On April 20 of the year 1652, the members of the chapter were assembled in the convent of Santo Domingo in Manila, and elected as provincial the reverend father Fray Pedro de Ledo, then prior of that said convent and vicar-provincial of Tagalos. He was a person of all good qualities, a native of [98]Mexico, and of noble parentage in that city. He took the habit and professed in this convent of Santo Domingo in Manila. In his studies he gave so good an account of himself that he lectured in arts and theology, and became regent in our college of Santo Tomas. He always had the name of an excellent student and learned man. On that account, and because of his great prudence, known to us by experience, the religious elected him to the post of provincial, which he filled very successfully and with great credit. Among the special events of that chapter was the announcement of the new university of Santo Tomas and its apostolic erection by a bull which his Holiness Innocent Tenth, of blessed memory, was pleased to promulgate at the instance of the king our sovereign, Felipe Fourth the Great. His Majesty, as sole patron, was pleased to put his hand to that—an honor very worthy of publication by the chapter; and, although it was current in all the province, that solemnity was still to be performed. The house of San Miguel of Ituy, in the province of Nueva Segovia, was also accepted. That is a great stretch consisting of heathen settlements for the greater part, although there are some Christians among them, some of whom are those who flee from other villages. It lies on the eastern border of the province of Cagayan, and extends from some high mountain chains to the coast; and, as it is so rough a land, it has not yet been possible to conquer it, although many attempts have been made, the religious going sometimes with and sometimes without soldiers. Missionaries have also been appointed on various occasions; but although they have baptized many persons, they have not been able to convert [99]them all. As vicar of the said house, the chapter then appointed father Fray Teodoro de la Madre de Dios, and gave him some priests as companions. They went thither with a presidio of Spanish soldiers at the command of the governor, who so ordained it. Many of the soldiers and two of the religious—father Fray Bernardo Cejudo and father Fray Manuel Rincon—died because of the poor climate or poor food. They all remained there, that time, for two years, and baptized many people there; and those natives long continued to embrace the law of God. But either because of the sickness, which had developed into a plague; or because those Indians were at war continually with other people of the interior, more powerful, who greatly persecuted them, and the faith of Christ: for all those causes, and because they could not cope with so many dangers and troubles so long as the natives were not quiet, the presidio that was still left retired to Cagayan, and the fathers returned, as they had lost hope of obtaining more fruit. However, our religious are accustomed to return there every little while, where some are baptized, and those who have made their decision do not fail to come; and the province does not lose sight of those posts, for the time when the Lord shall be pleased to summon them, and when they shall respond with resolution. They are numerous; and, since they live so far inland in this same island, it is well seen that it is very pitiable to behold them so buried in their darkness—or not to see them, for they flee from the light. It is not easy to form a judgment on what passes in this very island; for, since it extends for almost two hundred leguas, and all of the seacoast in all parts is subdued, all the fastnesses [100]of the mountains are inhabited by numerous peoples of various nations and languages, morally impossible to subdue, although great efforts are being and have been made. The reason therefor is, that since it rains so much in these lands, in addition to the so powerful heat of the sun, and there is so little stone, such thickets and undergrowth spring up that one can penetrate them with difficulty, and [it is even difficult] for the very animals of the forest. Consequently, nature has defended those people with a thousand walls. Then too they are children of idleness, and live on roots, the fruits of trees, and the flesh of game. They have no other granaries than those of their own bellies, nor more clothing than that which they get from their mothers. At the most, they wear a bajaque or breechcloth made from the bark of a tree, and which conceals but ill the token of their sex. They have no villages, but live in rude collections of huts or in camps, and in certain shacks which rise a vara above the earth, where they take refuge when it rains. When they feel the cold too keenly, they light fires and sleep in the ashes. Their life is as follows: When they rise in the morning, the robust ones go hunting the deer with arrows or dogs. If they kill one, they take it to their camp; and there they all eat it, half raw, half roasted, without salt or bread. If they do not have meat, they find roots and fruit, and so do they satisfy their hunger without further exercise of reason. And, since they are totally without reason, they have no form of religion or worship, except certain superstitions concerning the flight and songs of birds. Such is their wretched existence; and therefore do they grow up with the understanding of brutes, without care or [101]foresight. Some descend the mountain to trade with our Christian Indians. The latter approach them, and carry iron for their arrows, and rice and other things which they know well—especially tobacco, but which they are not accustomed to sow. Neither do they accustom themselves to any other kind of work. This island so abounds with these people that they are encountered at six leguas from Manila. By means of such communication they hear our Christians, who talk to them of our holy faith, and they approve it. But when they hear that the Christians pay tribute and bandalas, and that here are personal services (which it is necessary to have, for a civilized and domestic life) they return to their liberty. Some are reduced, but it is generally a fact that this becomes continually more difficult so long as the Lord who died for them does not drive from their side that enemy who makes them daily more obstinate and hard.

Late in July of the year 1653, the ship from Nueva España anchored in the port of Cavite, more fortunate than most of the vessels that have been seen since the discovery of these islands. It brought four personages—no less than the archbishop, the governor, the bishop of Cagayan, and an auditor. It had been some years since a ship had entered Cavite, for they all had to put back to other ports because of the bad weather. And although, wherever they finally enter, they discharge their cargo and assure the safety of the money, yet doubtless it is always a considerable loss that the ship does not come direct to Cavite, and, being laden with expenses and averías, at least one-third of its good fortune is dissipated. It had been twelve and more years since these islands [102]had had an archbishop; for one who came to them consecrated during that time, namely, his Excellency Don Fernando Montero de Espinosa, was obliged to come overland, as the ship anchored in the port of Lampon; and, when he arrived at the lake of Bay six leguas from this city—whither some persons from the cabildo had gone beforehand to receive him—he was suddenly overtaken by a severe illness, from which he soon died without the Church, his spouse, having enjoyed anything except letters and good news. And, lastly, came the evil of its widowhood before he had taken possession of it or seen it. For that reason all through that period there was considerable trouble, wherever trouble exists. But there is more here, where before a successor is obtained another six or eight years elapse. Now indeed did the lack become doubly felt, for not even one of the three suffragan bishops of this metropolitan was left; for if there are any bishops it is a great consolation. For then, although it is after the trouble of making voyages, students, religious, and secular priests are ordained, and there is recourse for all that episcopal dignity demands, and it is the shadow of a great relief for all Christians, although the bishops are distant. It was God’s will to allow his Excellency Doctor Don Miguel de Poblete—a native of Mexico, in whose cathedral and in that of La Puebla de los Angeles he had held the greatest dignities—to arrive at that time. He was received here with great demonstrations of joy. The governor was Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, knight of the Order of Calatrava, a native of Malaga. He filled his post excellently, and was generally well liked by all; for he was very affable, pious, and not at all harsh like [103]the former governor. He had his troubles, of which we shall speak; and having governed for more than ten years his residencia was satisfactorily finished, and he had the good fortune to return to his country. The bishop of Cagayan was his Excellency, Master Don Fray Rodrigo de Cardenas, of our holy order and from the province of Perù, of whom we shall speak in the proper place. The auditor who came in that ship was Don Salvador de Espinosa, a learned and zealous man; and so much so that he began to work at matters of government before the proper time. For he immediately, seeing that there were but few Spaniards in the country, thought that he had learned all about it in a short time; and went about passing sentences and issuing manifestos, more a result of his erudition than from any necessity for it. His last offspring bore the character of admonition and was printed. All estates were grievously wounded by it—a serious matter when there is no one to take up the defense. His zeal might have been useful, but assuredly no service to God or the king followed; for his Majesty does not desire his vassals to be maltreated, but will consider it a great service if his ministers employ their great erudition in maintaining justice, observing it in all the villages, and honoring all, especially the ecclesiastical religious, and not in saying pretty things (with which they load one down when they consider that it will make their own dignity more estimable)—especially with these printed papers, which, since they are printed, give us more permission to make public complaint. Like that of another paper which was printed in the year 1671—which finally brought its author to the earth, even before knowing the names, [104]it left persons both ecclesiastical and religious badly besmirched. In order to vaunt his erudition, he despoiled the living altars of their best ornament, namely, honor; and he did not hesitate to dedicate and send it to the feet of the greatest Majesty. But he will have had his answer already. The other admonitory pamphlet, when it was issued, seemed so foul to its very author that he himself went about collecting and burning it. Supposing the first an arbitrary statement, the second was Catholic and made by a person erudite and desirous of salvation. He lived for a while, for a mortal accident happened, and he paid his debt and had himself buried in the convent of Santo Domingo. To the great luck of so fortunate a ship, which brought so grave persons and those of the greatest distinction for these lands, was added the relief of money, which was larger than usual, as well as that of individual persons....

[This chapter records the death (in 1653) in the Manila convent of father Fray Juan del Villar, a native of Luzena, and son of the convent of San Pablo el Real in Cordova. He went to the Philippines in 1635, and applied himself to the study of Chinese and taught in the college of Santo Tomás.]

Among other ordinances passed by that chapter, as they were necessary, was one that declared that no one could be employed in the office of lecturer in our college of Santo Thomas unless he first learned some one language native to that country—not because there is any logic in it, which must precede the sciences, but, since the first foundation of this province is that of the preaching and missions, all must know a language. He who does not know one, even if he be a very learned theologian, does not render [105]all the service that he can; and he does not have the good fortune to be sent by his prelates or to have a change of climate, which is perhaps important to his health. On arriving from España it is the custom for all to be divided, according to the arrangements made by the prelate, in the study of the various languages. With their pious desire and the master that is given them, he who can not learn enough in one year in order to make himself understood as a preacher and confessor in a language must be very dull. With such sound beginnings they are not embarrassed afterward in other occupations, since, when a place in the ministry becomes suitable, the greatest difficulty is found to have been conquered. Of greatest use on the sea is he who knows the duties of sailor and artilleryman; and as time goes on it becomes a matter of disconsolation for a religious to find himself without a language, and at an age when it is impossible to learn it, while it is a matter that might have been overcome in a brief time at the beginning.

[Chapters ii–iv treat of Chinese affairs and missions.]

In the junta held in the convent of Santo Domingo in Manila in the year fifty-four, there was no new ordinance to pass; for all matters were well ordered, and this holy province always refrains from making new laws, which (like the impositions of new tributes) the obedience of the subjects always considers with more annoyance than respect. For since they [106]are the life of the monarchy, when there is any need, and its health, so also are they generally feared when they can be avoided; and when new ones are imposed, the old ones become distasteful. The provincial (who was then father Fray Pedro de Ledo, a man of great devotion and zeal), seeing that no ministers had left these islands for Japon since the year thirty-seven, as the gates had been shut to them and even walled up for our sins and those of that wretched land, tried to get together a mission for it; and, in order that he might not have cause to envy the explorers, he determined to go himself as prelate. But he always urged secrecy in the plan as the essential part, and only revealed it to those interested—namely, father Fray Raymundo del Valle, father Fray Pedro de Ansa (an oldtime minister of Cagayan), and father Fray Antonio de Barrios. He also shared the secret with the person who was to remain as vicar-general during his absence. With that intention, which was facilitated by his courage and pious desire, he bought a champan under pretext that it was to be used for the service of the province of Cagayan, and that he was lading it with supplies and ship’s-stores for the said province (as was a fact). He spent a large sum in that, and even despoiled some churches of their money. That was without any doubt a harsh measure; for although the property of the convents is common here, and the provincial can take from one to aid another, in accordance with the ordinances of this province, yet that kind of goods and property are generally bought with the alms of the natives of the villages, given by them especially for their churches. Consequently an injury was done, even though it be as was alleged [107]on that occasion, namely, that he thought that there was a superabundance of alms. Since all the adornment of the tabernacle and of Solomon’s temple falls short for divine worship, and these natives do not remember or take much note of leaving or not leaving their property in immemorial writings, their memories are indelibly impressed by seeing that they have given it by their sweat to the church, and they leave an honorable luster on a lamp and some candlesticks which they gave, and which remain, making a barangay honorable. The father-provincial, who was a prudent and erudite man, must have considered it all; yet notwithstanding, as he thought that the common right of a mission so important as Japon was greater than are the alms and the said gifts, the matter could not be regulated, and he used it all. The end was most lofty, the means which he chose very fitting—as were the three religious, who were the most suitable in the province; and the champan was staunch. All being concluded, the essential wheel of those plans was lacking, namely, the will of God without which one can never succeed. [The efforts to attain the Japanese mission proved fruitless, but the provincial succeeded in sending five missionaries to China. The remainder of the chapter treats of Chinese affairs.]

[Chapter vi relates in part the work of the mission to China. Chapter vii mentions certain missionaries who have died. The lay-brother Raymundo de la Cruz died gloriously after earnest labor. Geronimo de Zamora died in Cagayan province after a ministry among the natives of thirty-eight years, besides serving as commissary of the Holy Office. His native city was Zaragoza, and he professed in the convent [108]of that city. He was rector of the college of Santo Tomás, definitor in the year 1652, vicar-provincial four times in Cagayan, and ordinary in nearly all the houses of that province. Juan de las Casas also died in the same part of the province. Bernardo Cejudo died while engaged in the conversion of Ituy. He had reached the Philippines in 1648, and his life was one of austerity and earnest endeavor. Matias de Armas also died in 1655 in the province of Cagayan. He was born in the island of Tenerife in the city of Laguna, where he took the habit. In the Philippines he became a master of the Cagayan and Tagálog tongues, acting as vicar in Cagayan, and as vicar of Abucay in 1645. In the years 1638–39 he was in the island Hermosa, where he studied that language while awaiting an opportunity to go to China (which was unsuccessful). At his death in 1655 he was vicar of Afulug. Alonso Navarro, president of the Chinese hospital of San Gabriel, died that same year in the Manila convent. During his thirty years in the Dominican province he ministered to the Filipinos (being very fluent in the Tagálog language); served as definitor, vicar of many houses, and vicar-provincial; and built the church in the village of Binondoc. In Cagayan also died that year Pedro de Aniza, an earnest missionary who had acted as vicar-provincial and ordinary of many houses. He solemnized many baptisms among the hostile people of Irraya and those in the mountains.]

