally his Lordship appointed a general, admiral, and other officers, that he might in any emergency have ready for immediate use as large a naval force as possible, in order to go out with it against the enemy. The condition of affairs, limited means, and lack of supplies, and above all the destitution of the natives in such calamitous times, prevented his Lordship, as regards the Armada, from giving to it his close attention. It therefore resulted that at the beginning of June, although men were at work on all of the vessels, only one galleon and two galleys were ready. On the ninth of the said month, the feast of the Holy Spirit [i.e., Pentecost], the commander of a champan which had gone with an armed guard, to carry twelve thousand pesos from the royal treasury to the presidio of Oton for the relief of Terrenate, came to port, and said that he was fleeing from three vessels of high freeboard which he had sighted near Luban, and he had fought with their lanches. On the afternoon of the same day this information was verified, for several vessels were seen to enter through the channels of Mariveles. His Lordship ordered that despatches be instantly sent to the alcaldes-mayor and military officers along the coast, so that they could be on their guard, and, besides, warn those who were sailing [in those waters], especially the galleon “Nuestra Señora de Guia,” which was on her way from the Leyte shipyard; and so diligently was this latter commission executed that the warning [255]thus given enabled that galleon to elude the enemy. So important is it to have an officer who is faithful and diligent in carrying out the orders of his commander-in-chief. Two hundred Spanish infantry belonging to the garrison of this city marched to the port of Cabite well supplied with gunpowder and other munitions. With them was General Don Pedro de Almonte Verastegui, who had been selected for commander of the Armada on account of his high standing and distinguished services in the highest positions in these islands; Admiral Don Andres Axcueta, heir to the valor and services of his father, Master-of-camp Christoval de Axcueta Menchaca, who went as commander of the troops who were to aid the naval force; Captain Don Lope de Colindres, commander of the galleon “San Andres;” Don Pedro de Figueroa, sargento-mayor of the armada; and others, gentlemen and half-pay officers, who arrived at the port at dawn on the second day of the festival.

After the sun rose, eleven of the enemy’s vessels were seen half-way up the bay. General Andres Lopez de Azaldiqui was castellan and chief magistrate of that military post, as also of the royal galleys. During the past year, when the general public was feeling least anxiety about enemies his solicitude and care had led him to construct several defenses which were very important. There was a palisade of heavy timbers, and a parapet, with earthworks and gabions, with their platforms, on the side next the bay, which was the most exposed and defenseless position. Other palisades and fortifications were constructed in the village of the Indians, and in other places. Additional sentinels and guards were stationed [256]along the beach and in the open country. His great prudence was made evident when, on the said day of the feast, the news arrived, and the ships of the enemy’s fleet began to come in sight. The call to arms was immediately sounded in the port; the posts and vessels were manned by Spanish infantry, and the shore, from San Roque to what is called Estançuela, by Japanese and Indians, as assistants to the Spaniards; and a patrol was formed of horsemen who were hastily summoned from the neighboring ranches.

Between nine and ten o’clock in the morning the heretics, leaving two ships to guard the entrances of Mariveles, proceeded with the nine others to the port of Cabite. Between ten and eleven o’clock they arrived within a gunshot of the land, the drums beating on the flagship, and the entire squadron making a fine display. Seeing the enemy within range, it was thought best to favor him with some shots, which were fired from the towers and platforms near by. The shots must have taken effect, for the flagship turned away, and directed its course seaward; and it fired a single cannon-shot—apparently to summon a patache which, going somewhat ahead, approached the shore, sounding the port and reconnoitering the vessels. The enemy went on to Pampanga, where they amused themselves until the following day, the last of the festival; then they returned to Cabite with ten ships. At nine o’clock in the evening, they anchored off the point called Punta del Sangley, at a legua from shore. When the moon had almost set [257]an attempt was made by the enemy to reconnoiter the coast in that quarter with three lanchas; but the sentinels and patrols, who were forewarned, did not permit this. That night the fortifications were strengthened, two platforms were added, and other desirable precautionary and defensive measures were taken.

On Wednesday morning, June 12, the ten vessels and a champan were anchored in the same place; and at eight o’clock, two others appeared, coming under full sail from Mariveles. As soon as these were close to the enemy, the flagship weighed anchor, and the entire squadron sailed after it in line, making a beautiful sight, until they came within gunshot of the port, and abreast of the tower on the new gate, where a white flag with the royal arms was displayed; the flagship lowered its flag and maintopsail to half mast, and hoisted it again to the sound of drums and fifes. The fight at once began with the discharge of artillery from this tower, which was in charge of Sargento-mayor Don Pedro de Figueroa. The enemy responded with a furious volley, and boldly venturing into the harbor, anchored their six largest vessels at a suitable distance for bombarding our vessels, forts, and settlement; the other six vessels, with their sails trimmed to the wind, sailed to and fro, briskly skirmishing. Both sides fought sharply and incessantly, for eight hours, from eleven o’clock until almost seven in the evening. According to the count of our captain of artillery, one thousand eight hundred cannon-shots were fired by our side, and by the enemy over three thousand. Our fire was effective, for two Dutch prisoners, who were on the enemy’s flagship during the battle, deposed [258]that the ship was struck by over one hundred and twenty balls, some of them piercing the hull through and through; others struck at the water-line, making so large a hole that it was necessary to get assistance from the other vessels to repair the damage. It is considered certain that if the flagship had not been anchored—and even run aground, as many say—she would have gone to the bottom. As many as thirty men were killed on that ship. If this vessel, which is the strongest in the whole squadron, and best equipped with guns—carrying twenty-four cannon, in two tiers, on each side—was so badly damaged, from this it may be inferred the loss to the other ships, as compared with this one. The champan which accompanied the enemy’s ships was a fireship, intended to set fire to our squadron. It approached very near ours, so that we heard their talk; and we noticed some unbecoming actions, with which they enraged us. But soon their insolence was repaid, one of the cannon-balls hitting their ship and kindling the fire-devices that it contained, which consumed it without doing any harm to our vessels. The balls discharged by the enemy were so numerous, that they fell like hailstones; they weighed thirty or thirty-five libras, and from that down—some were of forty libras, but the greater number of ten or twelve, besides bar-shot, cylinders, and lanternas [fireballs?]; and it seems a miracle that they caused us so little damage.

Our galleon “San Diego,” which carried the colors as flagship, and faced the enemy, received over two hundred cannon-balls, but not one penetrated her hull, and only two men were killed—one a Spaniard, on the poop; and the other an Indian, in the [259]ship’s waist. The commodore’s galley was hit more than thirty times, but only one Spanish soldier and seven galley-slaves were killed; the second galley lost two men, and the other vessel at a similar rate. Almost every roof on house and church, in the Spanish town, was damaged, and many shots took effect on the cathedral. One, an eighteen-libra ball, went through the main entrance, and hit a pillar of the large chapel, passing over the head of a child, who fortunately remained uninjured. In the convent of St. Francis over thirty balls were picked up; in that of St. Dominic, six; in the residence of the Society of Jesus, nine; in the government storehouses, seventy-four. Notwithstanding, there was not in any house, convent, or church a single person killed or wounded; and the entire number of killed and injured in all the vessels and military posts during this engagement, did not exceed five Spaniards and four Indians killed, and eight Spaniards and one Indian wounded, who all together did not equal the number of killed on the enemy’s flagship alone.1 This good fortune was due, in the first place, to the mercy and protection of heaven, besought by the prayers and supplications offered in all of the churches—in Cabite, the city of Manila, and other places all along this bay from which the battle could be seen and heard—while the blessed sacrament was exposed. In the second place, to the promptness and speed with which, by the orders of his Lordship and the energy of the sargento-mayor and garrison commander, Manuel Estacio Vanegas, reënforcements [260][and supplies] were sent from Manila. Much also was due to the excellent arrangements, the courage, and personal supervision of everything by the governor of the military post, General Andres Lopez de Azaldigui; also to the bravery, spirit, gallantry, and military experience of the chiefs and captains in charge of the different posts: General Don Pedro de Almonte, as commander of the armada—the vessels on sea, and the Arsenal on shore; Admiral Don Andres Axcueta, in command of the galleon “San Diego,” which displayed the colors as flagship; Sargento-mayor Don Pedro de Figueroa, Captain Don Lope de Colindres, and other captains and officers in charge of the ramparts, towers, and bastions. Especially [praise is due] to the commander of the principal fortress, San Felipe, over which floated the royal standard of red damask; this was the target for innumerable shots, and, although some perforated it, none were able to tear it down—a sign that the victory was to remain with us. The result was, that the enemy, who about noon had entered the harbor so daringly, were constrained to retire at midnight. The next day was begun, on our side, with six cannon-shots, but the enemy did not accept our challenge, and sailed out of the range of our forts—many lanchas carrying succor to the flagship, from which may be inferred the great injury that it had sustained. It is considered certain that the enemy would have retired within a few hours after the commencement of the battle, had the tide been favorable to the three largest vessels. During the battle, a reënforcement of one hundred and fifty infantry, a few pieces of artillery, and a large supply of powder were despatched from Manila; [261]and with these went several prominent persons who asked that they might be present at the scene of battle.

It was considered a special favor from heaven that at the height of the conflict, when all the enemy’s ships were off Cabite, one of our pataches, in command of Admiral Luis Alonso de Roa, which was coming from the kingdom of Camboja—whither Don Luis had gone as an envoy, in regard to establishing there a plant for building ships, and conveying to it provisions and other supplies—entered the bay through the smaller channel of Mariveles, and reached a place of safety.

On the day after the battle, which was Thursday, June 13, the enemy was still in the bay of Maribeles and Batan; and in the afternoon they approached the island, and landed their men. They burned the sentry-post, which is situated on the highest point, and established themselves in the corregidor’s house and in the huts of the Indians. Then, with the aid of the vendaval, they [brought up and] repaired two of their vessels which had come with most damage out of the fight.

On Friday morning three of the vessels set sail, and, landing at a place called Rio de Cañas, sent a crowd of people ashore. These proceeded to the huts of some Sangleys who were making salt, intending to seize some fresh food, and especially some of the cattle which wander about those shores. But the chief commander at Cabite, being informed of what the enemy were doing, quickly despatched a hundred Spanish infantry, in command of Don Marcos de Zapalá, alcalde-in-ordinary of this city, and seventy horsemen with Captain Christoval [262]Velazquez y Lorenzana—who, although they were not so fortunate as to encounter the enemy, compelled them to embark in haste. This they did in seven lanchas and two long-boats abandoning on the shore one of the cattle which they had killed (which were only two).

On Saturday, the boatmen on the Cabite ferry brought in a Dutch lancha of large size, and with a mast, which was dragging its anchor about the bay. On Tuesday, the eighteenth, two ships appeared at Punta del Sangley at daylight, I know not with what design; but at eight o’clock in the morning they proceeded to Bantan. On Wednesday, the nineteenth, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the entire squadron assembled at the small channel of Maribeles, and after firing a cannon at seven o’clock in the evening, when the moon rose, all the twelve vessels, four of them with lighted lanterns, weighed anchor, and sailed away through the large channel. Then they separated, six taking their course toward the shipyard of Mindoro, and the other six, returning on the very morning of Corpus Christi, entered the bay, and dropped anchor in the same place from which they had sailed.

On Saturday, the twenty-second, at daybreak, the enemy appeared close in shore off Abucay, the principal village in the province of Pampanga. This village has a very costly substantial church and convent, built of stone, in sight of the sea, belonging to the fathers of St. Dominic. His Lordship the governor and captain-general, being informed of [263]this, and foreseeing the damage which might result if the enemy should land there, ordered the alcalde-mayor of the province to fortify the church and thwart the designs of the enemy, with the assistance of the resident Spaniards and natives of Pampanga, who had proved their bravery so well on all occasions. He also sent an adjutant and other men from this city to aid them, and directed that the money, which had been removed from a champan belonging to Chinese traders and placed in the church to prevent it from falling in the hands of the enemy, should be put in a safe place or be forwarded to this city.

Although the alcalde-mayor2 had come to these islands as a captain of infantry, he could not have been so good a soldier as he was a trader, nor so brave in spirit as great in stature. He replied that the place was better fortified than La Rochelle, and that if the heretics landed there none would be left to carry the tidings back to the vessels. He left that place on Friday, the twenty-first, leaving there one hundred and fifty Pampango soldiers and five Spaniards, all in command of Don Pedro Gamboa, a retired master-of-camp of the Pampanga nation. The following day, Saturday, the six Dutch ships came in sight off Abucay, with as many more lanchas, and sent ashore an officer with as many as one hundred and thirty men. They entered the village boldly, by the bridge from the landing-place, and, firing their guns, approached the gates of the church and convent; but they were repulsed by our men so successfully [264]that they took to flight. They left in the court three men dead, with some firearms; and they retreated so hastily that they jumped into the water with their clothes and shoes on. At the same time when this was occurring in Abucay, they also attacked Samal, the second village of the same province, with three other lanchas, but with no better fortune; for, when they reached the village, hardly had they set fire to the huts in the outskirts when they were repulsed, with the same courage as at Abucay. As soon as the enemy had gone, the master-of-camp destroyed the bridge across a small river, over which it is necessary to cross from the beach to the convent. He then sent a despatch to the alcalde-mayor of the province telling what had occurred, and that it was presumed that the pirates would return to the attack with a larger force. The alcalde-mayor was in another village, collecting soldiers to send to the relief of Manila; but he reached Abucay that very night, with the recruits whom he already had and some whom he had secured from other places. He held a consultation with the Pampango commanders as to the measures to be taken in case the enemy should return. All were of opinion that the convent should be fortified, and a sufficient number of men stationed therein to defend it, and that the body of the troops should await the Dutch in the field; and that at the landing, at the ford of the stream, and in other places suitable for ambuscades, they should inflict all the damage possible on the enemy. But the alcalde thought that they should avoid shutting up themselves in the convent so that they might be able to flee to the woods if pressed by the enemy; accordingly, he did not submit to their opinion, and the [265]only defense that he made was to lock the gates of the buildings.

The Dutch commander piqued at the retreat, and the loss of his men, and, it is supposed, having received information through a negro and some Sangley fishermen that the money belonging to the traders of the Chinese vessel which had escaped him, was concealed in the said church, would not entrust the exploit [of seizing the money] to any one but himself. On the following day, Sunday, he appeared at dawn on the beach, with all of his lanchas and in view of all our men who were inside the convent; and landed with as many as four hundred men, and two pieces of field artillery, displaying seven ensigns. Without meeting any opposition they marched, in order, to the stream and the little bridge which had been destroyed by the Pampangos. The water was deep; so, seizing some small boats belonging to the natives, which they easily found, they coolly transported their men and guns. Our Pampangos were burning to go forth to attack them, and were so impatient that, had they not been restrained by their innate loyalty, they would have turned against the alcalde.

After crossing the river, the general marched his troop in regular files until he came near the court [patio] of the church, which was of stone, and very suitable for defensive and even offensive warfare. Here he halted; but quickly observing how feeble was its defense, he entered the court, halted in front of the main entrance of the church, and fired his artillery against it. But as his guns were small, and the gates very strong, he could accomplish no more than to splinter off a piece, making a hole through [266]which one could hardly thrust a hand. Meanwhile, there were volleys on both sides from the muskets and arquebuses. The alcalde remained in the highest part of the convent; a Pampango fell dead near him, and when he saw the latter’s blood, his own immediately ran cold. When he was told that the powder would soon give out—which was quite true, for he had not brought for this occasion all that had been sent from Manila—he left his post, under pretext of going to consult two religious of that convent (who were in retreat in the farthest cell, praying to God for our success), and never returned to see what was going on; but he discussed with the religious the desirability of displaying a flag of truce, in order to negotiate [with the enemy] for saving our lives.

Among those in the convent were the principal men of all Pampanga, many of them veteran soldiers of long experience in Terrenate. They told the alcalde that our forces were superior in number to those of the enemy; that on various occasions they had shown themselves equal to the foe, and did not acknowledge him as their superior on land; and that when their ammunition and weapons were exhausted they would hurl themselves against him tooth and nail, and die like good soldiers, fighting in the service of God and the king. They declared that they would not consider a flag of peace, which would serve to encourage the enemy and deliver them all into his hands.

The religious (who could have prevented what was done) supported the opinion of the alcalde, and even tried to use their authority as ministers to compel the Pampangos to agree with it; and, in spite of the objections made by the Indians, they finally [267]hung out a peace-flag from one of the windows. The Dutch general was greatly delighted, and promised favorable terms. One of the religious, accompanied by the Spanish adjutant who was there, descended, and conversed for a long time with the general. While this parley was going on, the Dutchmen did not cease to try the other doors and windows of the convent, in order to effect an entrance; nor did the Pampangos discontinue their resistance, wounding and killing many of the enemy. The general, irritated at this, and noticing that one of his men had scaled the convent wall by means of a workmen’s scaffolding, and entering, had rung the bells as a signal of victory, said that this was no time for treating of peace; and seizing in the crowd the negotiators as prisoners, he commanded a renewal of hostilities, and ordered his men to enter the church and convent on all sides. The bravest and most prominent Pampangos defended themselves gallantly, refusing to hear any talk of surrender to a heretical prince, although the Dutch promised to spare their lives if they would do so. But as their weapons were inferior [to the enemy’s] and their powder had been exhausted, the Pampangos were finally defeated; nearly two hundred were barbarously put to death, and forty others together with the alcalde and the other religious3 who was in the convent, were taken prisoners. [268]

To make matters worse for us and fortunate for the heretics, there was not lacking an informer, who disclosed to the enemy the silver from the Sangley ship, which had been hidden in a deep hole; the Dutch carried it away, to the amount of twenty thousand pesos. They burned the convent, and the woodwork of the church, but the fire did not extend to the altar; and they retreated to their lanchas on the same day, without sacking the village.

At the same time, another but smaller body of their troops attacked the village of Samal; but the Pampangos who were in garrison there, under command of Sargento-mayor Don Alexo Aguas, went out against them and compelled them to retreat, as those in Abucay would have done if the religious and the alcalde had allowed them to fight.

When the news of this affair reached Manila, it aroused unspeakable resentment; and prompt measures were taken to avenge it. Large reënforcements of men and ammunition were despatched under General Juan de Chavez, a soldier of the courage and ability which the occasion demanded.