In 1656 father Fray Jacinto Gali of the province of Aragon, son of the convent at Girona in Cataluña, was elected provincial. By his excellent qualities, and the proofs that he had shown of his great prudence [109]and devotion in the course of the twenty-four years that he had spent in this holy province, he was worthy of the supreme dignity of its government. He learned very perfectly the difficult language of the Chinese, to whom he ministered often in the Parián and in Binondoc. He also knew the Tagálog language thoroughly; and thus accomplished much in both languages. The province, desirous of elevating to the highest pinnacle the one who would advance their order with the activity and integrity that such an office demands, elected him their head. His election was well received both within and without the house, for all were acquainted with him and knew that his merits had called for so honorable an occupation many years before. He began to exercise it, but God, satisfied with his holy desire, blocked his steps in a short time; for at his first departure, when he went to visit Cagayan, having arrived there a mortal illness attacked him in Lalo. There, after he had received the sacraments, and had taken farewell of his province with most tender and paternal speeches—not unaccompanied by the sobs of all the religious, who had hastened at the report of his illness—he gave his soul to the Lord in the eighth month of his provincialate, on New Year’s day of the year 1657. That [such was his death] is understood by the tokens that his great virtue and devotion left to us. That was a perfect New Year’s day for his soul, which will never grow old in his time. Before he went upon the said visit, Governor Sabiniano Manrique de Lara and the royal Audiencia, urged by their narrow-minded zeal as ministers of his Majesty, put a new pressure upon us. Through the fiscal of the king it was intimated to us [110]and to all the orders that we were to make a presentation of the lists of the chapters, as is done in the other provinces of the rest of the Indias. This is a very delicate thing to treat in a history, and it has cost many entreaties before God and His most holy mother our patroness—not because of the inconveniences that are feared from the royal piety of his Majesty, the king our sovereign, nor of the impartiality and justice of his ministers, who will know how to govern this matter with that fear of God and with prudence, as they do other matters; but because we ourselves fear in these conversions which are so tender, where perhaps the tying of the hands of the mother will mean the loosening of those of the children, which will render them restless, with greater difficulty in subduing them than in other provinces less remote from relief and remedy. What happened in that case was that we petitioned with due submission, and stated our reasons (although all our reasons cannot be taken to so lofty and grave courts); and as a consequence the royal Audiencia allowed us to continue our present custom, which we maintain not only from our rules, but from the foundation of this province, and sent the records to the royal Council of the Indias, where the matter was examined. In that year the province sent as definitor to the general chapter father Fray Juan Lopez, son of [the convent of] San Estevan in Salamanca, lecturer in theology, and regent of the college of Santo Thomàs of Manila. He later became the most illustrious bishop of Zibu and ascended to the archbishopric of the said city of Manila. We shall discuss him more in detail in the year of his death, which occurred lately, to the universal sorrow of these islands. Authority as procurator-general [111]was given to father Fray Francisco de la Trinidad in order that he might accompany the former. He was already in Madrid, and afterward became the most meritorious bishop of Santa Marta. The provincial having died, the prior of the convent of Santo Domingo of Manila, where the chapter of the coming election was to be held, namely, father Fray Lucas Montanero, became vicar-general according to our rules. Having called the conference or junta of the province, he set the time and day for the following chapter, namely, April 21, 1657, and it was held by arrangement of the said conference and its vicar-general.

[Chapter viii deals with the life and death (July, 1656), of Diego Rodriguez in China, and Chinese affairs. Chinese matters are discussed also in the three following chapters.]

In the year 1658, when the father commissary Fray Juan de los Angeles was prior of the convent of Santo Domingo of Manila, another great and formidable earthquake occurred on the twentieth of August. In the opinion of all it was worse than that of the day of St. Andrew which we have related, which occurred in the year 1645; except that this one came alone in the quality of its greatness (for the shocks that accompanied it were much less severe than in the former; it is a natural thing to have these earthquakes come with a retinue, and they are among the evils that can never come singly). The [112]second reason why this one was less was based on the fact that the city of Manila was in a sad condition, and those lofty edifices of stone were on the ground, which then robbed the city of much of its pride. Therefore, although some people were killed and many met with accidents and bodily injury, it was not so bloody. However it did not fail to exercise its commission, and many edifices were violently overthrown and great disorder was occasioned not only in Manila but in all these islands.... Our convent of Santo Domingo was hardly used; and as the religious had no cells, as those which were left were full of water, they went along that street seeking corners where they could stay, even at great inconvenience. When the mission (of which we shall speak immediately) arrived, lodgings had to be arranged in the galleries of the new church, where beds and curtains were distributed among the various collateral naves. A better manner of lodging could not be found for many days, because the rainy season (which was a great drawback) had set in. The convent was very fortunate in having there its superior, who repaired so great a disaster with all courage and fortitude, and encouraged his subordinates by repairing their house with great skill and energy, notwithstanding that it was under heavy expenses. God performed miracles by his hand, and has continued the same in the other posts which he has held. Truly he is one of the most careful and indefatigable workers of this holy province, and as he is yet living, this remark must suffice.

That year arrived an excellent mission which had been collected in España by father Fray Francisco de la Trinidad, who had remained there as bishop-elect [113]of Santa Marta, and Father Matheo Bermudez, who conducted it to Mexico, where he remained as vicar of San Jacinto. The latter entrusted his office to father Fray Juan de Polanco, who brought that mission safely to Filipinas to the great joy of all the religious. The mission consisted of thirty-eight,1 and their names, occupations, and native places are as follows in order of age: father Fray Joseph Duriach, son of the royal convent of Santa Catalina Martir in Barcelona, former lecturer in the arts in Girona; father Fray Luis Alvarez, son of [the convent of] San Pablo in Valladolid, former fellow of San Gregorio, and lecturer in the arts in the said his convent of San Pablo; father Fray Juan Polanco, son of [the convent of] San Pablo in Valladolid, former fellow of San Gregorio, and former master of students in Santa Maria la Real at Trianos, who came as vicar of that mission from Mexico; father Fray Alonso de Leon, son of [the convent of] San Pablo in Palencia; father Fray Domingo de San Pedro, son of [the convent of] Santa Zita in Palermo, lecturer in arts in the said his house; father Fray Pedro de Santo Domingo, son of [the convent of] San Pedro Martir in Mantua, and lecturer in arts in the said his house; father Fray Diego de San Roman, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo in Victoria, and lecturer in logic in Santa Maria la Real in Trianos; father Fray Antonio Calderon, son of [the convent of] San Estevan in Salamanca, and fellow of Santo Tomàs in Alcalà de Henares; father Fray Francisco Sanchez, son of [the convent of] San Pedro Martir [114]in Toledo, and fellow of San Gregorio in Valladolid; father Fray Felipe Leonardo, son of the Preachers in Valencia; father Fray Tomàs Butiel, son of [the convent of] San Pablo in Hipra [i.e., Ypres] in lower Germania; father Fray Salvador de Santo Tomàs, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo in Guzman de San Lucar; father Fray Domingo de Villamide, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo at Santiago in Galicia; father Fray Martin de Trigueros, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo in Ocaña; father Fray Pedro del Barco, son of [the convent of] La Madre de Dios in Alcalà de Henares; father Fray Jayme Berge, son of [the convent of] Corpus Christi at Luchente in the kingdom of Valencia; father Fray Juan Teodoro, son of [the convent of] San Vicente at Calcha, in the province of Flandes; father Fray Agustin Garcia, son of [the convent of] Santo Tomàs in Madrid; father Fray Diego Serrano, son of [the convent of] San Pedro Martir in Toledo; father Fray Joseph de Noriega, son of [the convent of] San Estevan in Salamanca; father Fray Leonardo Marquez, son of [the convent of] San Agustin in Padua; father Fray Nicolas Merlo, son of [the convent of] San Estevan in Salamanca; father Fray Antonio Martinez, son of the convent of Santo Domingo at Santiago in Galicia; father Fray Tomàs de Leon, son of [the convent of] Santo Tomàs in Madrid, and brother of father Fray Alonso de Leon above mentioned; father Fray Fernando de Melgar, son of [the convent of] San Pedro Martir in Toledo; father Fray Lorenzo del Rosario, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo in Guzman de San Lucar; father Fray Bartolome de Quiroga, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo in Lugo; [115]father Fray Victorio de Almoynia, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo at Santiago in Galicia; Fray Bernardo Alvarez, dean, son of [the convent of] San Pablo in Valladolid; Fray Estevan de Rivera, son of [the convent of] Santa Maria la Real in Trianos; Fray Melchor Vigil, dean, son of the said convent in Trianos; Fray Lucas de San Vicente, lay-brother, native of Salamanca, son of the convent of Santo Domingo in Manila. Those who remained sick in Mexico came the following year. They were as follows: father Fray Manuel de Guzman, son of the convent of San Pablo in Sevilla; father Fray Gregorio Ortiz, son of the Preachers in Zaragoza; Fray Domingo de Flores, dean, son of the convent of Santo Domingo in Zamora; Fray Andres de los Angeles, lay-brother, son of [the convent of] Santo Domingo in Oajaca. That fine mission arrived very opportunely, composed of religious who possessed so excellent abilities; they were young, and well fitted to advance the credit of this holy province. After the joyful congratulations which welcomed them, they were assigned by the arrangements of the prelate, then the father commissary, Fray Francisco de Paula, to the study of a language. They have gone forth as excellent ministers and missionaries, both those who are living and some who have already died.

[Chinese affairs again engross our author for the remainder of this chapter, as well as for the thirteenth.] [116]

The intermediary junta was held in 1659 in our convent of Santo Domingo in Manila. Among other matters that were decided there, we must not pass in silence the response made to the fathers of China to a question or memorial presented by them. [This memorial, in view of the disturbed state of China and the slender support that was received by the missionaries in China from the province in the Philippines, asks that whenever cultivated lands are given them as an alms they may accept them. The memorial or petition was not allowed, for the bad effects that might ensue from it; as the Chinese might misconstrue it and imagine that the missionaries go to their country for the sake of the lands alone, and not for the welfare of souls—the decision giving great satisfaction to Juan Bautista de Morales, vicar-provincial of China. The remainder of the chapter relates wholly to Chinese matters.]

[The insurrections in the provinces of Pangasinán, Ilocos, and Cagayan of the year 1660 are discussed in chapters xv and xvi (the latter treating also of the Chinese pirate Kuesing). They will be sufficiently related elsewhere in this work. Chapter xvii is a summary of the life of father Fray Joseph de Madrid, who was born in Cebú. After studying at Santo Tomás in Manila, he entered the order in that city. He was soon sent to the Chinese missions, but was unable to remain there on account of the climate and hence returned to Manila, where he [117]died a violent death at the hands of the Chinese of the Parián—who had revolted on account of the threatening messages of Kuesing in the year 1662. He was a natural linguist, speaking fluently Cebúan, Visayan, Tagálog, and the language of Ituy, beside the most difficult dialect of the Chinese, namely, that spoken about Canton. Chapters xviii and xix treat of the Chinese pirate Kuesing and Chinese affairs. Chapter xx contains accounts of the lives of various religious who died in the Dominican province during this time. Carlos Clemente Gant died in the province of Nueva Segovia at the age of more than seventy, having arrived in the Philippines in 1611. He was a native of Zaragoza, and professed in the same city. His mission field was in the province of Cagayan, whither he returned both times after his terms as provincial (1637, and 1648). He also became commissary of the Holy Office after the death of the commissary Fray Domingo Gonzalez. Joseph de Santa Maria (or Navarro), a son of the convent of San Pedro Martir at Marchena in Andalucía, went to the Philippines in 1648. He was vicar of the islands of Babuyanes, where he fell ill and had to go Lalo-c for treatment; on returning to his convent he was killed by the insurgents. Pedro de la Fuente, son of the convent of San Pablo of Burgos, served as lecturer in theology in the college of Santo Tomás in Manila, and regent and prior of the Manila convent, and was minister in various places in Cagayan. At his death he was vicar of the village of Pata. The father commissary, Fray Salvador Mexia, son of the Sevilla convent, went to the islands in 1648. He acted as vicar-provincial of Pangasinán, and was remembered for his zeal. [118]Francisco Martir Ballesteros, of the convent of Santo Domingo in Murcia, died in the province of Pangasinán at the age of more than seventy, being vicar-provincial of Pangasinán. He was a zealous minister, and left a number of sermons and other pious writings which circulated among the friars in manuscript. Rafael de la Carcel of the province of Aragon, a native of Mallorca, who went to the Philippines in 1632, also died in Pangasinán. Among other posts that he held he was prior of the Manila convent, for a while prior vicar-general, and vicar of Calasiao. His death occurred soon after the disaffection of that village, and was probably hastened by that loss. Rodrigo de Cardenas, bishop of Nueva Segovia, died in May, 1661. He had arrived at the Philippines in 1653, and held the office of bishop for eight years. He died greatly regretted by all.]

The father commissary, Fray Francisco de Paula, ended his term as provincial, and on April 7, 1661, the father commissary, Fray Felipe Pardo, then prior of the convent of Santo Domingo of Manila, was elected in that convent. That was the first time when he rose to the government of this province as provincial. He filled that office so well that after twelve years (in 1673) he was elected for the second time, and is at present in that office. He came to this province in the mission of 1648, for which he [119]left his convent of San Pablo at Valladolid, where he exercised the office of master of students. The province always kept him employed here in the offices of lecturer of morning classes, regent, and rector of the college of Santo Tomas; president of the hospital, and prior of Manila. Although he has filled all of them with great credit to his person, and has been useful and creditable to the order, yet the honor of commissary of the Holy Inquisition has given him greater prestige—both because any service for that holy tribunal (and especially that of commissary), means so much, and because of the circumstances of the time. For he was the first commissary elected after the disturbance, as famous as harmful, which was occasioned in these islands by the preceding commissary, who arrested the governor at that time without those orders that he ought to have awaited after having consulted—or, more correctly, having informed—the holy tribunal of Mexico. The father provincial commenced his first government with so much spirit and energy that much and even most of it was left for his second government. For the already-mentioned insurrection of the Parián happened in his term, as did the incident of our ambassador,2 together with the measures taken in the offended provinces of the insurgent Indians, although those provinces are now quiet. In that and in the sending out of missions, in which he has always manifested his great love and inclination, and in maintaining them with aid, he could well boast of his great zeal and capacity—besides [carrying] the [120]usual weight [of the province] which is always heavy. He sent father Fray Jayme Berge (who came in the mission of the year 1658) to become an associate to father Fray Victorio Riccio, and ordered father Fray Pedro de Santo Domingo, who desired it, to come to Manila. At the same time he gave orders and letters commanding father Fray Juan Polanco, whom the chapter had appointed definitor for Europa, and procurator-general, to come [to Manila]. He also conveyed a generous aid to our religious, as well as what the order of our father St. Francis gave him for their religious. That did not have the success that was desired, for the greater part was lost in the conveying of it through that so disturbed country. [The remainder of the chapter treats of Chinese affairs.]

[The four following chapters also treat of Chinese matters, including political and missionary affairs.]

The intermediary junta was held in our convent of Santo Domingo, on April fourteen, one thousand six hundred and sixty-three. Besides the usual arrangements, no especial thing was ordained in it except to entrust to the father provincial the printing of the ritual, and, when that was done, to see that the religious used it and no other. That is a very important provision, and one in which the zeal of our superiors is very well occupied, so that our procedure may be uniform, as we are charged in the beginning of our [121]holy constitutions. It is not advisable that this matter of ceremonies be free, since they are so necessary; and piety and opinion have no vote in this matter, in which the decree of the superiors has explained their decision. The worst results will follow if neglect occasions it, since the administration of the holy sacraments is the most essential point of the ministries; and they need rules and regulations, care in their study, and punctuality. In the year 1669, a very suitable ritual was published, which was quite uniform with the Roman ritual of Paul V....