The Order of St. Augustine—which maintains all the religious ministries of Pampanga except the two at Abucay and Samal, which, however, belong to the actual ministers of the province—was charged to send thither other religious, of unexceptionable character. As such, went the father master Fray Alonso de Caravajal (who was formerly provincial), and the present prior of the Manila convent, the father preacher Fray Diego de Tamayo. These with their discretion and zeal, and the long experience and general popularity which they had in that province, undertook to give it consolation. As a [269]result, in less than four days six hundred soldiers had been recruited to oppose the enemy if they should return to make another attack—which, in fact, was made on Thursday, July 11. The enemy placed in the field two hundred and fifty men, in command of the fiscal, who in rank is third in the armada, to pillage the village of Abucay, and kill the cattle and swine which are usually kept there.

General Juan de Chavez, who was fortified in Samal, was informed of the attack, and despatched ahead a troop under Captain Francisco Gomez Pulido, while he followed with the remainder of his men. They found the enemy in the village, pillaging the houses and killing the cattle. Our General opened fire, and made the enemy retreat toward the church; Captain Francisco Gomez Pulido, with the force under his command, went across the fields by another road, and the heretics were so taken by surprise that they turned their backs and fled to their lanchas. At the same time Adjutant Francisco Palmares arrived on the beach with another detachment of troops from another post, and attacked the enemy, compelling them to return to their boats through water that reached their mouths; they left fourteen dead and two prisoners on shore. The number of killed and wounded by the time they reached their vessels is unknown, but it was doubtless great.

This good fortune, and the grants and favors conferred by the governor, in the name of his Majesty, on the widows and orphans of the Pampango chiefs, who had lost their lives, have somewhat mitigated the sorrow and suffering caused by the late disaster. In order that pious feeling should find an opportunity [270]for expression, solemn funeral rites were celebrated in the royal chapel, by his Lordship’s orders, for the dead Pampangos, at which all the Spanish and Pampango troops were present, under command of their master-of-camp, Don Sebastian de Guzman. The Order of St. Augustine, as the [religious] mother of that people, performed the same rites in the convent at Manila, and in all of the others throughout their province.

Through the said two Dutch prisoners was obtained all information that we desired of the enemy’s fleet. These men declared that they had sailed from Jacatra in Batabia, early in March, having been despatched by Cornelio Fandelin,4 governor of that place, under command of General Martin Gercen [Gertzen?] a Frisian by birth; and that the fleet consisted of thirteen vessels, one of which was lost on the voyage. The voyage lasted three months, and they halted only at Pulolaor for provisions. As for the size of the ships, the flagship is a vessel of seven hundred toneladas; the ships of the admiral, fiscal, and sub-fiscal, of eight hundred; and the others from three hundred to four hundred; and the pataches from sixty to one hundred toneladas. The flagship carries forty-eight guns: eighteen of these are of bronze, carrying balls of eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty-six libras; the others are of iron, with balls of nine to fifteen libras. The almiranta, [271]and the ships of the fiscal and sub-fiscal carried forty, thirty-eight, and thirty-six guns respectively, some of bronze, with balls of twenty-four libras or less. The four other ships carried thirty-libra cannon. The guns on the pataches, some of bronze, carried balls of eighteen to twenty libras. The flagship was also supplied with many devices for using fire, with a German inventor who manufactures them, so that on occasion these could be placed in some one of their smaller vessels, in order to burn our fleet. The flagship left Batabia with two hundred and twenty men, all white, of various European nations, unmixed with men from any of the peoples in these regions; the almiranta and the fiscal’s ship carried each two hundred and ten, and the sub-fiscal’s two hundred; the other vessels seventy or eighty each. The flagship had already lost from its quota seventy men, and the other vessels proportionately, many having been killed in the fight at Cabite and in other engagements; moreover, there is a disease, known as Verber [i.e., beri-beri], which is now prevalent throughout the fleet, by which most of the men have been attacked. The orders carried by the Dutch ships are, to capture the vessels coming from Nueva España and prevent the voyage of those that must go to that kingdom for aid. They were also to ascertain, at the same time, the condition in which these fortified posts are, so that they can prepare for a larger fleet to follow in the succeeding year. It was said that he who will come in that fleet as commander is Antonio Can [i.e., Caan], former governor of Malayo, who had come last year from Olanda, and now is in Jacatra as second in command at that place. The season here will be favorable to [272]them, as the monsoon will give them time [enough], and their provisions will hold out; and within a month four of the said ships will set out for the kingdom of Japon, with merchandise which they are carrying, and will go with the proceeds to the kingdom of Siam. Such is the information which the prisoners have thus far given us regarding the Dutch armada; and it is confirmed from other sources.5

Our armada at present is composed of three large galleons and one of medium size, two pataches, and two galleys, with other oared vessels of less size. All hands are at work on it, without any cessation—with eager desires and no less assured hopes, under God’s favor, whose cause this is, of gaining success and good fortune against the heretical and rebel squadron.

Nor can my unskilful pen rightly deny the glory of such a victory, as of all the rest that has been thus far accomplished and is mentioned above, to the prime mover of all the influences and actions of this government—the sargento-mayor and governor of this garrison, Manuel Estacio Venegas, one of the old and prominent citizens of this city, and a brave son of the royal army at Granada. He was chosen by Don Diego Faxardo for these and greater undertakings on account of his honorable, successful, and extraordinary services of thirty-four years in this region in the royal armadas of galleons and galleys, on the Northern Sea and in these islands. In military service, he was sargento, alférez, and captain of [273]infantry; and in political affairs he served as regidor of this city, and as chancellor and registrar of the royal Audiencia—in which latter post his Lordship found him, filling it with approval and distinction, as is well known to all this kingdom. The victories and successes described in these relations are due to his unwearied personal efforts in sending out troops and supplies, and to his thorough understanding and excellent arrangements of all matters. His courage and dexterity in difficulties and hindrances, his subordination and military obedience, and execution of orders given by his superiors, [are all worthy of praise]; for ever since his Lordship placed in his charge the office of sargento-mayor, there have been few nights which he has not passed in the guardroom, or making the round of the city and its walls.

It fell to his lot to destroy such parts of the fortifications as appeared inadequate for the defense of this post and he strengthened the walls with new ones which, it has been said, are without doubt impregnable. I know not which to admire most, the strength of the fortification, or the rapidity with which the work was performed, without any burden or injury [to the people].

The thorough knowledge which he had of all his officers was doubtless the reason for the wise and fortunate selection that he made in naming to his Lordship, the year before, the leaders who were best qualified for positions of authority in the armadas—through which he obtained the so glorious results which we have described, providing the fleets with all that was necessary to gain success. The rapidity with which he carried on the work was sufficient to make ready [for battle] anew the two galleons [274]“Encarnacion” and “Rosario” in one single week, in order that they might convoy the galleon “San Diego;” they gained the third victory, which was the complement of the others that were gained the year before.

All this being known to his Lordship, as soon as the news came this year of the enemy’s armada he gave the sargento-mayor full and adequate commission to arrange and order everything as should appear best to him, in order not to delay sending aid, as occasion might demand, not only at the storehouses but in the provinces—to which he sent supplies with the promptness which the case required. Thus the islands have been freed, on land and sea, from the attacks of the enemy, and the vessels which have come to us from other lands have made port in safety—thoroughly frustrating the designs of the heretics. This was especially the case in the attack on Abucay, where the sargento-mayor sent very opportune aid of men and ammunition—so greatly to the satisfaction of the alcalde-mayor, Diego Antonio, that he wrote to him that all was done very promptly, and he was expecting to achieve some great exploit. If the alcalde had carried out this promise, as he could have done, or at least had allowed the brave Pampangos to fight, neither would the above-related defeat have occurred, nor would the enemy have obtained any results from their attack.

However, by promptly despatching General Juan de Chaves, his vigilance and skill were able to harass the heretics—much to their own cost, as it was not lack of foresight, but the little military exercise in the commander of that province, which occasioned that defeat. Finally, through the sargento-mayor’s vigilance [275]and care, and the valor of the generals and chiefs, much has been, and we hope will be, accomplished in these islands for the success of our arms and the reputation of this military post—which is so destitute of aid, as being remote from his Majesty, whom may God protect.

Printed with permission, at Manila, in the printing-house of the Society of Jesus, in the year 1647. [276]

1. The convent of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria of Dilao, which the dean, Don Francisco de [279]Arellano, founded at his own cost, with a church and house of stone. It is located outside the walls of the city of Manila. It has 300 tributes, which makes a total of 1,200 persons of all ages. Japanese Christians are ministered to in that convent, and have their own Japanese minister who has charge of them. Four religious live in that convent constantly.

2. Three quarters of a legua up the river from Manila is the convent of Nuestra Señora de Loreto of San Páloc [i.e., Sampaloc], with a stone church and house. It was founded at his own cost by Master-of-camp Pedro de Gómez. It has a visita located one-half legua distant from it. Two hundred tributes are administered there, who amount in all to 800 persons of all ages. One father lives there.

3. One legua up stream from that convent is the convent of Santa Ana of Sapa, with a stone church and house, which was built by Admiral Juan Pardo de Losada at his own cost. It has 200 tributes, or 800 souls of all ages, and one religious lives there.

4. In the jurisdiction of Bulacán, the convent of San Diego of Polo, with a stone church and house. It has 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons of all ages. Some Christian Sangley farmers are ministered to there, and two religious live in that convent all the time.

5. One legua farther on is the convent of San Francisco of Micauayan, which has a visita in the mountains. It has 130 tributes or 600 persons of all ages, and one religious lives there.

6. Two leguas farther on is the convent of San Martín of Bocaui, with a stone church and a wooden house. It has two visitas, and has 150 tributes or 700 persons. One religious lives there. [280]

7. At the entrance of the lake of Bay is located the convent of Santa Ursula of Binangonan, which has 80 tributes or 150 persons. One religious lives there, and its church and house are of stone, which were built from various alms.

8. Three leguas farther on is the convent of San Gerónimo of Moron. It has 122 tributes, or 400 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and it has one religious.

9. One legua farther on is the convent of San Ildefonso of Tanay, with 100 tributes, or 340 persons. Its church and house are bamboo, and one religious lives there.

10. One-half legua farther on is the convent of Santa María Magdalena of Pililla, which has 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons. Its church and house are built of planks, and one religious lives there.

11. In the district of the lake is located the convent of San Antonio de Pila, with 200 tributes, or about 800 persons. Its church is of stone, and its house of wood. It has two religious, and one lay-religious who acts as a nurse; for that is the place where the sick religious of the district are treated.

12. Two leguas thence by water is the convent of Santa Cruz, with 150 tributes, or 600 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and one religious lives there.

13. One legua thence by water is the convent of our father San Francisco of Luonbang. It has 500 tributes, or 2,000 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and it has three visitas. Two religious live there all the time.

14. One and one-half leguas thence is the convent [281]of Sanctiago of Payte, with three visitas. It has 448 tributes, or 1,600 persons. The church and house which are being built are of stone. Two religious live there.

15. One legua thence by sea is the convent of La Natividad of Pangil, with 460 tributes, or 1,800 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and two religious live there.

16. One legua thence by sea is the convent of San Pedro of Siniloan, with 130 tributes, or 450 persons. Its church and house are of bamboo, and one religious lives there.

17. One and one-half leguas thence is the convent of Santa María of Mabitac, with 200 tributes, or 800 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and one religious lives there.

18. Two leguas thence is the convent of Santa María of Cabooan, with 120 tributes; or 450 persons. One religious lives there.

19. Ascending to the mountains through the district of Pila, is found the convent of San Bartolomé of Nacarlán, with 700 tributes, or 2,800 persons. The convent and house are of stone, and two religious live there.

20. One legua thence is the convent of San Juan Bautista of Lillo, with 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and it has two religious.

21. Two leguas thence is the convent of San Gregorio of Mahayhay, with 1,000 tributes, or 4,000 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and two religious and a few convalescents live there.

22. Four leguas up in the mountains is the convent [282]of San Salvador of Cavinte, with 120 tributes, or 450 persons. Its church and house are of planks, and two religious live there.

23. Three leguas east is the convent of San Luis of Luchán, with 400 tributes, or 1,600 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and it has two religious.

24. Four leguas thence is the convent of San Miguel of Tayabas, with 500 tributes, or 2,000 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and two religious live there.

25. One legua thence is the convent of Santa Clara of Sadyaya, with 100 tributes, or 380 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and it has one religious.

26. Along the seacoast is the convent of Santa Buenabéntura of Mahubán, with 200 tributes, or 800 persons. Its church and house are built of bamboo, because the former ones were burned by the Dutch enemy. It has two religious.

27. Ten leguas thence by sea is the convent of San Marcos of Binangonan, with 120 tributes, or 400 persons. It has one visita, at a distance of 8 leguas by the sea and ten by land. It has one religious.

28. Thirty leguas by sea is the convent of San Luis of Baler, with 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons. Its church and house are of wood, and two religious live there.

29. Twenty-four leguas by sea is the convent of Casiguran, of San Antonio, with 320 tributes, or 1,200 persons. Its church and house are of bamboo, and one religious lives there; for his associate lives at a visita called Palanan, which has 250 tributes, or 700 persons. [283]

30. On the other side of Maubán, toward the province of Camarines, and six leguas by sea, is the convent of Antimonan, with 250 tributes, or 1,000 persons. Its church and house are of bamboo, for the former ones were twice burned by the Dutch enemy. One religious lives there. [The following seems to have been added later:] Now it is all stone, and the best in the province.

31. Eight leguas by sea is the convent of San Diego of Gumaca, with 200 tributes, or 800 persons. Its church and house are of bamboo as the former ones were burned by the Dutch enemy. It has one religious.

32. Ten leguas by sea is the convent of Santa Lucía of Capalongan, with 100 tributes or 400 persons. Its church and house are of bamboo, as the former ones were burned by the Dutch. One religious lives there.

33. Twelve leguas thence is the convent of La Purificación, of Paracali, with 200 tributes, or 800 persons. Its church and house are of bamboo, as the former ones were burned by the Dutch enemy.

34. The chief convent of Manila, of Nuestra Señora de los Angeles, has twenty-five religious continually—ten of whom are priests, and the others choristers and lay-brothers—for the proper administration of the convent. They are supported by alms from the city, except as regards the vestments, medicine, fowls, clothing for the sick, wine for the mass, and oil for the lamps, which is the alms given by his Majesty (may God preserve him).

35. The convent of San Diego of Cavite (a communal convent) has four religious, and one nurse who attends through charity to the sailors and natives [284]who work at shipbuilding. It has no ministry, and is supported by alms.

1. In the city of [Nueva] Cáçeres is the convent of Nuestro Padre San Francisco, which is communal and administers the part of the city called Naga. It has 150 tributes, or 600 persons. It also administers the village of Canaman and that of Milanix. The village of Canaman has 400 tributes, or 1,500 Christians. One religious lives there who is subject to Naga. The village of Milanix is two leguas thence, and has 303 tributes, or 1,200 persons. There are generally four priests and two religious lay-brothers for the hospital in the convent of Naga.

2. The convent of Indar, which is six leguas by sea from Paracali, has 400 tributes or 1,800 persons. It has a visita up stream. Its church and house are of plank, and two religious live there.

3. Two leguas [thence] by land is the convent of San Juan Bautista of Dait, which, together with a visita that it possesses, has 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons. It has a church and house of plank, and one religious lives there.

4. Eight leguas [thence] by sea is the convent of Santiago of Ligmanan, with 200 tributes, or 800 persons. It has a stone church and house, and one religious lives there.

5. Four leguas [thence] by sea and land is the convent of Nuestra Señora of Quipayo, which, with three visitas, has 600 tributes, or 2,400 persons. Its church and house are built of brick, and it is administered by two religious.

6. On the other side of [Nueva] Cáçeres (or [285]Naga), toward the main part of the province and three leguas up the river, is the convent of Minalana, with 360 tributes, or 1,300 persons. Its church and house are of plank, and it is administered by one religious.

7. Six leguas [thence] is the convent of Santa María Magdalena of Bula, which, with one visita, has 250 tributes, or 900 persons. Its church and house are of plank, and it is administered by one religious.

8. Three leguas [thence] is the convent of Santa Cruz of Nabua, with 600 tributes, besides some Negrillos who come down from the mountains. The tributes of the mission alone amount to more than 2,400 persons. The church and house are of wood, and it is administered by two religious.

9. One legua [thence] is the convent of San Antonio of Iraga, with 460 tributes, or 1,600 persons. Its church and house are of wood, and it is administered by one religious.

10. Three leguas [thence] is the convent of Nuestro Padre San Francisco of Buy, with 200 tributes, or 800 persons. Its church and house are of wood, and it is administered by one religious.

11. Six leguas [thence] is the convent of Santiago of Libón, with 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons. Its church and house are of brick, and it is administered by one religious.

12. One legua [thence] is the convent of San Pedro of Polangui, with 300 tributes, or 1,400 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and it is administered by one religious.

13. One legua [thence] is the convent of San Miguel of Oasque, with one visita. It has 600 [286]tributes, or 2,500 persons. Its church and house are of stone, and it is administered by one religious.

14. Four leguas [thence] is the convent of San Juan Bautista of Camarines, with its visita called Cagsaua. It has 700 tributes, or 3,000 persons. Its church and house are of stone. It is administered by religious who are priests, and one lay-religious who acts as a nurse for the infirmary which is in the said convent.

15. One legua [thence] is the convent of San Gregorio of Albay, with 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons, and the Spaniards who usually are in the said village are also administered. It has a church and a fortified house of stone, beside a bit of a wall and a tower for the defense of the province—as the said village is close to the sea, and a port for the champans of his Majesty which go to collect the bandalas and tributes. Last year the Dutch enemy destroyed said church and house, although two religious, having patched up a little dwelling with bamboos, are living there.

16. Eight leguas [thence] by sea is the convent of San Juan Evangelista of Tanaco, with 340 tributes, or 1,350 persons. It has a visita one and one-half leguas away. The church and house are of bamboo, as the former buildings were burned by the enemies—Dutch, Camucón, and Mindanao. A small fort or fortified house is being built to defend it from the said enemy. One religious lives there.

17. One legua [thence] by land is the convent of Santa Ana of Malinas, which, with a visita, has 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons. The church and house are of wood, and it is administered by one religious.

18. Eight leguas [thence] by sea is the convent [287]of La Anunciación, of Bacon, with its visita called Solsogón. It has 400 tributes, or 1,600 persons. The churches and houses of both villages are bamboo, because they are very frequently burned by the Camucón and Mindanao enemy. One religious lives there, and he also ministers to the Spaniards who frequently go to the port of Solsogón in his Majesty’s champans.

19. Three leguas [thence] by sea is the convent of La Visitación of Casiguran, with one visita. It has 430 tributes, or 1,560 persons. Its church and house are of wood, and one religious lives there.