That year of 1663 our governor, the master-of-camp Don Diego de Salcedo, came to these islands. He was a worthy soldier of Flandes, where he had attained honorable posts; and since he had filled them so well his Majesty entrusted to him the influential post of captain-general and governor of these islands. If these islands were three thousand leguas nearer, that office would doubtless not be second in importance to those of America. The ship put in at Nueva Segovia, and consequently the said governor came overland—being received very hospitably by our ministering religious and those of our father St. Augustine, who are established along the way. On that journey also they were received by the natives with feasts, dancing, and music, in which they are very entertaining. His Lordship gained a good name in [receiving] those tokens of welcome, inadequate as they were, by the great affability and generosity that he displayed to the natives. He reached Manila and assumed his office amid great acclamation and pomp on the festal day of September eight, the day consecrated to the birth of the most holy Virgin. That was a great consolation to all people, and good [122]auguries were indicated although not all of them were fulfilled to the letter. He was beyond doubt a capable man, and one of great intellect. In but few days he understood whatever concerned his obligation, and never departed from it so long as it concerned the king’s service. He made the despatches of the ships to España very punctually, and with foresight; for he recognized that the ship that left here annually to get the situado is the one that ought to have the greatest care, and demands activity [in preparation] so that it may not be pushed for time, but that one or two months shall be gained. Consequently, there always was a ship [on that line]; and God took charge of them and brought them in, seeing that people here were doing their utmost.3 In respect to the good fortune with which he began [his term], he became faint-hearted, and cared little for being liked, for that post cannot be free from cause for harshness. The devil entered, upon seeing the necessary wall of love somewhat fallen; and he put complaints into the minds of the traders, which soon spread to the other estates. That enemy sowed dissension, which is his own seed; and the number of those disaffected increasing, much opposition to the governor arose. At the end of the year 1668 (October tenth) the governor was arrested by the commissary of the Inquisition, Fray Joseph de Paternina, an Augustinian.... [123]

[Further references to the Chinese missions and politics are made, and the chapter ends with notices regarding a Spanish beata or devout woman, Maria de Jesus, who died in Manila in 1662. Her parents, Albaro de Angulo Tobar and Isabel de Morales, were old settlers in the islands, who had lived first in Cebú; and their daughter was born in Arevalo, in the island of Panay. The latter took the habit of beata in the tertiary order of the Dominicans, somewhat against the will of her parents. She gave many alms, spent the greater portion of her wealth in the building of the church of Santo Domingo, and reared orphan girls in her house.]

[The life and labors of the famous missionary to China, Juan Bautista de Morales, who died in 1664, fill chapters xxvii-xxxii. The following chapter is devoted to Fray Francisco de Paula, commissary of the Inquisition and twice provincial, and other fathers. The former was born in Segovia and took the habit at Salamanca. Enlisting in the Philippine mission in 1618, on arriving there he began to study Chinese in the Parián; but was soon transferred to the college of Santo Tomás, where he taught for eighteen years. He was a successful and eloquent preacher to the Spaniards, and in consequence was elected preacher-general of the Manila convent. The office of vicar-provincial, as far as Manila is concerned, was conferred on him; and in the year 1641 he was elected provincial. In 1647, while exercising his duties in the Manila college of Santo Tomás, whither he had returned after his office had expired, he was elected commissary of the Inquisition. In 1657 he was again elected provincial. Pedro de Santo Domingo, who took the habit in Milan, Italy, [124]went to the Philippines in 1658, at the age of forty, and was sent to the Chinese missions; but, being unable on account of his age to learn the language, he was sent back to Manila and became vicar of the convent of Santelmo in Cavite. Illness, however, pressing on him, he was assigned as vicar to the Philippine hospice of San Jacinto in Mexico, but died ere reaching his destination.]

The capitular members assembled in the year 1665 to elect a provincial, as the father commissary, Fray Felipe Pardo, had completed his office. On the twenty-fifth of April they elected the father commissary, Fray Juan de los Angeles, of the province of Andalucia, and a son of the convent of Santo Domingo del Campo in the village of Zafra in Estremadura. He had come to this province in the year 1635, and had been minister of Tagalos in the district of Bataan, and afterward in the island Hermosa, where he remained six years (the time when the Dutch captured that fort and drove us from the land). He returned to Manila by way of Jacatra and Macasar, and to his former ministry of Tagalos. He was rector of the college of Santo Tomas, twice prior in our convent of Santo Domingo of Manila, at various times vicar-general, and definitor in 1661 and 1673. In the year that we mentioned, the province elected him as its prelate, to the general satisfaction of all. This is as much as we can say at present, for he is still living. [125]We can also say that since being provincial, he has undertaken the charge of the college for boys of San Juan de Letran. He has provided for them a very suitable and spacious house within the walls of Manila, that has gained repute and esteem for the pious education in virtue and the studies of those children, which is the object [of that college]. This holy province was struggling manfully at the time of that election, but both hands were busy in wiping off the tears that were shed before God for two reasons. [The first reason was the effort of the governor to make the orders publish the lists of ministries,4 as was the custom in the other parts of the Indias. In 1665 the vessel which arrived brought his Excellency, Don Fray Juan Lopez, consecrated bishop-elect of Cebú. He brought with him the acts of the general chapter held in Rome in 1656; the execution of the measures for the government of the Indias in general were suspended, as the Philippines were not included in them unless mentioned specially. The second great trouble of the province was the cruelty practiced on the missionaries in China. The chapter ends with accounts of China and the work there.]

[Chinese affairs are continued in chapters xxxv–xl.] [126]

The bishop Don Fray Juan de Polanco (who was not yet bishop-elect) went to España with the usual powers conferred by the province, following Don Fray Juan Lopez, bishop of Zibu and afterward archbishop of Manila, who had gone the preceding year with the same powers. But because of accidents, and since the province was so lacking in religious, a second procurator was despatched. That was an excellent measure, as the result showed; for the bishop of Zibu was embarrassed by his new promotion and by his despatches, so that he could not get the mission ready, although he had made a good start at it upon the arrival of Don Fray Juan de Polanco. The latter was very well received in the provinces of España, and all of them showed him great love and reverence because of the good impression that he gave by his virtues, which have without doubt the greatest attracting power for those spiritual soldiers. The commission is one of danger which only the loftiest object and obedience can make peaceful; for besides being the sample, as they say, of the cloth, such a person is not only looked at but spied upon by all; and it is necessary above all to bear God in mind and keep oneself acceptable to Him for so long and even almost desperate voyages, so that He may give health in so many hardships, climates, and paths of the earth, and [enable him to furnish] a good example for so many different kinds of persons with whom one must confer and voyage, in the midst of so many cares as he always has in his charge. The task of [127]making religious is that of the greatest difficulty; for so long as the men [sought] have the greatest abilities, their convents, who have reared them, feel it more, and say farewell to them to see them no more, where natural love does its duty and the devil is not careless—although, in fine, our holy provinces have always nourished this daughter of theirs in the belief that to give her a religious is to make God careful to send her many, and to preserve them with the wealth of their virtues. They send their sons to this honorable warfare, and the latter gain new blasons for them and get their first share of the spoils in the service of God and the welfare of souls. Therefore, the procurator who is securing men needs many lights of virtue, prudence, and affability, and great patience, for accidents that happen, and for the suitable choice of routes, and for guidance when they go astray; then the essential part of presenting the things in his care to the princes, and the latter’s councils and counselors to whose questions he must make answer with truth and candor. The fear of God is master in all; for, if he swerve from that line, he cannot make a good voyage. For the other despatches by tribunals and accountancies, he needs to attend upon them without being troublesome, and enduring delays, civilities, and courtesies; for they are ministers of the king and worthy of all esteem, and he must await his time amid the so many cares entrusted to them. Just at present we all enjoy the ministry of a perfect procurator of Filipinas in our venerable bishop Don Fray Juan de Polanco, who must have been a model of procurators; for by his example and virtue alone, he found himself freed from all the difficulties that accompany that honorable office. In [128]their very beginnings he found them solved and conquered; and he made the very judges of his causes, and even those who were opposed to him, his attorneys. This is not imagination but the pure truth; and there are many witnesses still living now in the holy city of Roma (where he went as definitor in 1668), and in the royal court of Madrid—where he was favored by princes, and esteemed and respected as an apostolic and holy man in their councils and tribunals; where he was listened to as a learned orator of this province; and where his causes were heard with the notable grace that God gave him wherever he went, and with the highest honor in both the said courts. The time will come for recounting his life and death, and then a longer account will be given of his virtues. Suffice it to say for the present that he collected two famous missions for this holy province, which he accompanied to Mexico (which is the rough place in the ascent of the hill), and returned for the third time [to España] for more soldiers—[whom he would have brought] had not the giant footsteps of envious death intercepted him in Sevilla. He entrusted the first mission to one of its religious, namely, father Fray Baltasar de Santa Cruz. They reached Manila safely in August, 1666, and their names in order of age are as follows: father Fray Juan de Velasco, son of [the convent of] San Pedro Martir el Real in Toledo; father Fray Baltasar de Santa Cruz, son of [the convent of] Santa Cruz el Real in Granada, and master of students, who was then in the convent of San Lucar; father Fray Joseph de Isussi, son of the convent of San Pablo in Burgos and fellow of [the convent of] San Gregorio in Valladolid; father Fray Diego Nuñez, son of [the convent [129]of] San Estevan in Salamanca; father Fray Christoval de Montenegro, son of the convent and college of Nuestro Señora del Rosario in Almagro, fellow of Santo Thomas in Sevilla, and teacher of logic there; father Fray Arcadio del Rosario, son of [the convent of] San Pablo in Sevilla, and lecturer in logic there, former fellow of Santo Thomas of Alcalà de Henares (this father remained in Mexico because of illness, and came the following year); father Fray Christoval Pedroche, son of the convent of San Pedro Martir el Real in Toledo; father Fray Juan Romero, son of the convent of San Pablo in Sevilla and fellow of San Gregorio in Valladolid; father Fray Juan de la Cueva, son of [the convent of] Santa Cruz in Granada; father Fray Pedro de Alcalà, son of the same convent in Granada; father Fray Manuel de Mercadillo, son of [the convent of] San Estevan in Salamanca; father Fray Alonso Blasco, son of the convent of Santo Domingo del Campo in Estremadura; father Fray Domingo Perez, son of the convent of Santa Maria de Trianos, fellow of Alcalà [de Henares]; father Fray Juan Peguero, son of the convent of Porta Cœli in Sevilla; father Fray Pedro Ximenez, son of the convent of La Peña de Francia; father Fray Joseph de Solis, son of [the convent of] San Pablo in Palencia; father Fray Francisco de Olmedo, son of the same convent in Palencia; father Fray Pedro Sanchez, son of the convent of La Peña de Francia; father Fray Antonio de San Juan, son of the convent of Santa Cruz in Segovia; father Fray Agustin Garcia de Ortega, son of [the convent of] San Estevan in Salamanca; father Fray Pablo Marchan, son of the same convent of San Estevan; father [130]Fray Andres Gonzalez, son of the convent of San Pablo in Valladolid; father Fray Bernabe Rodriguez, son of the same convent in Valladolid; father Fray Francisco de Villalva, son of the convent of San Pablo of Burgos; father Fray Pedro de Alarcon, son of the convent of Nuestra Señora de Atocha; father Fray Antonio Rego, son of the convent of San Estevan in Salamanca; father Fray Andres Lopez, son of the convent of San Pedro Martir in Toledo; father Fray Diego de Castro, son of the convent at Santiago in Galicia; father Fray Joseph de San Jacinto, son of the convent of Santa Cruz in Segovia; father Fray Joseph de la Torre, son of the convent of San Pedro Martir in Rio Seco; father Fray Juan de Santo Domingo, son of the convent in Ocaña; father Fray Juan de Santa Maria, son of the convent of San Pedro in Sevilla; father Fray Pedro Gonzalez, son of the convent of Aranda in Duero; father Fray Juan de Castellanos, son of the convent of Santo Domingo in Logroño; father Fray Bernardo de Noriega, son of the convent of San Pablo in Palencia; Fray Antonio de la Purificacion, lay-brother, of the convent of Santa Cruz in Granada; Fray Joseph de la Villalva, lay-brother, son of the convent of San Pablo in Valladolid; Fray Juan Fernando, lay-brother, son of the convent of San Pablo in Burgos, who remained in our hospice of San Jacinto [in Mexico]; and Fray Sebastian del Rosario, lay-brother, son of the said convent of San Jacinto in Mexico. In all they number thirty-nine.5

This fine mission came in the ship “La Concepcion,” that year of 1666. The same ship also brought [131]two other missions, one of our father, St. Francis, and the other of the Society of Jesus; two religious of St. John of God, and secular priests; also captains, and very honorable persons—in charge of the commander Joseph de Zamora. The ship was unable to make the Embocadero because the vendavals which had set in prevented it. Therefore it was very fortunate in making the port of Palapa, which is located on the southern side.6 They anchored there on the day of St. Lawrence, and it was considered a very special providence of God that they disembarked there on that land, for all arriving in great need and worn out after four months and more of continual navigation, they found, especially the religious, that they had arrived at the land so oft desired and the land of promise. They found in that village, which is in charge of the fathers of the Society, a father rector whose charity challenged the needs of all of them and was victorious. This was the ever venerable father Melchor de los Reyes, a native of Puerto Rico, who, although very poor in that ministry of his, yet settled the difficulty as a very rich man. He lodged eighty religious without even remotely expecting one. He received them all with the ringing of bells, with playing on wind instruments, and music. He supported them abundantly and daintily until boats were found to take them to Manila (which could not be done in a few days). He also succored the ship with rice and other supplies, and with dainties, according to their persons. Ours were the best served, for boats were not found; and although it was thought that the ship could soon proceed [132]upon its voyage, the bad weather was so obstinate that it was unable to sail until March of the following year. Therefore they remained in that holy house with the same satisfaction that they could have had in the most wealthy convent of our order. Sufficiently accommodated in those lodgings, they all said mass; and then those who wished had their breakfast. All the food was supplied abundantly, with the utmost cleanliness and punctuality. They were sheltered in the choir and galleries with great quiet. A pleasant and crystal river flowed near the college, for recreation and bathing. There were books in great abundance, according to the taste of each one. Above all was the affability of the holy religious, and of the others who attended to those residences belonging to their ministry. Truly there are no words to imagine the consolation that the Lord gave there to our tired religious, or the obligation under which all this province remained at so generous charity. The religious who served as superior of Ours, seeing the length of time that they were staying there, and the so excessive expense that was being incurred, although fearful of a bad outcome, finally, to satisfy his ill-founded fear, took one hundred pesos from the scanty hoard of the mission, and resolved to give them to the father rector. They were not sufficient even to cover the cost of the rice, but in the end would be some aid in meeting the expenses. He followed the rector alone into his apartment, and, changing color, after some arguments which he endeavored to offer he concluded by asking pardon, and asked him to please take that trifle to pay at least the porters and cooks, since our mission was detained so long there. The father rector assumed a serious countenance then, [133]and in brief, sorrowfully proceeded to give the father a severe reproof, by telling him that nothing worthy of payment had been done there; that the father vice-provincial had ordered him to attend to that obligation; that the fathers of his residences had brought the supplies, each in accordance with his several ability; that, thanks to God, nothing was owed to the Indians; that God was giving for everything; and that he rather was the gainer, for, without knowing how, he found his pantries full; that during those days two dugongs had been caught (a thing which had not been seen before since he had been there, for never had those fish been seen there, for it was by a great miracle). Thus did he minimize all that he had done; but our religious, still insisting and placing the hundred pesos on the table, witnessed that the venerable father fell on his knees, and clasping his hands, with tears in his eyes, said to him: “No, no, father, you must not leave that money here for me. I beg that of you in the name of the most holy Virgin. She will not permit your Reverence to give me such affront, at least for the good-will with which I have served you.” Thereupon, the religious begged pardon, and kept his money without knowing how to pay that debt, unless it be paid in the divine treasuries of God, for whom it was all done. Our religious went out in seven bands, and for each band the rector solicited a boat, a good pilot, and a store of supplies for some days. All came [to Manila] singing the praises of so religious an Alexander, who was finally reared in so holy a school as that of the Society of Jesus—where, although one is taught all kinds of knowledge so completely, we can say that charity is that which is not taught, because it is inspired. God [134]will now have paid that pious father, for already has He taken him to himself. The religious consumed two more months in going from Palapa to Manila because of the bad weather. However, they passed almost always through ministries belonging to our father St. Francis, where they found themselves detained and hindered more by the great love with which they were welcomed, and the regret with which they were allowed to depart, than by the roads and the difficulties of travel. They arrived at the desired place at last and were received by the father provincial, then the father commissary, Fray Juan de los Angeles, with that paternal love which his natural affability and his obligation dictated to him. When he saw that they were rested, he began to assign them occupations.