20. Eight leguas over very rough mountains, but twelve leguas [thence] by sea, is the convent of Bolosan, which, with three visitas, has 400 tributes, or 1,500 persons. The church and house are of bamboo, and one religious lives there.

21. Thirty leguas [thence] by sea is the convent of Quipia, and Donsol its visita, with 300 tributes, or 1,200 persons. The church and house are of bamboo, and one religious lives there.

The province, considering the great service which is performed for our Lord in the cure of the sick, and that its evangelical ministers ought to attend to the spiritual necessities of all and to the corporal needs of the poor, began to establish some hospitals in this new [field of the] conversion, entrusting so apostolic a ministry to a lay-brother of proved virtue called Fray Juan Clemente. That religious, with singular charity, collected some alms among the Spaniards, and began to treat the poor Spaniards in [288]a wretched nipa house. Since the order of our father St. Francis may not hold property and have the management of money, therefore that hospital, like the others founded by the province, was placed under the royal protection. God took to himself a Spaniard who had one of the best cattle-ranches in this kingdom. That Spaniard made confession and deposited his will with father Fray Agustín de Tordesillas, one of the first founders of this province. Father Fray Agustín counseled that Spaniard to leave his ranch to the royal hospital of the Spaniards, since he had no children and the hospital was so poor. The Spaniard did so, so that the poor had thereby the milk necessary for their sicknesses, for milk is, as a general rule, the delicacy that is prescribed to the sick in this kingdom.

This province founded another hospital, in the port of Cavite, for the relief and cure of the seamen in that port and of the natives who live there. For its support and comfort they founded another ranch, likewise of the larger cattle, the land on which that ranch was established being given by some Spaniards and some natives, by the advice and efforts of the religious.

The same Fray Juan Clemente founded another hospital outside the walls of the city of Manila, which is called “the hospital of the natives;” for there the Indian natives who go thither because they have not the wherewithal to cure themselves are treated—and they are many. The same religious founded another ranch for its support, commencing it with some calves which he begged as an alms. In the same manner was founded also the hospital of Los Baños, with two other ranches. In the city of [289][Nueva] Cáçeres, the religious have founded another hospital, with another large ranch.

Within the city of Manila, the brotherhood of the Santa Misericordia built another hospital, where poor negro slaves are treated, through their alms. Most of the negroes would doubtless die miserably if the Santa Misericordia did not piously aid them in so great need. The Misericordia entrusted their hospital to our religious, who administered it most willingly, as it was for poor creatures so orphaned and destitute.

Besides these hospitals, there is the infirmary at the principal convent of Manila, and another infirmary in the village of Pila, in the province of Laguna de Bay of Tagalos. The province of Camarines has two more infirmaries—one in the village of Camarines, and the other (which is the chief one) in the city of [Nueva] Cáçeres, the capital of that province. The religious of the order are treated in those infirmaries, as well as the religious of other orders, secular priests, and Spaniards, and not a few natives who gather there from various villages—the priests being admitted to the same infirmaries of the convents, and the laymen being accommodated in the private houses of the villages.

The service, past and present, rendered to the two Majesties and to their poor vassals by the religious in those hospitals and infirmaries is of no little importance. But since the infernal enemy of the poor does not sleep, he also found a plan to sow his seeds of discord and to entangle everything, as is his wont. When Don Sebastian governed this kingdom, he took the royal hospital away from the order, and commanded it to be administered by layman and by a [290]secular priest. He also took away the hospital of Cavite, and gave it to the religious of San Juan Bautista,1 whom he brought from México for that purpose. His Majesty (may God preserve him), having been [correctly] informed, has ordered by his royal decree that the royal hospital of Manila be returned to the order. In regard to the hospital of Cavite, the order has not informed his Majesty of anything. Without doubt the loss of the royal hospital of Manila is felt by the order, for it contained as superior and minister one of the father definitors, with another priest as associate (one of those who gave most satisfaction), and the father vicar of the nuns, with an associate. Besides these, there were four priests who were always chosen from among the best of the province. It was necessary that they be of the best, as they were in the sight of all the community. There were also four or six lay religious, chosen for the same reasons from the very best. The head-nurse was there and was chosen by the governor. The steward, then as now, gave the religious what was needful for the cure and comfort of the sick; and the religious gave out what was delivered to them by the stewards, without having the management of any property or money. And as that hospital always had a surgeon and an apothecary (both Spaniards), the religious who served and ministered to them learned medicine by experience, and by means of the books which they read in the Romance [i.e., Castilian] tongue. By that means the other hospitals and infirmaries were furnished with nurses [291]and physicians so competent that the best people of Manila preferred to be treated by them rather than by the Spanish physician. Since the province has lost that hospital, the seminary of its nurses is also lacking; and consequently only three or four of the old nurses have remained, who now take care of the other hospitals. But when they die, the province will sustain the hospitals with difficulty for lack of nurse and school where they can be trained.

[Section iii treats of the conversion of China, and section iv of the empire of Japan. Both have been treated sufficiently in preceding volumes. The former mentions the disputes of the Franciscans and Dominicans with the Jesuits over the Chinese rites. The latter narrates the early beginnings of the Franciscans’ missions in Japan (where they had ten convents and seven hospitals), their successes, and subsequent persecutions.]

In Tagolanda on the island of Maluco, the Moros of the island, after killing father Fray Sebastián de San Joseph2 with arrows for the preaching of the faith, beheaded him. His associate Fray Antonio de [292]Santa Ana,3 a lay-brother, was given to the women of the island because he refused to marry one of the chief Moro women, the daughter of the king of that island. They, dancing to the sound of a tambourine, began to stick sharp knives into all parts of his body; and then they beheaded him, and nailed his head to a pole. It is said that he preached our holy faith to those faithless Moros for many days after his death. Juridical reports of the martyrdom of those two religious were made in Manila, in Therrenate, and Macau, by order of his Holiness.

Father Fray Juan de Plasençia4 died in Burney, an island of the Mahometans, when on his way to España he stopped at that island. Father Fray Francisco de Santa Maria5 also died a martyr in [293]the same kingdom, because he had preached to the king in public three or four times and chided him for his false worship of Mahomet. While he was finishing mass in the house assigned to him by the king for his lodging, and giving thanks, a troop of men attacked him and cleft his head in twain; and when he was dead they dragged him along by his girdle, and threw him into the river. He died in the year 1583.

The holy father, Fray Blas de Palomino,6 a priest, was going to Therrenate in a Portuguese ship. On arriving at the island of Tagalonda, he asked the captain of the ship to put him ashore, and the latter did so. On reaching shore he began to preach to those islanders, but they speared him in sight of the ship. The father vicar of Therrenate got a report of that murder and martrydom from the Portuguese aboard that ship. In their report they said that father Fray Blas de Palomino wore only a habit, and under that a hair-cloth shirt which he wore quite commonly.

Brother Fray Juan de Palma,7 a lay-brother, was [294]going to España by way of India. The Dutch captured the ship in which that religious was sailing. They shot him with their arquebuses, although they did no harm to any of his companions. It is said that they shot him because he preached to the Dutch heretics; and it is a fact that the Dutch never treat a religious badly unless he begins to preach to them.

Father Fray Gerónimo de San Joseph,8 priest, embarked in the island Hermosa in a Chinese ship, with another religious, Fray Jacinto, of [the order] of our father, St. Dominic. Those religious intended to go to Japón, but the Chinese who were taking them killed them, and cut off their noses, which they salted. Thus did they carry these to Japón and presented them to the emperor, who ordered them to be given the reward that had been assigned to those who surrender and denounce evangelical ministers.