On September 27 of the former year 1665, our most reverend father-general, Fray Juan Bautista de Marinis, wrote a loving and thoughtful letter from Roma to the venerable father Fray Juan Bautista de Morales. That letter reached the province in 1667, and, although the father was dead, it will be proper that so precious a thing—to the credit of the paternal providence of its author, and of the reputation that this noble although so retired a member had gained with the supreme head of the order—shall not perish or be lost; and it is also to the credit of this holy province, for they so hold his name in memory as to honor it through its sons, our supreme heads. The letter reads as follows: “Reverend father in Christ: Health, and grace from the Holy Ghost. The news that I have received from the father provincial of that our province of the Filipinas is a great consolation to me. He gives me news of your Reverence’s [135]health, and of the perseverance with which you are aiding in those conversions without any relaxation to your labors in your so advanced age. I thank the Lord therefor, from whom comes all good; and applying to your Reverence the sufferings of all the order, and giving you the benediction of our glorious St. Dominic, I thank you again and again for having served in our ministry for the conversion of souls, which is the object of our institute, and which your Reverence and your companions are, with the divine grace, accomplishing. Forty-two religious sailed in the mission which left Cadiz on July 5 of this year, for which the father lecturer, Fray Juan Polanco, procurator of the province, worked zealously and diligently. The consolation that I have had in the selection of those missionaries will increase if your Reverence will take them under your teaching, and encourage and exhort them so that, as sons of so good a father, they may give bread to those who, desirous of spiritual sustenance, beg it. May God please that it be so, for such is my desire. In regard to the labors of government, it will relieve us to receive letters from your Reverence, and to have news of the progress of so loving sons as it has been God’s pleasure to give me. I have sent breviaries and a formulary of devotion to the twelve associates of your Reverence, which is as a token of my love, so that you may be mindful of me in your prayers, and ask God to give me the success that I desire in the fulfilment of my obligation. I am sending to your Reverence documents containing the many thanks that the holy apostolic see has given us; and I inform you that his Holiness in our Lord, Alexander VII, who is auspiciously governing this Church, is granting us very [136]loving favors; and I hope to receive even greater ones from his munificence. I shall give him an account of the extensive labors of your Reverence, and of the happiness that we may expect because an entrance has been made into the island Hermosa, whence the passage to China and to Japon will be facilitated. May God continually preserve and accompany your Reverence and all those my sons—to whom I say that the cause of the holy martyrs of Japon is proceeding felicitously;7 and that I hope that the laurel of their martyrdom will be a motive to the others, so that, if it should prove necessary for the maintenance of our holy faith to suffer as martyrs they may do so with gladness. Roma, September 27, 1665.

“Fray Juan Bautista de Marinis, master of the order.”

This is the letter written ex-officio by the general of the order to a poor missionary under him, giving place to this care before so many and imperative cares as claim his attention—so that one may see even in this life the honors that God has prepared for those who are employed in so apostolic an occupation.

In the year 1667, on the day of the immaculate conception of our Lady, December 8, the most illustrious doctor Don Miguel de Poblete, archbishop of Manila, died in that city, to the universal sorrow of all these islands; for during the time of fourteen years while he had occupied the see, he acted as the loving father and pastor of his church. He was a very amiable [137]man, pious, and possessed of great charity; for notwithstanding the poverty of this archbishopric, and its dependence upon the condition of a royal treasury that is so poor and has so many creditors, he gave liberal alms, which he took from the sustenance of his own person, his household, and his family. He was very anxious for the building of his cathedral, which he found completely ruined since the earthquakes. With grave importunity and the amount that his Majesty ordered to be paid to him, he left a church that was very sumptuous (as much so as these islands permit), almost finished. It has three naves, all of free stone and rubble-work masonry. It was finished a short time after his death; and its venerable dean and cabildo occupied it to the great consolation and credit of the city. On the day of his death occurred the ceremony of taking the oath of allegiance to the king our sovereign, Carlos Second;8 and God made that occasion propitious for us, for with that his venerable body, embalmed, was exposed for three days, and the faithful had time to go with tearful piety to say farewell to their most loving shepherd, whose hands and feet they kissed until he was buried with due pomp. It was the common report, and an established fact, that he died a virgin, and beloved to the utmost degree9 for his so beautiful virtue. This and his piety, not at all embarrassed by personal considerations, [138]were sufficient to compose a palm10 for him; and after it was placed it appeared very fitting. God will give his fame a special history, as ours cannot go into greater detail.

In those two years God took from us valuable associates of long experience, who served this holy province much by their example and work for the welfare of the Indians. Father Fray Juan de Arjona, son of the convent of San Pablo el Real in Cordova, [was one]. He had been occupied with great earnestness in the ministries of Pangasinan and Ytui, and there he performed great deeds for the service of God, as those ministries were new. He died at an advanced age in the convent of Santo Domingo in Manila. Father Fray Juan Pabon, native of Montaruches in Estremadura, son of the convent at Truxillo in the province of España, was most accomplished in the language of Nueva Segovia, and suffered great hardships in the conversion of the Indians of Irraya and in the administration of other villages. The love and respect of all who came in contact with him was very great; and the province entrusted to him many posts of honor, and grieved not a little at his death, for he was a model for ministers, and in every respect a pattern of his obligation. [139]

On April thirty of the year 1667 was held and celebrated the intermediary junta [in the term] of the father commissary Fray Juan de los Angeles, in our convent of Santo Domingo in Manila—and with new vigor because of the fervor imparted to the province by the fresh nourishment received from its late reënforcement. They proceeded to arrange the ministries, and one more which it seemed advisable to separate, namely, San Miguel at Orion, in the district of Bataan. After knowing the new soldiers for a year, the old and new stones were assigned to their places in order to render this spiritual edifice firm and beautiful. The new rules made were but few, but they were very carefully thought out. The first was that no inferior or subordinate official of the order should visit or write to the alcaldes and superiors of the provinces, and least of all to the governor, without first making known his intention and explaining it to the father provincial—or, in his absence, to the vicars-provincial—respectively. That was and ought to be a necessary measure; and the attempt to carry out the decisions that each minister reaches in his seclusion may be the cause of greater troubles. We must not make a passion of our zeal for defending the Indians, for that is a virtue that essentially demands to be moderated by prudence. An angry letter, or (what is worse) a visit, founded perhaps on a misrepresentation, generally disquiets a superior. He, in his own opinion offended, is vexed; and the Indians themselves, and the rest of the religious, [140]are wont to pay doubly [for the intrusion]. Consequently, it is proper that such matters be managed with much caution and in accordance with obedience, and in the council [of the order], keeping in view the object, which must be the first aim of every good intention. Everyone does what he is able in his ministry and profession, and the apostle says that we should give offense to no one. The heads of the province, being in an exalted position, discover many things and efficient remedies for all troubles; and hence it is necessary to place such affairs in their hands. For the same reason and one greater, that junta repeats the order that no one should preach against the government and the persons busied in it without consulting with the same superiors. For that means consultation with God, because words are very important in that most lofty and consecrated place—where by favor of the sovereign principles of a wisdom whose master is the fear of God, and general doctrines, one may say whatever there is to say. Our father San Vicente Ferrer did not preach more than the judgment, but he reformed the world, kings, and chiefs. And only a St. John the Baptist, who by credit of his virtue pointed out with his finger a divine Person, could point out from the pulpit a person so wicked and scandalous as a Herod; for the latter was, in fine, king, and his dignity protected him. God placed our superiors in their positions (and kings rule through God) and gave that honor to their councils and magistracies; and consequently it is proper for ministers to honor them without flattery (which is another and worse extreme) without curing them with salt, and with respect where the community does not feel it—so that by preaching to the [141]people at large, they will know where their pain is. We have already touched on this point in another place; but, since our province repeats it so often in its ordinances, the historian is also permitted to repeat it, since it is advice so important. A petition was addressed to our most reverend father not to allow dispensations to be introduced into our provinces, nor anything that savored of [differences between] individuals or degrees. For since it had seemed to his paternal piety that the procurators-general who went from this province to those of Europa had immense work therein, he planned to grant to them officially some sort of reward, by conferring on them the rank of the more recent fathers of the province. Receiving this favor with submission and gratitude, they nevertheless protested in this junta against it. At the same time Don Fray Juan de Polanco made a humble resistance in Roma, as he knew that the order had already been sent. But he obtained that new favor from our most reverend father; and, before our petition arrived, the said grace was revoked.

In the following year of 1668 two relief ships reached these islands, which came from Nueva España. In one of them came father Fray Antonio Calderon, who had obtained permission to return to España the preceding year, because of illness. But later, as he regained strength in Nueva España, and as he knew the lack that one religious makes here, and the need of the province, he was filled with no small doubt, seeing that this was coming to be a second vocation. Therefore, he determined to return, and did so; and entered the province for the second time with great courage and went to his ministries in Nueva Segovia, where he is and was an excellent [142]linguist. The devil is very subtile, and, because he sees the evil that is caused him by this province, he causes sickness, and makes sufferings greater than what they are in themselves. Since also the magnanimous nature of man falls short, and he takes it ill to see himself set in a land like this—as shut out from intercourse and repose as contrary to the liberty of our España—with the little attention given to him, he imagines insuperable hardships in the rules, aggravates his sickness in so great retirement; and by a door that is lawful, he disturbs the common cause and even endangers that of the individual. The said father now found himself strong, and consequently chose to return, to exercise his strength in this his province. In the other ship came father Fray Arcadio del Rosario, who had, as we have remarked above, remained in Mexico sick, and was now coming very strong and well—to a place where the only consolations and pleasures that went out to meet him were a peril and sudden catastrophe, which would have been the last had not God aided him almost miraculously. Because of the difficulty that the ship had in entering the strait or Embocadero of San Bernardino—and those difficulties are very great and usual in those seas in that season—the father took a small boat called a caracoa; and, embarking in it with a father visitor-commissary of our father St. Francis, who was coming as visitor, and another, his associate, with rowers and other Spanish passengers, they tried to cross the strait, in order to continue their course to Manila more quickly than they could by the ship, if they waited for it. Those boats are not only swift but weak, and, in order to give them greater safety, some long timbers are crossed at intervals over the sides; [143]at the ends of these they suitably place some bamboo sails called cates, so that, by thus making the vessel wider, they may better resist the waves and sustain them. They were beginning their crossing, which is a distance of about six leguas, and in the very middle of it so strong a gust of wind struck them, as well as so opposing currents—which, in those regions, are such that they will turn a ship of high free-board clear around, with or without favorable winds, moving it from side to side and disarranging the [trim of the] sails, with the accompanying horror that only sailors can imagine—that that boat (for it was not even a patache, but a very weak vessel) capsized, because of the currents and the violent wind that they encountered in the midst of the open expanse, after a few contrary blasts, and filled with water. It was the Lord’s will that the buffeting of the sea should soon strip it of weight, carrying away whatever it contained. Thereupon the men in it remained astride of the said timbers and cates, and many of them were up to their breasts in water, rigging it. In such wise they allowed themselves to drift along with the said current, wherever it chose to take them, sustained only on those timbers poorly fastened together with rattan. Night came; day followed; and in all that time they were unable to make the land—on the contrary, the currents carried them away from it. When they got out of one current they were seized by one opposed to it, so that they were continually going, round and round in those waters. Father Fray Arcadio, who was still convalescent, suffered the most; and doubtless would soon have given up, had it not been for the said father commissary. A bamboo enclosure was made as well as possible on those timbers [144]and there the father found some retreat from the water, mainly in the arms of the said father commissary. The latter’s name was Fray Antonio Godinez, son of the religious province of San Diego in Mexico. With the same suffering did they pass the following night—without water to drink in the midst of so much water, nor more food than a few grains of rice, which the wrath of so rigorous a fortune that assailed those miserable beings had forgotten. At last, on the third day, the Lord, as a Father of mercy, listened to them and they reached the land; where, more beaten by the waves of the sea than assisted by what the rowers could do, they reached the sacred sand in a stripped condition. Three men were drowned, who tried to quit the boat too soon, and the sea made them pay for their ingratitude with their lives; for their weakness had already forbidden them [from reaching land]. It is always a rule of sailors that only wood can swim on such occasions. All is as God ordains; but already deposit was made of life, and a good account, by means of his Majesty, must be given. Our religious landed, or rather those who shared his fortunes drew him ashore half dead. But the land performed its miracles, and they hastened to the first village, where they all recovered and were despatched to Manila. The pious commissary lost there all the papers of his commission, so that, when he reached the province, great difficulties were raised, and he returned without making his visit. Father Fray Arcadio reached this our province, where he was gladly received, and the prelate assigned him to the study of the Chinese language, in which he took the courses that will be related at the end of this chapter.

[The provincial receives a letter dated Roma, February [145]19, 1668, from the father-general of the order, Juan Bautista de Marinis, in which concessions to the order by Pope Clement IX are related. The beatified Luis Beltran and Mother Rosa de Santa Maria have been canonized; universal prayer ad libitum to San Vicente Ferrer has been conceded; and other concessions of general importance to the order are granted. August 1, 1673, four religious embark for the Chinese missions—namely, Arcadio del Rosario, Pedro de Alcala, Pedro de Alarcon, and Alonso de Cordova. The rough weather experienced causes the superstitious Chinese crew to imagine that it is caused by the fathers; but after many hardships China is finally reached in twenty-four days. After various adventures they return to Manila, May 4, 1674. Two Dominican religious, namely, Arcadio del Rosario and Francisco Lujan, and two Franciscans, namely, Miguel Flores and Pedro de Piñuelo, sail for China on Corpus Christi day, 1676.]

At the same time, religious are being occupied in two glorious missions in this same island of Manila. One near the city, to the north, is to the Zambals, whom we have not yet been able to subdue. Now two of our religious are there, and are bringing in those of the mountains to form villages. They possess churches and many of the people are converted. The religious write that they have been received very well, and it is hoped that this will be a grand work for the service of God and for these islands, for those people are very courageous and bloodthirsty, and have always done great harm to those who go to other provinces and to the villages near them; and, if the faith of Christ once subjects them, great advantages present themselves for all. The other mission is located in the same region, in the province of Nueva Segovia, [146]in the district of the mountains called Irraya, of which this history has already given repeated notices. Most of those people are heathen, although there are many Christians among them who have fled from our villages. They have been subdued at times, but their misfortune has immediately roused them to rebellion. Now we are considering how to attract them by love, and with security; and our religious are moving alone in this matter, with none of the horrors that soldiers bring. Consequently, we trust that they too will be subdued. Such is our special vocation in this holy province, where we profess especially to fight the wars of God. And thus as the good soldier loses spirit when peace is declared, and is inspirited at the rumor of a battle, It is an evident fact that these spiritual soldiers are aroused to unusual ardor when the arms of the missions are in use, just as the silence of these voices depresses them. And, if their sufferings and efforts reached at least half as far as do their desires, there would be no province in Asia now which had not yielded to God and to His holy faith in accordance with the honorable designs with which the beautiful sky of these islands inspires them.

This news has been anticipated, because it is so recent; but the history only relates matters to 1669, so that the third part11 will begin with the provincial chapter celebrated on May 11 of the said year, when the reverend father Fray Juan Camacho was elected provincial.

[The chapter ends with the recital of certain benefits that have been received by the order at large, in canonizations, beatifications, etc.]

Map of the Philippine Islands, showing province of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine; photographic facsimile of engraving in Lubin’s Orbis Augustinianus ... ordinis eremitarum Sancti Augustini (Paris, 1639)

[From copy in Library of Congress]

[149]

As there are no events worth mentioning in the year 1640, outside of what we have noticed in the prosecution of the war with the Sangleys, let us pass to the year 1641. On the nineteenth of April of that year was celebrated the provincial chapter, which was presided over by father Fray Juan de Trejo,1 the senior definitor of the former chapter. Father Fray Gerónimo de Medrano was elected for the second time as provincial. The definitors elected were father Fray Juan Gallegos, Fray Pedro Mexia,2 [150]Fray Diego de Ordás, and Fray Diego Tamayo.3 The visitors were fathers Fray Felipe Tallada and Fray Cristóbal Enríquez.4 Very suitable ministers were stationed in all the villages of this province, as it had then a great plenty of religious.

[Here follow accounts of the wars in Mindanao and Joló, and the founding of the royal College of San Felipe by Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, both of which are treated elsewhere.]

After the archbishop, Don Fray Hernando, had governed his church of Manila during his time with the troubles and anxiety that have been mentioned in their proper place, and many others which afterward continued to exercise his patience and tolerance (which, to one of his many years, were a great weight to place on him at the end of his life), he fell sick from various accidents, which prostrated him in a short time and reduced him to his last illness. This occurred during his visitation of the village of Balayán, [151]where he had remained a long time busied in the confirmations of that entire province. The vigilant prelate was unwilling to lay aside his bodily labors, as he was by nature very active. He celebrated mass every day, until his attendant, recognizing that his illness was becoming aggravated, induced him to retire to Manila in order to take better care of his health. He reached the city in the middle of May, where he was shortly prostrated by his illness which made the physicians think that he was going to end his days very soon. All the remaining days left to him, he busied himself fervently in preparing for his last hour, abstracting himself in religious thought during all the time that either the care of his medicine or the compliance of his attendants permitted. But, coming to the last pass, he ordered that all the holy sacraments be given to him. He received them in public with great fervor, and to the edification of all the people. The people were very sorry to lose a shepherd so zealous for the welfare of souls, who had suffered so much to defend the immunity of the Church. Day and night was his archiepiscopal palace never free from the religious, who loved him dearly as the defender and protector of them all. Not less was the sorrow of the cabildo, who loved him as a true father; for although he had had various conflicts with them, he was their consolation and defense as well as that of the clergy, among whom he performed all the offices of love and piety possible. He succored the poor and sheltered the needy clerics, for he was very zealous for the honor of the ecclesiastics. Finally, laden with merits and years, he rendered up his soul to his Creator, July 1, 1641, at one o’clock at night, at the age of more than seventy. [152]His death caused general sorrow to all, especially to those who had borne most part in the sorrow that that great prelate had experienced.

Don Fray Hernando Guerrero was a native of the town of Alcaraz, although Doctor Juan Pérez de Montalbán represents him as born in Madrid. He was the legitimate son of Don Fernando Guerrero and of Doña Isabel de la Barreta, both of noble blood. He received the habit of our holy religion in the convent of San Felipe in Madrid, where he professed July 26, 1588, during the priorship of father Fray Antonio de Velasco. Later he came to these islands in the year 1595 with the mission that was sent from España by father Fray Francisco de Ortega—who died afterward in Mexico, when returning as the ambassador of King Don Felipe II to the emperor of China. He was minister of the provinces of Tagalos, where he built the convent of Tagui; it was a magnificent work before it suffered ruin in the earthquakes of 1645, which overthrew the most sumptuous edifices. He obtained the most honorable posts in the order next to the provincialate, as a reward for his great merits; and, had he not been presented by his Majesty as bishop of Nueva Segovia, he would also have filled the post of provincial. That was due to his many services to this province; for he went to España twice and brought over two excellent missions of religious. Special mention is made of this archbishop by the father master Fray Tomás de Herrera, on folio 243 of the first part of his Alfabeta Agustiniano [i.e., “Augustinian Alphabet”]; and on folio 297 of chapter 43 of the first part of the history of our convent of Salamanca. He is said to have received [153]despatches to act as governor of these islands, although that is not clear to me. It may be true that he had a decree to act as governor ad interim; but as there was no vacancy in the government of these islands, he never had occasion to use that favor. In a rare book preserved in manuscript in the treasury of the holy cathedral church of Manila, on the lives and deeds of the archbishops of the city, there is a very long relation of the government of Don Fray Hernando Guerrero and of his great sufferings in defense of the ecclesiastical immunity. Speaking of his death, the following is added:

“His death was greatly regretted, for the poor loved him dearly for the many great alms that he gave them both publicly and in secret. The rich esteemed him, for, besides his being very courteous and kind, they never gave him anything, however little, that was not recompensed with something greater. The orders venerated him, because the delicacy with which he gained the good-will of all was extreme; and he obtained that by his paternal affection and affability. Although his cabildo showed him little kindness, he did not for that reason cease to esteem them. He succored the poor presbyters and the clergy by giving them alms sufficient to clothe themselves; for he sorrowed excessively at seeing that they did not have the proper vestments. He bought them bits of silk and chanlés for cassocks and cloaks, so that they might appear properly. He bought some houses, very elegant in their time, on the square of this city, and fitted them up for the archiepiscopal palace; but, as his debts were so heavy that he could not pay for them, they were bought after his death [154]by Manuel Estacio Venegas,5 who made them into a palace, in which the governors and captains-general now live.6 That prelate was an excellent man in all ways; and his disgrace resulted from the adverse fortune that he experienced—although he well merited the crown with which God must have rewarded him, because of the great prudence and patience with which he bore himself, while he was never heard to utter a harsh or hasty word. The cause of that was, that it fell to his lot to rule [the church] during the government of Governor Don Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, a gentleman well known to be capricious and hard to deal with—who by his natural severity and harshness greatly harassed that prelate. But his greatest glory (worthy of all applause) was the fact that he suffered in defense of the immunity of his church; so that we may properly and with acclamation give him the aureole of martyrdom, and chant a song of victory for that holy warrior,7 the defense of the Manila church. His funeral was celebrated with due ceremony and he was buried amid tears and grief in the convent of his great father St. Augustine in this city of Manila; and his body was [155]placed in the presbytery of the high altar at the gospel side. He ruled that archbishopric for five years, eleven months, and nine days. He was grave of aspect and spare in figure, of good proportion and stature, somewhat bald and hair somewhat curly. He was temperate in his eating, indeed eating very little. He spent much time in vigils. In his conversation he was very affable. He slept on the ground, the bed that he had—well furnished with handsome coverlets, on account of his dignity—remaining untouched. In short, he was in all things a perfect prelate.”...

Father Fray Gerónimo de Medrano had governed this province with great success during his second triennium, and all were sorry when his term ended, and were desirous to have his life last so that he might be elected for the third time, as happened after in the year 1650; for that religious, who was so worthy of that office, left a great memory to posterity of his exalted virtue and prudence. Thus, the time prescribed by our holy rules having arrived, the provincial chapter of this province was celebrated April 16, 1644, in the convent of San Pablo at Manila. Father Master Fray Teófilo Mascarós presided at that [156]chapter by the letters-patent of our very reverend father master, Fray Hipólito de Monte-final, general of all our holy order. Master Fray Alonso Carvajal, the oracle of these islands at that time, was elected provincial. The definitors were fathers Fray Alonso de Lara,1 Fray Antonio Gimenez, Fray Cristóbal de León,2 and Fray Alonso Quijano.3 The visitors were fathers Fray Juan Gallegos, and the lecturer was Fray Diego de Ochoa.4

In the ship that came from Nueva España that year, came as governor Don Diego Fajardo Chacón, knight of the Order of Santiago, an illustrious scion of the house of the Marqués de los Velez, and nephew of Governor Don Alonso Fajardo y Tenza. That gentleman had been reared in the family of the most serene prince, Manuel Filiberto, the duke of Saboya, [157]whose captain of the guard he had been.5 Later by various promotions acquired by his valor in war, he came to be governor of Perpiñán and afterward of the Terceras Islands. He was a gentleman of great abilities, which, had they not been accompanied by an excessive severity, uncommunicativeness, and too great rigor in his punishments, would have rendered him equal to the greatest governors, not only of these islands but of the whole world. For he was very intelligent in military affairs, but chaste, truthful, and modest, and so free from anything that can touch covetousness that in that respect he rather resembled a most observant religious than a military gentleman; for he was never known and he never presumed to receive anything—not only no jewel of value, but not even a present of any food. He began to govern August 16 and remained nine years in the government, during which the citizens suffered many misfortunes and many annoyances; for that so upright and honorable gentleman, having surrendered to the dictum of one single private individual, an oldtime citizen of Manila, disappointed the many pledges that the post of governor has a right to claim. As soon as he assumed the government, he moved the Parián of the Sangleys to its present site. It had no greater accommodations than before, but he was ordered to do so by a royal decree. He ordered that a considerable sum which the governors received from [158]the gains of the Sangleys in gambling be placed in the treasury. Those are the most sinful receipts that are deposited in the royal treasury in these islands, and the cause, to the sorrow of many, of the little benefit arising from the many sums that enter by other channels this public treasury of Filipinas. That sinful practice thus introduced, lasted a considerable time, the selfish interest of the very persons who should have checked this evil causing them to ignore the many difficulties [resulting from it], until his Majesty Don Felipe V ordered those [gambling] games to be suppressed, because of the report of the archbishop, Don Diego Camacho y Avila. In the residencia of his predecessor, Don Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, Don Diego Fajardo conducted himself so uprightly that because of the charges that resulted from it, he imprisoned the former in the redoubt of Santiago for five years, until order was sent by his Majesty to send Don Sebastián to España, which was done.6

The ship that sailed for Nueva España that year put back, after having suffered great storms, thus commencing the disasters and hardships that have followed during these latter years. The ship “San Diego” also put back to Cavite, because the Dutch enemy had entered the Embocadero of San Bernardino—returning to Cavite, where it served as a great defense against the Dutch in the year 1647, as will be seen. The threats of the coming of the Dutch were [159]heard continually; and we in the islands were very anxious because of their new proximity in the island of Hermosa, a suitable way-station for any purpose. As was learned later by advices from Jacatra in the former year 1643, they had been waiting the ships from Acapulco in the Embocadero of San Bernardino, until they could not withstand the violent storms of that year. All their plans were to descend upon Manila and drive the Spaniards from this archipelago. A double reënforcement of men had been sent from Holanda for that purpose, and a greater number of small vessels, besides the two hundred ships with high freeboard that they had in these seas, scattered from the cape of Buena Esperanza to the island Hermosa. Although forewarned for any of these things that might happen, Don Diego Fajardo began to do less than he ought; for he kept himself in seclusion the greater part of the time, and would not give that personal attention to the management of affairs which a government so extensive demanded. That was given to the charge of a private individual, to whom he had given the management of everything to suit himself; and that was the cause of great misfortunes. For the first undertaking was to place the necessary boats in the shipyard; and thus, when the occasion arrived, there was so scanty forces collected that the happy success of our arms gainst the Dutch was clearly a miracle.

One of the first precautions was to send Don Francisco de Atienza y Báñez, a native of Toledo and a soldier of excellent judgment, as governor to Zamboanga, so that he might by his prudence procure a settled peace with the Mindanaos—who, being domestic enemies, had greatly diverted the Spanish [160]arms in curtailing their pride. A peace was easily obtained with the Moro king, Corralat, for he had been greatly frightened by the past successes of the Spaniards. The forts of Joló were in great part occupied by soldiers, but the batteries were not in condition to be deserted, for it was presumed that the Dutch were about to assault them—as happened afterward in June of the year 1648, although with less benefit than they believed they would have in the beginning. Consequently, it was necessary to preserve them on that occasion, although peace had been obtained in the year 1646 with their natives by means of the same Captain Don Francisco de Atienza. Thus the Spanish arms were somewhat more free for anything that might happen. However, when the Moros afterward beheld us involved in greater anxiety with our defense against the Dutch (who were so hostile to us during the years of 1646 and 47), they began again to invade the islands with their piratical raids, and infested the province of Pintados, where they pillaged and captured.

[In 1645 occurred the death of the prominent Augustinian, Pedro de Arce, who had arrived in the Philippines shortly after 1580 in a mission brought by Andrés de Aguirre. The remainder of the chapter is taken up with his life.]

The year 1645 was disastrous for these islands—so much so, that to this day the misfortunes with which that year ended are bewailed; and together with that [161]the beauty of the edifices that made Manila celebrated among the most sightly cities, as its ruins, the shapeless skeleton of its beauty, proclaim it at present. The origin of those misfortunes is reserved alone for the divine judgment, but much could be conjectured if one saw the hold that vices had taken on this community. However, let us venerate the divine decrees, and not examine the secrets of His divine justice.

The two ships “Encarnación” and “Rosario,” which were expected from Nueva España that year with the reënforcements, arrived as by a miracle in July. The flagship anchored at the port of Lampón after having escaped three Dutch warships which had sailed from the Hermosa Island to take that prize. In order to assure their enterprise, they were strung out from the cape of Espiritu Santo to the Embocadero of San Bernardino. But the divine Mercy willed that they were not to obtain their evil purpose, for our ships did not sight the cape. By means of some advices which the alcalde-mayor of Leite sent in light vessels, the flagship received notice and deflected its voyage to Lampón. Some say that it discovered one of the hostile ships near Palapag, and believing that some Spanish ships had come from Cavite to escort them, the ship held on its course to the Embocadero. The Dutch ship pursued it, by which Cristóbal Márquez de Valenzuela, who was commander of the vessel, recognized them as enemies and prepared to fight. The Dutch ship overtook them and fired a piece to make them lower sail and surrender. Cristóbal Márquez having seen that, and that there was no other recourse, waited until the enemy was nearer, when he fired some pieces at it—with so great accuracy that the Dutch vessel considered [162]itself too weak to prosecute that undertaking alone, and retired. Our flagship continued its fortunate voyage to Lampon.