This city of Manila has a cathedral, and five convents of religious. Notwithstanding that, it was alone and as if an orphan, for it had no convent of [295]religious women. Especially did it sigh for a convent of discalced nuns of our mother St. Clare. All entreated and desired it, but no one had the wherewithal to found it. God inspired the master-of-camp, Pedro de Chaves and his wife, Doña Ana de Vera (who had no children or obligations), to spend their possessions in the founding of that convent. They petitioned his Majesty, who since he was so good a Catholic, immediately conceded it, and sent the religious women, who came at the expense of his royal treasury. Father Fray Joseph de Santa Maria, a venerable and perfectly satisfactory religious, was then in España, having returned to that country from this kingdom. The royal Council summoned him from his convent, where he was quietly remaining and resting after his long and troublesome journey. His Majesty ordered him to conduct these religious, and he received the commission very willingly, in consideration of the great service that he was doing to both Majesties, to this kingdom, and to the order. The said father Fray Joseph de Santa María left España with the following religious: Mother Gerónima de la Asunción, abbess, and as her associates Mother Leonor de San Francisco, Mother Ana de Cristo, Mother María Magdalena de la Cruz, Mother Magdalena de Cristo, Mother María de la Trinidad. On departing they gave the habit to Mother Juana de San Antonio and to Mother Luisa de Jesús who performed their novitiate during the voyage. The above religious were joined in México by Mother Leonor de San Buenaventura and Mother María de los Ángeles. During the second voyage [i.e., from Mexico to Manila] Mother María de la Trinidad died, and thus the [296]other nine religious arrived at Manila. On arriving they were lodged in the convent of San Páloc, owned by this province outside the walls of Manila, of which the patrons are the same master-of-camp, Pedro de Chaves, and his wife, Doña Ana de Vera, as they were its founders. While the women religious were in that convent, the two novices, Juana de San Antonio and Luisa de Jesús, professed. The two patrons, husband and wife, immediately prepared their houses, which were near the palace, and arranged them in the manner of a convent, whither the religious betook themselves. A few days after their arrival, the said master-of-camp, Pedro de Chaves, died, and Doña Ana his wife being widowed, her nephew Don Antonio de Vera, who married Doña Magdalena de Aybar, came from España. Doña Ana favored that gentleman as much as possible, since he was her nephew; she brought about his marriage, and made him a gift of all her property. Doña Ana de Vera died, and, the convent of Santa Clara brought a suit, because of her foundation, against the aforesaid nephew and niece, who remained as its patrons, and their heirs. The suit was concluded, and the nuns were left in possession of the houses of their founders, which had already been made into a convent, for which they were not compelled to pay anything. The said Don Antonio de Vera and his heirs were left in possession of a good ranch which the first founders and patrons had given to the convent for its support, provided that they abandoned and renounced all their right of patronage over the said convent. Therefore the convent was left to the mercy of God, without patron or property. In this way there came an end to the [297]mountains of gold that its first patrons promised to his Majesty for its foundation. The nuns began immediately to receive crowds of girls, so that the dove-cot was filled in a short time; and there are now fifty-six nuns. They do not receive fixed dowries. The convent contains the daughters of the noblest and richest men of Manila; but there are so many of them that the majority, although noble, entered poor. From the money inherited by the convent from some religious women whose fathers had property a church has been built and part of the convent—which is a tolerably good building. But it was so badly damaged by the late earthquake that it threatened to fall, so that the nuns fear, and so do we all, especially the province which has it in charge; but we cannot help it. Thus the convent now has fifty-six nuns to support—without property, without walls, and without patrons; nor do they know where they will get them, and consequently they suffer what God knows. At first they got along very well, for their parents and relatives were alive, and the inhabitants of Manila, as they had property, aided with their alms. But all that has ceased, and all Manila sees and bewails it. The superiors who governed this [Franciscan] province in the past well foresaw these times, and they accordingly ordered that the convent should have some property; and they had some, and very good it was. But the mother abbess, Gerónima de la Asunción, and other mothers who were among its founders, with the noble spirit that they brought, and as alms did not fail them then, determined to profess the first rule of our mother St. Clare, which does not allow temporal possessions or property. They wrote about that to [298]España, and thus the convent was built for them with the property that they possessed. Without doubt it suffers pressing necessities, but the mothers live consoled, for the poor gospeller is most consoled when he has least; and God, who sustains the birds, sustains and will sustain this convent if it maintains the rigor, poverty, and devotion that it professes.

News of the exceeding poverty and the religious life of this our convent of Santa Clara of Manila reached Macau. That community instantly petitioned for some religious women to found another convent there. It was conceded, and the following religious, having received their letters-patent and outfits, set sail for Macau: as abbess, Mother Leonor de San Francisco, and as her associates, Mother María Magdalena (these two being among those who came from Castilla la Vieja); and of those who had received the habit in this convent of Santa Clara of Manila, Mother Melchora de la Trinidad, Mother Clara de San Francisco, Mother Margarita de la Concepción, Mother Juana de la Concepción—six in all. The novitiate habit was given on the ship to Marta de San Bernardo, a Pampango Indian woman, whom the father provincial refused to allow to receive the habit in the convent of Manila, because of that fact. But he gave her permission to receive it on the sea, as she was so influential a woman and so moral and virtuous; and on that account all the convent had urgently requested it. Father Fray Gerónimo del Espiritu Santo, a religious who was thoroughly satisfactory to the province, accompanied those religious women to Macau; and, after they had founded the convent of Macau, Mother María Magdalena, Mother Margarita, and [299]Mother Clara returned to Manila by license of the superiors. They brought a novice with them, namely, a daughter of Captain Diego Enriquez de Losada, who came with them from Macau. The father reader, Fray Antonio de Santa María, also returned with them to this province; he had remained in Macau, because he had lost his passage to Roma with the loss of Malaca.

There are various animals in this kingdom, as for instance, carabaos or buffaloes, dogs, domestic and wild swine, monkeys, and goats, and many deer in the mountains. The Spaniards have brought here cows and horses. The cows have multiplied remarkably. The horses are numerous, and are small. It is a land of many reptiles and serpents; for it is damp and hot. In especial is there one species known as olopong.9 There is no preservative or antidotal herb against its bite. Others [i.e., pythons] are called sauas, which are very large. One of these will hang from a tree, catch whatever living thing passes below—such as deer, man, or swine—and swallow it whole. It has a very large and excellent gall, which is a proved antidote for or preventive of [poison]. The mountain Indians eat that snake. It breeds in the mountains on the opposite coast of Valer and Palinan. The other animals above mentioned [300]are numerous throughout the kingdom. In the same manner these islands abound in large and small fish. Tunnies are caught on the opposite coast of Casiguran and in the lake of Bong-bong—although as the country is so hot, few of them are in good condition when they reach Manila. The most remarkable fish is the crocodile, which here is called buhaya. It is a fierce animal, [living in both] land and water, and thus sustains itself by hunting and fishing, although it does not go far inland. The rivers and lakes are full of those animals. In the province of Camarines there is a lake of fresh water where there are so many crocodiles that the surrounding villages collect to kill them; and they are accustomed to kill fifty, sixty, or a hundred of the creatures. Their flesh is not eaten, and hence they are good for nothing. There are also various species of birds. They multiply but little, for the serpents eat them. The principal birds are fowls like those of España; other fowls, smaller like partridges, which breed in the mountains; many turtle-doves and pigeons, and anades10 and ducks. There are but few metals. The Indians get gold from their mines. Our missions contain the mines of Paracali, and that village is supported by the gold that is obtained there, for it has no other resources. Those mines fill up immediately with water; and hence they are of no importance to the Spaniards. But the Indians who are plodding, and work little by little, get a sufficient quantity of it. A mine was discovered in that village some years ago, from which considerable gold was extracted. It filled with water and now a wonderful vein is seen there. Some Spaniards [301]have attempted to draw off the water, because of the great wealth that it shows, but they have not succeeded. Another mine, of copper, was discovered in that same village of Paracale.11 Some copper, though little, was obtained from it, and then it was abandoned because the cost was more than the profit. There is a prolific mine of rock sulphur in the province of Camarines. That province also has a very lofty and steep volcano which is constantly throwing out streams of fire. Some years ago, an eruption from it wrought damage to the neighboring villages. During these last years, the noise and din that has been heard in the interior [of that volcano] has been remarkable, and on that account the neighboring villages are full of fear.12 These islands also contain [302]many civet cats, which breed in the mountains; and many swarms of bees, from which the Indians get a quantity of wax. There are forest trees for buildings and ships. There are many excellent fruit trees. There are many kinds of bananas and oranges, most of which have been brought by the Spaniards from China. The oranges that the Indians had in their pagan state are very large, of the size of a Spanish gourd; and the taste is pleasant and resembles that of a grape. The Spaniards have also brought melons from España, China, and Japón; as well as radishes, cabbages, lettuce, onions, and garlic; also camotes or potatoes, which have resulted very well, and are a source of great support for this kingdom. The Indians also formerly had other very good and useful roots, and various kinds of kidney beans. The sugar-cane also is produced throughout this kingdom, and a quantity of sugar is manufactured from it, although, it is not so sweet as that of España. Rice is the principal product of this kingdom. It is abundant, and there are various species of it; and it is harvested and sown throughout the year. Wheat comes from China, and a quantity formerly came from Japón. A quantity is also grown in this kingdom, although it is degenerating yearly, and accordingly it is necessary to bring new seed from Therrenate every fourth year. Our friars brought some shoots of the clove in a pot for transplanting. They were transplanted in various climates, and in different villages. Two shoots took root in the village of Mahayhay and produced fruit, and the cloves were as good as those of Therrenate. The first fruit that was gathered was sent to the governor of these islands, Don Juan Zereço. Those [303]two trees were lost afterward, and consequently none have been left in the kingdom. Some grapevine shoots have been brought from China, which after being transplanted in these islands have become good vines. The arms which have been and are commonly used by the natives of the kingdom are bows and arrows, a small lance and a shield of elongated round shape, like a pavés.13 The Indians who live far from Manila are doubtless skilful in the use of the bow and arrow. The Negrillos who wander through the mountains, and support themselves by hunting, are very skilful. The latter people have no government or settlements, and consequently they are not conquered. Considerable cotton is gathered throughout the kingdom, from which the Indians weave various kinds of cloth and textiles, of which they manufactured their clothes and vestments when they were pagans. Now they generally make them of mantas and pieces brought from China; and thus they are clad very well, tastefully, and in clean garments. In the province of Camarines, near the village of Malinas, there is also a hot-water spring, which issues from the ground boiling. Consequently, it destroys every living thing that falls into it; and, if wood or bone falls into it, converts them into stone.

The tributes and the persons who confess, who were above enumerated in each mission and ministry, were drawn from the lists which we have in the government [offices]. Without doubt those of our missions are a few more or less; for the exact number at present cannot be estimated except by consulting [304]the lists which are made for confession every Lent. There are nearly seventy-six thousand among all the persons who are ministered to in our missions.