The Dutch left that position with the purpose of assembling all three ships together. During that time and ten days later, came the almiranta, ignorant of what had happened. Having met an advice-boat of the alcalde of Leite, which communicated the fact that the Dutch enemy was in the Embocadero of San Bernardino waiting to catch them, the almiranta put in at Palapag, and both galleons were saved as by a miracle. Doctor Don Fernando Montero came to these islands in the said flagship. He was a native of Burgos and the consecrated archbishop of Manila; he was a man of great learning, and one celebrated as an eminent preacher. He had been a preacher to his Majesty, and, while he was exercising the honored post of chief chaplain of the royal discalced nuns of Madrid, he was given appointment as bishop of Nueva Segovia; but while in Nueva España, already consecrated and about to embark, his promotion to the archbishopric of Manila arrived. But God did not permit Manila to gain so great a prelate, for he died suddenly in the village of Pila, located on the lake of Bay, when they were awaiting in Manila to receive him with triumphal procession. His dead body arrived, and was brought in by the same gate whence his predecessor, Don Fray Hernando Guerrero, had gone in exile; and this occurred on the same day of Thursday, and in the same month and at the same hour, exactly nine years after that tragedy, which is still so greatly bewailed. Thus the chimes, which were expected to be joyful, were changed into sadness twice over, and all the preparation became [163]gloom. The church of Manila was widowed for eight years more, until the year 1653, when Archbishop Don Miguel de Poblete entered. They buried Archbishop Don Fernando Montero in the cathedral, above the steps of the high altar, at the side of Archbishop Don Fray Miguel de Benavides.

A band of fourteen religious arrived at this province that year. They had been conducted by the father lecturer, Fray Pedro de Quesada, who died in Méjico. They entered Manila, and were received as sons of this province on August 7, 1645.

Father Fray Luis de Amezquita,7 a native of Alba de Tormes—a son of the convent of San Felipe in Madrid, where he received the habit of our holy order in the year 1641—came also on that occasion. He was a religious of great virtue, and a man of the first magnitude; and one could write many chapters of his marvelous life, his austere penitence, his continual prayer, and his extraordinary death. I feel great sorrow that the sequence of time cannot be anticipated so that somewhat of the great favors that God gave to that grand servant of His during this life can be published. During his life he was the wonder of all who had known him in the years of his youth, when he was more given to the pastimes of the world and the vigor of youth, before God called him to the austerity [164]and extraordinary mode of life which he observed for ten years constantly until his death. That event was hastened by the austere penance which he continued until it came. God took him to himself in the forty-sixth year of his age, June 26, 1667, he himself having pointed out beforehand the day and hour of his happy transition.

[The balance of this chapter and the following one deal with the disastrous earthquake of 1645, and earthquakes in general. Chapters iv, v, and vi treat of the troubles with the Dutch. These matters are sufficiently covered in VOL. XXXI (q.v.).]

The father master Fray Alonso de Carvajal governed this province during his triennium with general acceptation and credit, and he increased the regular observance there by example rather than rigor. The time having arrived for the new provincial chapter, it was held in the convent of San Pablo in Manila, May eleven, one thousand six hundred and forty-seven. Father Fray Alonso de Lara, senior definitor of the preceding triennium, presided, as no letters-patent had been received from our most reverend father-general to enable any one else to preside. Father Fray Diego de Ordás was elected provincial with the greatest harmony, by the fathers voting. He had been a minister for many years in the province of Bisayas, and had come to these islands in the year 1624. In the year 1635 he had brought a fine mission of religious, as we saw in its proper place. The definitors [165]elected were father Fray Jerónimo de Paredes,8 Fray Andrés de Fuentes,9 Fray Pedro Valenzuela,10 and Fray Gaspar López.11 The visitors present were those of the preceding chapter, father Fray Juan Gallegos and the father lecturer Fray Diego de Ochoa. For the near future were elected fathers Fray Pedro de Mejía and Fray Tomás de Villanueva.12 Afterward, in a private meeting of the [166]definitors, on May 18, father Fray Martin García13 was chosen procurator-general in España, and definitor of this province for the general chapter of the near future. He was given the authority to appoint a discreto. It was determined to buy a hospice in Méjico for the care of the religious who come to these islands on the missions that are conducted from España. But that was not put into execution until many years after, when father Fray Juan de Borja14 obtained it by buying some houses which belonged to Onofre de Lorenzana along the highway of Tacuba, where the hospice is located at present. Neither did the embarcation of father Fray Martín García take place, because the Dutch fleet was in the Embocadero of [167]San Bernardino, waiting both for the galleon from España and for the one about to sail from Cavite for the port of Acapulco. For the same reason the provincial was given dispensation so that he was not required to go to visit the Bisayan provinces, in order that he might avoid the same danger.

[The troubles with the Dutch in the year 1647 follow. They are sufficiently treated in VOL. XXXVI. Diaz adds:]

This was the last exploit of the Dutch enemy in these islands, which they had infested for many years with extraordinary pertinacity. It may be that, tired of the little benefit that they secured from their hostilities, and affrighted by the vast expenses caused by the equipment of so many fleets and by the many men that they lost, they were undeceived in thinking that the defense of these islands does not rest with divine Providence, which preserves them more by miracles than by human force.

The rebel Dutch arms derived no better success in the undertakings that they had attempted during those times in Joló and Zamboanga, guided by the chief Salicala (who was hostile to the Spaniards), and bribed by a rich present of amber and pearls so that, the Joloans being protected by their favor, the Dutch could take Joló as their own, and the Joloans would not try to look for a better opportunity for safety. The Dutch sent two well armed war-galleons from Batavia, so that they might have more than enough forces to oppose the few Spanish forces of whom Salicala had informed them. They reached Joló in the middle of July, 1648, and after having dug [168]their trenches they demanded the surrender of the place from the sargento-mayor, Esteban de Orella Ugalde, a brave Biscayan, who was governing that fort. He was given a limit of four hours, but he replied with so great valor, showing his intention to defend the fort, that the Dutch began to bombard it with three pieces of artillery, on the twenty-seventh of the said month. Our fortress, although small, played its artillery too, so successfully that many of the Dutchmen were killed, and among them the admiral of the expedition. The bombardment lasted for three days, but their shots were unable to demolish our forts, although these were so weak that our men afterward destroyed them with clubs. The Joloan Moros, seeing the lack of advantage gained by their allies, grew mistrustful of their patronage; and the Dutch withdrew, tired and angry. The peace made by Don Francisco de Atienza with the king of Jolo followed that attack; and on that pretext the fort was demolished and the Spaniards retired, as it was a useless undertaking and one of no advantage.

The Dutch greatly regretted the peace made between the Joloans and the Spaniards; for they had already prepared for that undertaking, and for the attack on Zamboanga seven of the strongest galleons armed with picked men and many munitions of war. In order not to lose so great reputation, they went to attack Zamboanga, where Don Francisco de Atienza, a brave Toledoan, was governing; and they remained in sight of the channel, in order to await the relief-boats for Ternate, which were returning to Manila in charge of General Juan de Chaves. But, having had contrary storms, those vessels arrived so late that the Dutch had set sail eleven days before, in despair [169]of succeeding in the undertaking. Before leaving, the enemy tried to land men in Zamboanga; but our artillery did them so much damage that they retired to the port of La Caldera. Captain Pedro Durán Monforte followed them on land with fifty Spaniards and many Pampangos, in order to prevent them from disembarking; and the enemy, therefore, contented themselves by destroying with their cannon the hills, on which they wasted more than 600 balls. They thought that their opponents’ camp would be quite demolished by that; and they assured themselves by landing their small boats with some experienced men. But our men received them so spiritedly that they made the Dutch retire to their ships, whence they returned twice with new reënforcements. But all of them were driven back with like slaughter, until they gave over their obstinacy, and sought the shelter of their galleons with the loss of a hundred men; while our men suffered no other loss in this encounter than a single man killed when Zamboanga was bombarded—namely, Captain Don Luis de Rojas, whose head was carried away by a cannon-ball. The Dutch, despairing of being able to come out of the matter with credit, retired to the port of La Caldera, and returned thence to Batavia thoroughly scared.

Pitiful was the disaster that befell the father definitor, Fray Pedro de Valenzuela, in the year 1648. Our father provincial, Fray Diego de Ordás, had entrusted to him the annual visitation of the province of Ilocos. If one goes there by land, he must inevitably pass through a stretch of unsettled country for a day’s journey, between the province of Pampanga and that of Pangasinán, from the village of Magalang to that of Malunguey. One cannot pass [170]it with security without an escort of Zambals, who are, like the Pampangos of those elevated villages in that province, a brave people. The reason is, that all that unsettled portion is exposed to the incursions of the blacks from the mountains of Playa Honda, who are the cruelest of all that scattered nation.

Those blacks are the ancient inhabitants of this island of Luzón, which is the chief and largest island where Manila is established; for the other nations of the Indians are lately come from the adjacent islands of Borney and Sumatra. They are not so black as those of Africa, but have a color much clearer, although they are alike in their curly hair. That race is especially wretched and unfortunate, and cowardly and treacherous. They live in the mountains like wild beasts, naked, and without villages or houses. They wander about continually, and sleep on the ground in the open, or in the hollow of some great tree. Their best shelter is formed of some leaves hastily arranged. They excel in hunting, for deer, wild boars, buffaloes, and mountain carabaos abound in these mountains. Their arms are the bow and arrow, in which they are very skilful. Their paganism almost amounts to atheism, for they have no idols or sacrifices, but only some vain superstitions—in which they are so tenacious and blind that if any of them would become a true Christian it would be regarded as a miracle. They are so fond of that manner of living (in which they are not at all different from the brutes) that not only do they not desire to live in settlements like men, but some of them who have been reared from childhood in Manila and other places, run away, and return to the [171]wretchedness of that life when they are grown, and to their nakedness and poverty.15...

Among the evil inclinations of those unfortunate creatures, the greatest is a ravenous appetite for killing people and cutting off their heads—first of their enemies, but even of their friends and relatives—and that for very slight cause. That cruelty is for them honor, nobility, and estimation. But it is a greater glory to cut off the head of a Spaniard; and, after performing their dances and superstitions before it, they use the skull as a drinking vessel in their greatest feasts.

The father definitor, Fray Pedro de Valenzuela, found himself among those barbarous people in the most dangerous part of that wild region, which is a site called Puntalón—a precipice between hills. He refused to take an escort, for he was overconfident; and thus he paid for his carelessness by being shot through with many arrows. Those people cut off his head, which became the occasion of great banquets, dances, and revels. But all the blacks concerned in that act of treachery were overtaken very [172]soon by the punishment of heaven; for they all caught a disease which is called that of St. Lazarus [i.e., leprosy]....

That horrible disease has been inherited by their descendants, and the blacks recognize and confess that it is their punishment for the murder of Fray Pedro Valenzuela. From that time, they have not dared to kill any priest; but they only rob them of what they carry. In my time, a religious of St. John of God was able to escape death among those blacks by uncovering his tonsure while passing that dangerous and unsettled district.

Some years later, the same blacks killed General Don Felipe de Ugalde, a brave Biscayan, in the same place, because he trusted in his great valor. But the number of the enemy was greater, and they drove so many arrows through him that he bled to death, after he had first killed many of the blacks. They cut off his head, which they held in high esteem as a trophy of such a victory, until it was possible to ransom it and bury it with ecclesiastical rites. Many other Spaniards have been killed by their carelessness and great confidence; and consequently, that unsettled stretch is very dangerous.

That whole triennium was very happy for our province, because of the prudent government of our father, Fray Diego de Ordás, who was one of the most perfect religious that it has ever had. He was [173]very observant in the rules of the order, and zealous for the welfare of the souls of the natives; and he had been an excellent evangelical minister in the Bisayan provinces of Panay, Ogtong, and Cebú. He was very mild toward his subjects, but very austere toward himself. If it were not my purpose in writing this history not to be prolix in writing the lives of the religious, in order not to expose myself to the belief that I dwell on my own order too much, the life of our father Fray Diego de Ordás would furnish sufficient material for several chapters. Those who had to do with him told me much of his continual penitence and prayer, and especially of his poverty and disinterestedness in temporal affairs, for which he was notable. His presence in the choir in his extreme old age was the admiration of the youngest and most robust. Consequently, he was always venerated by all this province as a father. He was also much esteemed by the other orders, and by the entire community of Manila.

But very different was the condition of this community during all the term of the government of Diego Fajardo until the year 1653, because of the calamities and troubles which occasioned the earthquake on St. Andrew’s day in the former year of 1645, and because of the frequent comings of the Dutch. And although the divine Mercy willed to humble their pride by giving us miraculous victories, yet the anxiety and expenses were very great; and the burden of the provinces was increased greatly, because of the cutting of timber for the building of ships and galleys, and other precautions that had to be taken for defense. But the greatest horror suffered by the community of Manila was the internal [174]war of fears and sudden surprises, of imprisonment, embargoes, and exiles, which were continually occurring, and were such that they exceeded past troubles.

Don Diego Fajardo was a gentleman of great valor and integrity, and wholly disinterested and free from covetousness—qualities that would have been sufficient to have made him a great governor, had it not been for the counterweight of other peculiarities that rendered them abortive. For he secluded himself so much that it became difficult to hold communication with him, and he was very much feared; from this it resulted that he was so rigorous in the observance of justice that he would not allow mercy any play, as if the two virtues were opposed to each other. That natural fondness for retirement, injurious to so extensive a government as is that of these islands, forced him to admit an associate for his negotiations, which is always a dangerous thing in worldly affairs. Consequently, among those few who gained his good-will, a rich citizen of Manila well related by marriage gained great control over him. That man became so much the master of the governor’s actions that the latter neither did nor commanded other than what his favorite desired. Since this name is given by the world to the tyrants of the wills of princes, therefore I have desired to suppress the name of that man for the sake of his honored posterity; for, although it will be indelible in these islands, it may be at least somewhat unknown outside them.16

The disposition of that favorite was very ambitious [175]and proud, which greatly resembled that of the harsh and austere governor. Consequently, that sympathy [in characteristics] conciliated the will of the governor to such an extent that he gave the favorite complete control of the government—giving him more confidence than he ought, in order to sink farther into his natural retirement. He decreed what this man ordered to him, and executed only what was directed by the favorite’s influence. Thereupon the latter began with that license to avenge certain passions and arrogated to himself all the grandeur, fear, and respect which was due only to the supreme character of the governor. Master Don José de Poblete,17 who died as bishop-elect of Nueva Segovia, wrote a printed relation at the order of the supreme Council of the Indias, and in accordance with a decree of his Majesty Don Felipe V, of happy memory, in which his Majesty ordered that an exact relation be given of the condition of those islands, in order that he might give notice to his chronicler-general, Don Tomás Tamayo de Vargas, for the general history of the islands which he was composing; therein he uses these words, when describing the condition of Manila at that time:

“But although the decrease of wealth and the general poverty had afflicted this kingdom, accustomed at other times to great opulence and affluence in all things, yet that which most grieved the minds of its inhabitants were the acts of violence, imprisonments, [176]embargoes, exiles, and other terrifying exhibitions of rigor which began to be introduced into it after the year forty-four, as will be told later. All this, being yet in its violent beginnings, kept not only this city of Manila, where the thunderbolts strike nearer, but all the islands of its jurisdiction, full of horror and gloom; and there was no chink that was not closed to consolation, when all gates were seen opened to misfortune.” The author of this relation, after having described the earthquake which happened in the year 1645, proceeds as follows:

“All those plagues, penalties, and wretchedness above mentioned were not the most grievous matters that afflicted this community. Worse were the domestic afflictions and secret tragedies that it suffered during these last years. Those were the hidden pest that infected men’s hearts and poisoned the blood, which instead of giving vital strength to the members caused them mortal shocks. These were the slow fever, which, insidiously taking possession of the principal part of the body, destroyed the harmony of its actions and disturbed its powers. With the progress of that disease, the hourglass was so disordered that there was no hour for clemency and fortune, and all times were given over to misfortune. Already so great was the number of those thrown into prisons, dungeons, and obscure cells, that all the places set aside by justice for the punishment of criminals were filled; and other new and frightful places, sites, and methods of delayed punishment were found inside the city. And when those places were also full, it was necessary to divide the prisoners among the provinces, villages, and presidios of these islands.” [177]

Thus far Don José Millán de Poblete, in the above-cited relation, which was dedicated to the Conde de Peñaranda, president of the supreme Council of the Indias. In matters so criminal and full of grief, I have not been willing to trust to my own poor wit and lack of polish, nor to leave my reputation to the judgment of others. The worst is, that those disasters continued with greater rigor to the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-three.

Those misfortunes were succeeded by another, causing universal sorrow and pain, namely, the disastrous loss of the ship “Encarnación,” which was returning from Nueva España laden with very great wealth belonging to the citizens of Manila. It sighted the land of Filipinas late, and, very severe vendavals having seized it, it was driven ashore on a beach of the island of Leite called Bula. Striking through carelessness on a shoal, a storm overtook the ship, which made kindling-wood of it, although it had been already lightened of much of its cargo, and all the money was taken out. Afterward the artillery was taken ashore, and much of the iron in its construction was used. But the loss of that galleon was great, because our lack of ships kept these islands threatened by the frequent coming of the Dutch enemy—who, protected by their nearness in the island Hermosa, lost no opportunity to do us all the harm possible. That misfortune was followed the next year by the putting back to port of the galleon “San Diego,” which was badly injured by the storms that it had suffered in northern latitudes in the month of October—which is the most dangerous month for navigators in all seas.

The three years of the prudent government of our [178]father, Fray Diego de Ordás, having been concluded—to the general sorrow of this province, which was desirous to reëlect him for the second time, and oftener if possible—the fathers who had a vote assembled in chapter in the convent of Manila, May nine, 1650, and elected as provincial for the third time our father Fray Gerónimo de Medrano. The senior definitor, Fray Gerónimo de Paredes, presided. As new definitors were elected fathers Fray Lucas de Aguilar,18 Fray Sancho de Moncada,19 Fray Dionisio Suárez,20 and Fray Diego Tamayo. The visitors were Fray Pedro Mejía and Fray Tomás de Villanueva. Fraternal relations between our order and the fathers of the Society were settled at that chapter, and the feasts of the two holy patriarchs were celebrated alternately. It was accomplished by Ours saying mass on St. Ignatius’s day, while the same was [179]done by the fathers of the Society in our convent—they preaching and celebrating mass on the day of our father, St. Augustine. That holy concord and harmony lasted for several years, until the enemy of the peace destroyed it.21

As the father-procurator, Fray Martín García, had died on the voyage, father Fray Juan Lozano,22 apostolic missionary in the Bisayan provinces—where the memory of his great virtue, acts of penance, and contemplation still lasted when I went to the said provinces in the year 1671—was appointed in that chapter meeting. But that appointment failed to go through; for the father-procurator did not embark, as he was prevented by Governor Don Diego Fajardo—or rather, by his favorite who was governing; for the latter feared that he was carrying reports denouncing his operations, which had thrown those islands into the final degree of consternation. Accordingly, father Fray Cristóbal Enriquez was appointed, and he sailed that year. However, in the year 1652 they succeeded in sending father Fray Juan Lozano as procurator to bring some religious, even if it should be from the provinces of Méjico and Mechoacán, for the need that we were suffering was very urgent; but he died on the way to Acapulco. [180]

Our father Fray Diego de Ordás presented a petition to the definitorio, yielding and renouncing the right that he held according to our rules, as immediate outgoing provincial, to be able to assume the government of the province in case of the death of the recently-elected provincial, who was very aged. That resignation was accepted in order to console him and because of the many entreaties therefor which he proffered. All the fathers were edified at beholding him so free from ambition, although they forced him in the following chapter to receive the office of provincial, which he accepted very reluctantly.

Since the pacification of the insurrection of the Indians of Palapag (in the province of Leite) in Pintados was finished in that year of one thousand six hundred and fifty, I shall here insert some notice of that insurrection, leaving the historians of the Society of Jesus to deal with it more particularly—who as they were eyewitnesses of it, will have more individual information about its events. [Diaz’s account of this insurrection will appear in another place.]

Another very considerable misfortune happened at that time, namely, the loss of the galleon “Encarnación,” under command of General Don López Colíndrico. It was broken to pieces at a place called Balón, because it left Acapulco late, and because, having lost the better season of the brisas, the favorable winds, ran aground at Bagambog, on the coast of Caraga in the island of Mindanao—a place where no ship had passed since the year 1542, when General Ruy López de Villalobos anchored there with his fleet. The governor sent orders to Andrés López [181]de Asaldigui, his chief lieutenant, to go to investigate the loss of the galleon “Encarnación.”

[Manila had been in distress for some years because of the loss of various galleons, and because of the unfortunate temperament of the governor, Diego Fajardo, and his consequent governing through his favorite.]

That internal war lasted for seven years in the afflicted community of Manila, and no one dared to undeceive the severe governor regarding the injuries committed in his name by his favorite, who made him hated in the community, and guilty of the imprisonment and exiles that were executed not only on laymen but also on the secular clergy and religious. For in order to have control of those whom the Church exempted from his jurisdiction, he succeeded in removing the dean, Doctor Don Juan Vélez, from the post of provisor and vicar-general of the vacant see, and having it given to his intimate friend and confederate, Doctor Don Francisco Fernández Ledo. With that same diligence he contrived and obtained the exile of Doctor Don Diego de Cartagena y Pantoja23 and other secular clergy to Macasar.

Those who suffered most from his harsh and violent acts were the [fathers of the] order of our [182]father, St. Augustine, the cause of his wrath being that they had refused to elect as provincial one of their members who was acceptable and dear to him. Although the abilities of that father made him merit the office, yet it was not allowable that it be conferred by that method, so strictly forbidden by the sacred counsels and canons. Consequently, his wrath was aroused against the order of our father St. Augustine, and he sent malicious reports against it to his Majesty in the royal and supreme Council of the Indias, in letters apparently signed by Governor Don Diego Fajardo—who, when he waked from that lethargy, declared under oath that they were not his. At our petition, the following governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, made a full investigation before Auditor Don Álvaro García de Ocampo, the commissioned judge, in January, 1654—which proved that all that was charged by the said favorite against the order was false. He sent that report to the said royal and supreme Council, and a copy of it is kept in our archives.

The divine clemency did not choose that the troubles of afflicted Manila should go further. Therefore He encouraged and strengthened our father Fray Jerónimo de Medrano—who had been provincial of this province of ours for three terms, and was its true father—to penetrate the deep retirement of the deluded governor (in whom the father’s virtue and age had inspired some affection and considerable veneration). He informed the governor of the truth with efficacious arguments, showing him the deceit in which the cunning of the favorite had kept him buried, while he yielded to the violent operations of the ambition and cruelty of that man, injuring his [183]own reputation. Divine Providence permitted him to open the eyes of the deceived governor, because of the favorable idea that the latter had formed of the accuser; and, seeing that his honor and his conscience were being endangered, he made the investigations on his part that were necessary, in order not to discredit his determination as being precipitate. He found all that father Fray Jerónimo de Medrano had said, and much more, to be true. Thereupon, he resolved to come to himself, for the sake of the community of Manila, and had his favorite arrested, September 16, 1651. Formulating legal proceedings against him for the crimes that he had committed, he questioned him under torture, in which the prisoner answered nothing—either because of his great courage, or because he had taken some confection of opium, which they purposely gave him to drink, and which has so narcotic a virtue that it renders those who drink it insensible to pain.

Among many other injuries that the said favorite had done to the citizens of Manila was this, that he caused the governor to hold back the reward that his Majesty granted to General Don Pedro de Almonte, [in appointing him] master-of-camp, with the bestowal of the habit of Santiago, for his great services in Ternate, Mindanao, and Joló (some of which we have mentioned before in this history). [Don Diego did so] because that favorite had risen to the said post (the second after the governor of Filipinas), as the regularly-appointed master-of-camp, Don Fernando de Ayala—a brave soldier of Flandes in the time of the count of Fuentes, who added so great luster to the Spanish arms—had died in the beginning [of his term]. [184]

The governor surrendered the appointment to Don Pedro de Almonte, and put him in possession of the government of the army as its master-of-camp. Also, as a professed knight of the Order of Santiago, he gave him his habit in the convent of Santa Clara for the consolation of a daughter who was a nun there. The prior of our convent of Manila, Fray Dionisio Suárez, was present at the ceremonies that were celebrated at the said function.

Afflicted Manila began to take breath and that so long storm died down. For although the governor was by nature so retiring, he was very upright, and in the highest degree disinterested—a quality that rendered his harsh rectitude tolerable. Many who had been exiled to the presidios of Ternate, Zamboanga, and other forts in these islands, began to come back to their homes. Many citizens were released from the prison where they were confined, and returned to attend to the common welfare, the governor substituting methods of more peaceful operation, which tempered the austerity of his integrity. The favorite remained in prison until the new governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, gave sentence in his cause.24 [185]

... The time for holding the chapter-session of this province arrived. The voting fathers assembled in the convent of San Pablo in Manila, on May three, 1653. The senior definitor, father Fray Lucas de Aguilar, presided; and they unanimously elected as provincial the father lecturer, Fray Andrés de Verdugo, a minister of the province of Tagalos, a prominent religious, and one who was very learned, prudent, and affable. He bore the name Verdugo25 by antiphrasis, according to his characteristics, which were suitable for the office of father and superior. The definitors elected were the fathers Master Fray Alonso de Carvajal, Fray Francisco de Madrid,26 the lecturer Fray Francisco de Villalón, and Fray José de la Cuesta,27 who was very [186]learned in the Greek language. The visitors who were present were fathers Fray Lorenzo de Figueroa and Fray José de Betoño28 (substitute for father Fray Tomás de Velasco,29 who had returned to España).

In a private meeting of the definitors which was held in the convent of Tondo, December 22, father Fray Francisco de Victoria,30 prior of that convent, was appointed procurator to España with the same commissions and authority which had been borne by father Fray Juan Lozano, who died the preceding year on the voyage to Acapulco. But father Fray Francisco de Victoria had the same fortune, for he embarked the next year and died on the high sea, en route to Nueva España. That voyage is very dangerous to those who are accustomed to the climate of the Philippines, because of the great change which is experienced as the galleon ascends to a high northern latitude (sometimes as high as forty degrees), [187]and then again descends to sixteen, in which lies the port of Acapulco. Therefore, that so sudden change is the cause of many dying on that voyage, which is the longest, most tedious, and most dangerous in all the seas. It is undertaken in the most stormy season, when navigation is denied to the rest of the world; and, in that time, the months of October and November are the season when our galleons are battling with the greatest tempests. If it were not for the great strength of the galleons and the quality of their timbers, that so dangerous navigation could not be performed; and above all is their safety due to divine Providence, in whose charge is the conservation of these islands, where there is so numerous and excellent a Christian people. They apparently serve as a counterpoise to the ingratitude of the European nations of the north, who, at the same time when these islands were discovered, had been seduced by various heresies, and denied obedience to the Roman Catholic Church and their legitimate kings.

The ship “San Francisco Javier”—which had wintered at Acapulco, as it had arrived late and very hardly used—left that port March three; and, having had a very fortunate voyage by the help of divine clemency, and having profited by the entire monsoon of the brisas, arrived at so good a season that it entered the Embocadero of San Bernardino June 26. The mail was sent on from the island of Ticao, in order to rejoice Manila with the glad news of the treasure which was coming in that galleon, to wit, the following persons.

As governor and captain-general of these islands was coming Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, [188]knight of the Order of Calatrava, a native of Malaga, late castellan of Acapulco. He was a brother of the count of Prigiliana, and uncle of his Excellency Don Rodrigo Manuel Manrique de Lara, count of Aguilar and Prigiliana—who was a member of the Council of State and governor of that of Aragón, viceroy of Valencia, of Andalucía, the coasts of the Ocean Sea, and the royal fleet. He is a gentleman worthy of eternal renown in these islands, since, if he was not the best, he is not left behind by any of those who are most remembered for piety, devotion, and zeal for the service of God and their king. In all things he had a clear understanding and an admirable eloquence; he was very jovial by nature, and easily pleased all men. Accordingly, he left behind not only a lasting memory of his eloquence and disinterestedness, but also of his discretion. [On his return to Malaga he becomes a priest.]

Doctor Don Miguel Millán de Poblete, the consecrated archbishop of Manila, also came. He was a native of the imperial city of Méjico, and was an excellent theologian and canonist, doctoral canon of La Puebla, magistral prebend in the cathedral of Méjico, and rector of its university. He had refused to accept the bishopric of Nicaragua. He was highly esteemed by Don Juan de Palafox, who consecrated him and gave him the pallium.... With him he brought his nephew, Master Don José de Poblete, who, after having been dean of Manila, died bishop-elect of Nueva Segovia.

There came also the most illustrious master, Don Fray Rodrigo de Cárdenas of the Order of Preachers, a native of Lima, preacher to his Majesty, and consecrated bishop of Nueva Segovia. As it has [189]been his lot to be celebrated by the most skilful pen of the reverend father master Fray Baltasar de Santa Cruz in the second part of the History of the province of Santo Rosario, he does not need the rude tracings of my pen. There came, elected and appointed as bishop of Cebú, the dean of Manila, Doctor Don Juan de Velas; and as bishop of Nueva Cáceres or Camarines, the very reverend father Fray Antonio de San Gregorio,31 lecturer and calificador and commissary of the Holy Office. He was also provincial of that province of San Gregorio of the Order of St. Francis, because of the death of Don Fray Antonio de Zaldivar, a religious of our father St. Augustine, of the province of Méjico—who died without having been consecrated, in the year 1649, after he had governed that church for little more than one year, his death causing great sorrow in all quarters because of his great virtues and learning.

As auditor came Licentiate Don Salvador Gomez de Espinosa, an eminent jurisconsult; and, to act as his Majesty’s fiscal, Don Juan de Bolivar y Cruz, [190]father of Doctor Don Pedro de Bolivar y Mena who was auditor and came to an unfortunate end in our time; for his associates made him an accomplice in the exile of the archbishop Don Fray Felipe Pardo of the Order of St. Dominic. Two missions came in that galleon, one of our Recollect religious, and the other of the Society of Jesus. Some very notable people came, so many that those who came in that galleon amounted to six hundred persons. Their journey was so propitious that only three persons died on the voyage.