The first founders of this province were discalced religious, sons of the province of San Joseph, whose principal convent is San Gil at Madrid; and accordingly this province was governed for some years as a custodia of the said province of San Joseph, its founder. And, since this was its custodia, the province of San Joseph sent to it the orders for its government. The other discalced provinces of España also sent their religious, in order to have a share in the abundant fruits of the conversion that have always been enjoyed in this province. The province of San Joseph, considering, then, that it was now time that this province—at that time its custodia—should govern itself and have its own government, petitioned his Holiness, Gregory Thirteenth, to erect it into a province. His Holiness did so by his special bull, by which he makes it a participant in all the apostolic briefs that have been or may be hereafter conceded by the apostolic see to the said province of San Joseph. In words truly weighty, and worthy of so great a pontiff, he charged this province and its superiors with the zeal that they ought to have in attending to the conversions in their care. His Holiness especially charged the conversion of the great empire of China upon them. In accordance with that action, father Fray Pablo de [305]Jesus was elected as the first provincial of this province in the year 1590. From that time until our days it has been preserved as a province, and it has been supplied with Observantine religious. The latter in order to aid their brothers have offered, with especial spirit, their health and lives to the Lord, and have busied themselves in preaching His gospel; so that almost all the provinces of España, both of the Discalced and of the Observantine, have religious sons who have been martyrs in this province.

This province was founded in the rigor and poverty which the Discalced of España profess. In order to better preserve themselves so, they petitioned his Majesty (may God preserve him) to be pleased to aid them with his paternal alms, in order that they might avoid in that way, as much as possible, the handling of money, which is so contrary to the purity of our holy rule. His Majesty did that with so holy and paternal a zeal that he ordered his governors and viceroys by his royal decree to aid this province with what was needful to clothe and cure the sick. This has been done and is being done, so that his Majesty spends annually more than two thousand five hundred pesos from his royal treasuries in sackcloth for habits, and in medicines, for the sick in México and Manila. This province, recognizing so extraordinary an alms, and the other favors that his Majesty is doing for it, considers his Majesty as its special patron; and refused the patronage that the dukes of Medina Sidonia and Escalona asked for—who offered their alms, favor, and protection. This province sought excuse from their [306]Excellencies by saying that they could not make any innovation about that matter without an order from his Majesty, for the said reasons.

While Don Pedro de Acuña was governing these islands by the force of his valor and arms, he placed a garrison in the forts of Therrenate. The soldiers being disconsolate without a convent of our father St. Francis, the governors accordingly founded in those forts the convent of San Antonio outside the walls of the city. Its first beginning was poor and slight. Afterward, when Master-of-camp Cristoval de Ascueta was governing the forts, he bought at his own cost some good plank houses, in that same locality, which were owned by a Spaniard. Therein, at his own cost and by his energy, he founded a church and convent of planks, which had a spacious garden. That convent was burned, as well as a hospital which the religious had built near it. The religious, seeing themselves thus destitute, tried to come to Manila, but Don Juan Niño de Tavora, who was governing this kingdom at that time, would not allow them to come. Accordingly, he sent an urgent order to Admiral Don Pedro de Heredia to rebuild their house with especial care. The said admiral did so, with so singular devotion that he rebuilt it in a short time, all of stone. Thus the convent was founded and the religious sustained at the expense of his Majesty (may God preserve him).

The religious of this convent have not been content with attending to the consolation of the soldiers of those fortresses, and administration of the sacraments to them, as the chaplains of his Majesty, but they have always endeavored to plant the holy gospel in the surrounding kingdoms. Fathers Fray Cristoval [307]del Castillo, Fray Martín de San Juan, Fray Gregorio de San Esteban,14 Fray Pedro de la Concepción, and a lay-brother, Fray Benito Díaz, entered the kingdom of Manados, where at various times they tried to convert that kingdom to the holy gospel. Father Fray Diego de Roxas died there, occupied in the same preaching of the holy gospel, with so much approbation of life that the natives of the kingdom buried his body in a new sepulcher, which they inclosed and preserved with so great veneration and respect that, although our religious of Therrenate have gone there for his bones, the natives have always refused to give them up. Father Fray Bias de Palomino (of whom we made mention above) also returned from this kingdom, to Therrenate, and, since he had already learned the languages of those kingdoms, wished to preach in the kingdom of Tagalanda. He disembarked for that purpose, trusting to those islanders, who, being barbarians, killed him as above stated. Some of our religious of Therrenate have entered the kingdom of Macasar for the same purpose of preaching the gospel, and of offering the word of God on various occasions to the kings of that kingdom. Although the latter did not receive the word, they did not maltreat [308]the religious. On the contrary, some villages, called Meados, which have preserved peace with our Spaniards of Therrenate in the said kingdom of Manados, have been very favorable to our religious. They have aided the forts with what provisions they had there. In the years of the Lord, forty-three and forty-four, some Spaniards who had gone to get provisions were in those villages. The Indians rose up against them. Two religious were also in the said villages, namely, father Fray Juan Yranzo and Fray Lorenzo Garalda,15 who had gone thither to convert the people. The Indians killed some of the Spaniards. Father Juan Yranzo escaped with some Spaniards, but father Fray Lorenço was killed at that time. When father Fray Vicente Argente,16 then the provincial minister of that province, investigated the matter and how it had happened, the witnesses declared that the Indians had refused to kill father Fray Lorenço, but that the priests of their idols insisted upon it, by saying that they were very angry because priests had been admitted into their [309]kingdom who prevented their idolatry. That was the reason why he suffered so many hardships. He died seven days after. His body was found upon its knees, and the Indians hid and kept it refusing to give it up. That religious was always considered a man of excellent spirit and zeal. Father Fray Bartolomé de San Diego17 and brother Fray Miguel de San Buenaventura have been preaching to those islanders in the islands of Calonga. Our religious have been in those kingdoms and in others near Therrenate, on various occasions and at various times, ever trying to reduce people so barbarous to the knowledge of our true God, although always with but little fruit. May the will of God be done in all things! The father reader Fray Ginés de Quesada18 and father Fray Juan Yorillas,19 emulating the holy zeal of so many martyrs as Japón has had, entered that country with remarkable courage, [310]and died there in the year 1633. Although we know that their death is certain, we do not know how it happened. There are many reports, but they are alike only in saying that those fathers were killed by torture.

When Don Juan Niño de Tavora was governing these islands, the emperor of Japon sent hither as many as one hundred and fifty exiled Christian lepers. It is said that his intent was to spread that leprosy among the natives of these islands, for it is a very common disease in Japón. But whether that was the intent or no, it is a fact that they were exiled because they were Christians; and as good Christians they preferred to leave their country and their relatives rather than their Christian worship and religion. All the city of Manila was greatly edified at sight of them. But at length those who received them into their charge were our holy order, who took them to the garden or site of the hospital for the natives, built by the religious. They are and have always been in that hospital, and the religious have sought alms with which to sustain them, for they have cost no little care, and do still. The governor assigned them alms from the royal treasury in the name of his Majesty; and his Majesty, upon learning it, ordered, since he is so good a Catholic, that two hundred ducados be given them annually from his royal treasury.

Nothing can be done in the missions if the religious do not learn the language of the natives. The religious of this province have always occupied themselves in this with great assiduity, as they are so free from property and business. The first missionaries left many writings in the Tagálog and [311]Bícol languages, the best of which are those left by fathers Fray Juan de Oliver, Fray Juan de Plasençia, Fray Miguel de Talavera,20 Fray Diego de la Asunción,21 and Fray Gerónimo Monte.22 Mention is here made of the above fathers because they were the first masters of the Tagálog language, and since their writings are so common and so well received by all the orders. They have not been printed, because [312]they are voluminous, and there are no arrangements in this kingdom for printing so much. Those things that have been printed, as being urgently needed for the instruction of the natives, are the following. In the year 1613, father Fray Pedro de San Buenaventura23 printed a Tagálog vocabulary. In the year 1610, father Fray Gerónimo Monte printed in the Tagálog tongue Oraciones devotas para Comulgar y Confesar [i.e., “Devout prayers for Communion and Confession”]. Father Fray Alonso de Santa Ana24 explained and printed the Misterios de nuestra Santa fe [i.e., “Mysteries of our Holy faith”] in the same Tagálog language in the year 1628. In the year 1637, father Fray Joseph de Santa Maria translated into the same language the Doctrina of Cardinal Bellarmino. In a different style father Fray Antonio de San Gregorio tried to explain the principal mysteries of our holy faith, in the year 1648. Father Fray Andrés de San Agustín25 [313]printed a grammar of the Bícol language in the province of Camarines in the Bícol language (which is the commonest and most universal of that province), in the year 1647; and the translation that he made into that language of the Doctrina of the same Cardinal Bellarmino,26 in the same language and in the same year. Father Fray Juan del Spiritu Santo printed another Tratado de Comunión y de Confesión [i.e., “Treatise on Communion and Confession”] with which the father ministers and these natives have sufficient for study—the first, the so important barbaric languages of these kingdoms; and the second, the so necessary mysteries of our holy faith. The above is what has been printed in the Bícol language; and since the writings left by fathers Fray Marcos de Lisboa27 and Fray Diego Bermeo,28 [314]the first ministers of that province and the first masters of that language, have not been printed, we shall make no mention of them.

In the year nineteen or twenty his Majesty sent a goodly reënforcement of men and money to this kingdom by his general Don [blank space in MS.] de Huesola. That aid was lost on leaving Cádiz.29 In all of the galleons were sailing our religious, who had been assigned as chaplains. Father Fray Juan de Noves, with another priest, and a lay-brother, Fray Joseph de los Santos, took passage in the galleon San Joseph. That galleon was wrecked on the coast, as were the others. Its captain and pilot retired to the stern, which is the highest part of the vessel. They had the religious summoned who were down below, hearing confessions on the quarterdeck. Father Fray Juan de Noves answered that he could not go, for they were confessing the people, and that they could not leave all those men without consolation. The lay-brother went, since he was not a confessor, and was saved, with those who were at the stern. The two religious who were confessors were lost, on account of hearing confessions, with the others who were below decks. Most extraordinary was the zeal displayed in this by father Fray Andrés de Puertollano.30 Returning to España as custodian of this province, he embarked at Vera Cruz in the almiranta [315]of the fleet. That vessel was lost in a storm on some hidden rocks, and was beached. The admiral went in his falúa with what Spaniards he could take, and father Fray Andrés embarked with him. When the poor wretches who were left behind in the wrecked galleon saw father Fray Andrés in the falúa, they commenced to cry out, saying: “Father Fray Andrés, why do you leave us in these troubles?” The religious, overmastered by impulse, sprang into the water without saying anything; and went to the galleon to confess those poor wretches, where he perished with the others. Reverend Father Fray Juan de Prado, then commissary-general of the order in México, advised this province of that event. His most reverent Paternity adds in his letter that he also had been advised, in the report made to him of the matter, that the men aboard of the falúa saw father Fray Andrés walk upon the water when returning to the ship, just as if he were upon the land. The truth is, as we all know, that father Fray Andrés could not swim; and even had he known how, he would have swum but ill, clad in a habit of sackcloth so voluminous as that worn by the discalced religious. May His Divine Majesty be pleased by it all, and may He give us His holy Spirit so that we may all serve and praise Him!

O divine Providence! O eternal Predestination! we men work as men; but Thou, O Lord, ordainest our works to incomprehensible ends, as an omnipotent God! In the shipyard of Bagatas, which was established in the province of Camarines, the Mindanao [316]enemy (whose worship is the law of Mahomet) made a sudden attack. The galleon which was being built was burned; and among other persons captured was father Fray Domingo de los Mártires, who was the confessor of the shipyard, and a lay-brother, his associate and the nurse of the same shipyard. They offered and sacrificed the lay-brother to their god or idol, in a storm that burst upon them. They took the priest with them, he preaching to them all the time and teaching them our evangelical law whenever he saw a convenient opportunity for so doing. It happened that a woman near his apartment who was pregnant came to her time; she had a very painful labor, and bore an infant, still alive but breathing its last. The religious begged leave of the mother to baptize it. He was granted permission and baptized it, and shortly afterward it died and went to heaven. Many blows and knocks did it cost the religious to baptize it; but he afterward returned to this province where he died, and where he recounted the above. Thus did the Mindanao enemy go to Bagatas, burned the shipyard, captured two religious, sacrificed the lay-brother to their idols, and preserved the life of the priest; and for what end? Why did they not sacrifice them both? Because God had predestined that infant for His glory, and likewise that the [Moro] king should go to Bagatas, and attain his design, namely, the burning of the shipyard; and that God should also attain His, namely, to take that infant to His glory. Inasmuch as that had to be by the medium of baptism, [He ordained] that the king should take a priest from Bagatas, preserve his life, give him lodging near the pregnant mother, and that the mother [317]should have a painful birth; that the religious should learn of it, and with the mother’s permission baptize the infant; and that it should die at that instant, so that it should instantly be translated from its Mahometan kingdom to that of Glory, for so has divine Providence disposed and ordained.

Not less important was that which happened in the province of Tuy. That province has some valleys enclosed by rough mountains, which are bounded on the north by the province of Cagayán, and on the east by the village of Casiguran, (he last of our missions. Father Blas de la Madre de Dios,31 during his provincialate, heard of these people while in the province of Tagalos, and in order to reduce them to civilization and to obedience to our God and our king, sent fathers Fray Pedro de la Concepción and Fray Joseph Fonte to them, as well [318]as the brothers Fray Pedro de Sacedón and Fray Baltasar de N. to act as nurses. Those religious lived in that province for two years, and the Indians furnished them with what was necessary, with all respect and kindness. A man already aged fell sick, and, being harassed by his illness, begged to be taken to the religious, who were in another village. On arriving he begged for holy baptism, with tears in his eyes, and scarcely had he received it when he died and went to heaven. This is the fruit that was drawn from that journey, besides some small children who were baptized when in danger of death, for whose predestination divine Providence seems to have thus arranged. The same father provincial, Fray Blas de la Madre de Dios, went with other religious to visit that province. Considering how poor were the facilities for that conversion—for the people were scattered in groups of huts, and had no villages or government—and that between the said village of Casiguran and the said valleys of Tuy intervene thickets and mountains inhabited by savage Cimarrones; and that those mountains in themselves are very rough, so that no one could go to and return from Tuy without undergoing the worst kind of trouble and danger: therefore the father provincial returned to his mission at Casiguran with all the religious. The fathers of St. Dominic also went to those people by way of Cagayán, and also abandoned them for the same reasons as we. From the above examples many others can be inferred in each conversion, which are without doubt special and remarkable. In them and in all things may our God and Lord be blessed and praised; and may His Divine [319]Majesty give us His holy grace so that we may praise and serve Him in this and in the eternal life as His children! Amen.

I look at the conversion of this kingdom of Philipinas in this way: The happy day arrived on which God had determined to reduce all América to the bosom of His holy Church. The kings of Francia and Inglaterra disregard its conquest; the Catholic sovereign, although in those times poorer and less powerful, receives it. América having been conquered, reports are sent from Asia to Madrid testifying of the islands of Salomón and their wealth of gold and pearls. The fleets of España go to discover them, and although they discover other kingdoms and islands of infidels, they do not halt therein. The islands of Luzón having been discovered, they are conquered; and, having been conquered, are preserved. “Then, Sire, if the islands of Luçon do not contain the gold and pearls that one imagined, why are they preserved?” “That makes no difference,” replies his Catholic Majesty, “for I am working as an instrument of divine Providence. The gold and pearls are a very accidental object. The chief end is the conversion of the kingdom of Luçón, which God has specially predestined; and He has chosen me, His king, as the instrument. And since the principal end for the greater service of my God has been attained with so great glory to myself and to my crown, the islands of Luçón will be preserved, although my treasures are exhausted in their preservation.” O, great God! how incomprehensible by the usual means are Thy hidden purposes!—or, Altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae, Deo quam incomprehensibilia [320]sunt indicia cuis et investigabilis vid [sc., vis?] eius!32

[To this account may be added the following information regarding the Franciscan order in the Philippines, previous to 1640, from La Concepción’s Hist. de Philipinas, v, pp. 199–201:]

6. On the occasion of the conquest of the island Hermosa, and the establishments therein, the province of San Gregorio resolved to found their own convent there, in order that it might serve them as a way-station to Japon and China. For that purpose their provincial sent father Fray Gaspar de Alenda, and as his associate the lay brother Fray Juan de San Marcos. Furnished with the necessary licenses and despatches, they established in accordance with these a church and convent, which they dedicated to their glorious father St. Francis; and they maintained themselves there until the Dutch drove them thence, with the death of their founder, father Fray Gaspar. Those fathers had their troubles in Philipinas in their chief administration of Camarines. By the death of Don Fray [Pedro] Mathias, the one chosen to succeed him was the most illustrious Don Fray Pedro Godines, a Franciscan, who did not come over to that church. The most illustrious and reverend Don Fray Diego de Guevara, an Augustinian, who had been prior of their convent of Manila, the first vicar-general of Japon, was appointed. That prelate governed that church justly for three years, when he suddenly departed this life. He was succeeded [321]by the most illustrious Don Fray Luis de Cañizares, a Minim, by virtue of a royal decree of appointment and presentation; but in Mexico another decree reached him, making him bishop of Honduras. As incumbent of the vacant see in Camarines was substituted the most illustrious and most reverend Don Fray Francisco de Zamudio, an Augustinian by profession, from the province of Mechoacan. He began to govern in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-three and continued in his office until that of thirty-nine, when he died suddenly. During his government he tried to despoil the discalced Franciscans of various missions in the province of Camarines and that of Ibalon or Albay. The Franciscans defended themselves against that spoliation, and opposed the decisions of the provisors of Manila and of Zebù in degree of appeal, which were favorable to the bishop. They proceeded afterward with their suit before the archbishop, Don Fernando Guerrero, and he annulled those sentences, notwithstanding that favor [by the provisors], in order to obviate quarrels and scandals, which were inevitable in [attempting to] rectify affairs after such spoliation. As the firm nature of the most illustrious Zamudio would not permit him to comply with the archbishop’s decree, the Franciscans yielded, voluntarily and humbly, their rights declared and confirmed by sentence of that court. The bishop also claimed [the right] to subject them to the [diocesan] visitation and examination, in his execution of briefs and decrees. That knotty question was discussed in the Audiencia. The most illustrious Don Fray Diego Aduarte, bishop of Nueva Segovia, having been summoned, responded to that [322]tribunal, renouncing his favorable right—which, although it was in favor of the miter, was greatly injurious to the Indians. In order to avoid greater injuries he renounced inferior rights, setting aside all these for the good administration of his subjects.33 That response was sufficient to cause all former prejudicial litigations to cease. [323]