The devil was very angry at the great war that he would have to wage because of the holy prelates and religious who came on that galleon “San Francisco Javier.” Accordingly, what he could not do on the high sea he managed to do from the Embocadero to Manila. For the winds rebelled against the ship at the island of Mindoro, and so frightful a tempest arose that the galleon was all but lost, and in danger of going to pieces on some high reefs about that island. They cast anchor, and the archbishop conjured the storm, which immediately calmed itself. That galleon suffered three similar storms among the islands before they reached the bay of Manila and cast anchor at Cavite, July 23—although the governor and archbishop landed the day before that in a falúa which was sent to the middle of the bay by the castellan of Cavite, the commander Lorenzo Orella y Ugalde, so often mentioned in this history.

[The governor causes the archbishop to disembark first, in order that he might bless the land; as if in return for this, the sardines, which had deserted the bay of Manila at the exile of Archbishop Guerrero, again entered that bay. The governor, disembarking [191]on the twenty-second, pays homage to the archbishop. The latter makes his public entry into Manila on the twenty-fourth and the governor the next day. The Recollects bring a holy picture (an Ecce Homo) which becomes an object of veneration in their convent of San Nicolás at Manila, where the new governor attends. The first work of the latter is to take the residencia of his predecessor, which is entrusted to the direction of Auditor Sebastián Caballero de Medina. The charges preferred are those of harsh conduct, but he is so free from covetousness that “it is recounted of him that he only drew for his expenses five hundred pesos monthly out of the pay of thirteen thousand pesos granted to the governors of these islands; and accordingly, the balance, a considerable amount, was afterward paid to his heirs.” He appeals from all the charges to the Council of the Indias, and is sent to Spain, but dies during the voyage, over seventy years of age. Fajardo’s favorite is condemned to be beheaded, to vast fines, and to the confiscation of his property. He appeals to Spain, but the sentence is there confirmed. Before the execution of the sentence, however, he dies in prison, in poverty. His money and movable property are confiscated by the treasury and his houses on the square opposite the cathedral are used later as the governor’s palace. The prelate and the governor work hand in hand in the regeneration of Manila.]

The first employment of Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara in the beginning of his government, was to appoint the brave Francisco de Esteybar governor of the forts of Ternate,32 and the commander Don Francisco [192]de Atienza of those of Zamboanga, for the credit of the arms of España against the Dutch and against the king of Mindanao, Cachil Corralat. He sent Father Magino Sola, of the Society of Jesus, to the city of Macan as his ambassador, to make a treaty of commerce and trade.33 He set a galleon upon the stocks, but he was unable to do as his great zeal wished because the royal treasury was exhausted by the lack of supplies from Nueva España, and because the trading galleons, which communicate vital strength to all these islands, had put back so many times.

[The people of Manila recognize that the evils that have been visited upon them are due to their sins, and accordingly an appeal is made to the pope, Innocent X. The latter absolves them from all the censures and interdicts they may have incurred, and concedes them plenary indulgence and absolution for their sins; “and he blessed the land, and ordered the archbishop to perform in public the ceremony of [193]the solemn benediction.” The archbishop, who has brought that despatch with him, sets the twenty-second of March for those ceremonies; and before that date a great religious fervor sweeps through the city and its suburbs. “On the Sunday assigned, the mass was chanted in the cathedral before the holy sacrament, and the archbishop preached a learned and fervent sermon, such as the season demanded—which was afterward printed, as it was worth being published to all the world.” In the afternoon, the blessing of the land and the benediction in the name of the pope follow. At the governor’s request, the archbishop also blesses the “fatal gate called Puerta de los Almacenes (‘the gate of the magazines’), through which Don Fray Hernando Guerrero had gone into exile.” The governor lives in great harmony for the ten years of his service in the Philippines.]

The archbishop, Don Miguel Millán y Poblete, came here with the firm determination to pursue the plans of Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, bishop of La Puebla de los Ángeles, who had consecrated him. Those plans had caused great disturbances in Nueva España because of their novelty, and had divided that country into the two divisions of Palafoxistas and Palancas,34 who were no less mischievous than the Guelphs and Ghibelines in the time of [194]Federico Barbarroja [i.e., Frederick Barbarossa] when determinations issued forth to combat with understandings. Don Juan de Palafox tried to reduce the ministries of the missions (which the orders had possessed in Nueva España since the conquest) to regularly-appointed curacies with canonical institution and collation, so that they could be administered by ordinary jurisdiction, to the suppression of the delegated jurisdiction. This was done in order that the ecclesiastical hierarchy might be one whole in its proportionate parts; and that the episcopal dignity might possess entire dominion over the shepherds of its sheep, by visiting them and sitting in judgment on their excesses in the office of parish priests, which they exercised by virtue of the concession of St. Pius V and other worthy pontiffs. His great perseverance obtained that in the form established at present among the orders, who desired to retain some ministries of the missions—leaving others, because that subjection to the bishops did not seem to them to be in harmony with the institutes of the orders. I shall not mention the disturbances and scandals that the common enemy of souls compassed during that time for the ruin of many—which filled the world with gloom, and gave perfidious heretics the opportunity to blaspheme against the Catholic priests—for they are very well known.

The archbishops of Manila tried to establish that kind of ecclesiastical hierarchy in Filipinas, but as he was so holy, and only desired to promote the greater honor and glory of God (Qui cogitationem [195]pacis et non aflictionis habet)35 he found considerable inconveniences and even impossibilities in effecting what he was attempting. For Don Juan de Palafox had a great plenty of secular priests who were very suitable in learning and virtue for choosing and presenting for the missions, which the orders were abandoning, because they refused to submit to the rigor of the canonical collation in the appointments to the missions. But the archbishop found a great lack of secular priests in these islands, for scarcely are there enough in this country to fill the choir of the cathedral of Manila, with prebendaries and chaplains for the royal chapel, and some few curacies which the clergy hold in this archbishopric. For the Spaniards in this country multiply but slowly, and very few of their sons apply themselves to following the ecclesiastical life, either secular or regular. That is so true that the orders could not maintain themselves if it were not for the continual missions that are brought from the kingdoms of España. Thus, the clergy is composed of the sons of the Spaniards of this country, and with these is maintained a cabildo in this cathedral of Manila, so distinguished that it might belong to one of the first churches of España; for most of them are doctors in sacred theology, after having graduated first as masters of arts. He who has the least degree is a master. All of them are very learned and of known virtue, which is a cause for admiration, as they live so far from reward that one rarely passes from the sphere of the dignities of the said cabildo. For although some have attained the episcopal dignity, these are very few—as, for instance, this year their [196]dean, Doctor Don Domingo de Valencia, was promoted to the bishopric of Camarines,36 but at such an age that he cannot obtain the dignity for a long time. However, in order to comply with his obligation, and to give the orders an incentive to represent in judicial form what they had to allege, the archbishop resolved to place the visitation in execution. He began with the mission at Binondoc, outside the walls of the city of Manila, belonging to the religious of St. Dominic, who immediately abandoned that mission; and the same was done by the other orders, who left the missions in their control in the hands of the governor as vice-patron. The latter referred the consultative vote on a so great and weighty matter to the Audiencia in the royal assembly. It was thoroughly discussed by the auditors of the Audiencia, who were all very eminent jurisconsults; and they, recognizing the impossibility of placing in execution in these islands what Don Juan de Palafox had established in Nueva España, as the system in vogue in these regions is very different, despatched a royal prohibition to the archbishop, ordering him to hold his right in reserve, and to suspend what he had begun until the royal and supreme Council of the Indias should be informed, and should take suitable measures. The archbishop was notified by the first and the second royal prohibition; and he obeyed it, and suspended the visitation, after making his protests. From that time the orders found him a most loving father and protector. He referred the case to the royal Council; the orders also [did the [197]same], by the authority which they gave to the most reverend father master Fray Juan Polanco of the Order of Preachers, the procurator of the province of Santo Rosario at court. All the orders renounced the missions in their charge. The president [of the Council] was the count of Peñaranda, Don Gaspar de Bracamonte y Guzmán, a minister of great talent and experience in very difficult negotiations, as he showed in the peace of Nimega,37 where he was the plenipotentiary of Don Felipe IV. That most erudite senate having examined the matter, and having penetrated like lynxes the most hidden difficulties, imposed silence for the time being on that innovation.

The perverse spirit of discord which had in charge the incitement of that litigation in which the prince of darkness profited by a great number of scandals, discords, and tumults, was suspended and remained as if asleep for forty-four years—until it awakened, in the year 1697, because of our sins. Archbishop Doctor Don Diego Camacho y Avila,38 a native of Badajoz and former magistral canon of that holy church, and fellow of the chief college at Cuenca in Salamanca, came to these islands [in that year]. He was a great prelate, and very vigilant in his pastoral office. He died later (the year of 1712) as bishop of Guadalajara and was well remembered for his zeal [198]and integrity. [Here follows an account of the attempt of Archbishop Camacho to enforce the visitation of the regulars, which we omit in this place, as it will be sufficiently noticed later.]

In the beginning, the provinces of América were founded entirely in accordance with the regular institutes of communal houses and convents, with a great number of conventuals; they did not need to take these from the provinces of España, as they could choose plenty from the country. On the contrary in Filipinas we have no more than the convents of Manila, Cebú, and Guadalupe as communal convents—although only the convent of Manila preserves that character; while the others, more than seventy-four in number, are only missions where one single religious lives, and, in a very few, two ministers, according to the size of the village and the ability of the province. The latter is wont often to consist of as many priests as missions, until reënforcements of religious come from España; and if that reënforcement is very slow, then there are generally more missions than religious as priests. What I say here of our order is the same of all the others. It is not so in América, Perú, and Nueva España, where the convents are established totally independent of the missions. They have plenty of religious, and those who belong to the land itself, so that they do not have to send to España for them. Those convents have their incomes by which they are sustained, so that they do not need any of the fees of the missions; and consequently, the orders who wished to retain some missions subject to the ordinary could do so very easily, by assigning some religious to that mission who knew the language of [199]those villages. Such religious are presented to the vice-patron, who presents them to the bishop. The latter examines them, and gives them the collation of the curacy in regular appointment. They administer that office in subjection to the priors of the convents, and to their visitation and correction in matters concerning the order; and in subjection to the bishops, who hold jurisdiction and visitation over them in regard to any transgressions in their office as curas. Those religious are maintained perpetually in their offices, and the chapters cannot change them to other convents; for they cannot leave their curacies without the intervention of the vice-patron and bishop, who are very loth to change them because of the investigations demanded by the presentation, examination, and collation. Those religious (who are very few) having been dedicated to that office of curas, the others, who consist of almost all the religious of the province who are exempt from that occupation, hold their chapters and change their priors according to the constitutions of the order.

It is not so in these Filipinas, where, as I have said, there are so few religious. Supposing that the plan of Don Juan de Palafox were to be inaugurated, and that all the religious submitted to receive the canonical collation of the curacies in proprietary appointment, the conservation and continued supply of religious would cease. The chapters would cease, for they could not remove the religious from the villages where they were acting as proprietary curas; and it would be necessary to keep them where they had their parishes. Very great difficulties would ensue from that. The province would cease to send [200]procurators to España to bring back religious; and if the generous motive of coming as apostolic missionaries ceased, they would leave their provinces and fatherland—all the more because of being subject to the bishops, a burden so far from the exemption of the regulars that we watch so carefully. That subjection would have to be not only to the bishop but also to the ecclesiastical governors of a vacant see. There have been so many of the latter in these islands, that in Manila they had them for fourteen years; and in Cebú, Cagayán, and Camarines, for twenty years. The provincials would have nothing left but that name, and would not have entire control over their subordinates. The above and many other representations were made to Archbishop Don Millán de Poblete, and they availed so well with him that he suspended his resolve. The same things were represented to Don Diego Camacho, and these same reasons moved the gentlemen of the royal Council of the Indias to moderate that subjection—leaving it only in the visitation, with the limitations already mentioned, thus enjoining perpetual silence, in regard to erecting the missions into curacies, and to allowing the orders to abandon the ministries of those missions.

Plan of Manila Cathedral prior to 1750

[Photographic facsimile from original MS. in Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla]

The archbishop having put aside his doubt in regard to undertaking the visitation of the regulars, dedicated himself, as a true prelate, to his other obligations. The first one was the building of the cathedral, because of the ruin that occurred in it on the fatal night of St. Andrew in the year 1645; the church of the girls’ school of Santa Isabel was being used as a cathedral. He placed his shoulders very earnestly to that so chief obligation, although the [203]poverty of the times made it difficult for him. He set about collecting materials, and the order of our father St. Augustine lent him the lime-kilns of Birabira, where the best and strongest lime of all the islands is made. The pious and Catholic governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, was the one who conquered the greatest difficulties by collecting a generous alms from the citizens of Manila, and by giving his aid to the archbishop. The building was commenced, and, after the trenches for the foundations had been made, the archbishop clad himself in his pontifical garments and on the twentieth of April, 1654, blessed the first stone, which was carried by General Don Pedro de Mendiola. The master-of-camp, Don Pedro de Almonte, carried on a rich tray a bronze plate with the inscription of the erection of the church. Captain Don Nicolás Sarmiento carried on another tray five silver coins, and Captain Diego Castellanos a box of lead. All went in procession to the place where the stone was to be placed, and the governor and archbishop set it in position, while the litanies were being chanted. In a hollow already made in the stone were placed the plate and coins. The inscription on the plate is as follows:

“While Innocent X was governing the Church, King Felipe IV the Españas, and Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, knight of the Order of Calatrava, the Filipinas Islands, this stone for the building of this holy cathedral—its titular being the Conception, and its patron St. Andrew the apostle—was placed in position by Don Miguel de Poblete, metropolitan archbishop, April 20, 1654.”

The building of that cathedral proceeded, as the time, which was very full of troubles, allowed; accordingly [204]it lasted for many years, two or three years having passed without any work; and its dedication services were held on September 8, 1671. It is of Doric architecture and has three naves, and is very strong, as it is built of heavy stone. It has a reredos of the finest sculpture in these islands. It was completed by Archbishop Don Diego Camacho y Ávila, who built a very beautiful high tower that contains some very fine bells.39 He also built the sacristy and other parts which were wanting for the completion of the cathedral, and adorned it with a quantity of wrought silver and very rich ornaments and lamps, which he sent from Guadalajara, for he was not forgetful of his first spouse.

Plan of Manila Cathedral, showing the new structure building in 1754

[Photographic facsimile from original MS. in Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla]

This province of ours was very deficient in religious to fulfil its charge of the instruction and teaching of so many villages, which were commended to our care as the first spiritual conquistadors of these remote islands. Nine years had already passed since the last mission had reached this province (in the year 1645), during which sixty religious had died; and, besides, the procurators who had been sent to España to get new missions had suffered the same fate. Father Fray Cristobal Enriquez, although he reached Madrid, and presented himself [207]before the royal and supreme Council of the Indias for that purpose, did not obtain a favorable despatch. For, permission having been given him to conduct thirty religious to these islands, and trusting to that and having assembled and conducted many from the provinces of España to Sevilla (in which he had spent the little that he had for that purpose), a new decree was issued in which he was ordered to suspend the transportation of the thirty religious who had been allowed to him, under pretext of inability to equip them because of the many war expenses of that time. The religious who were assembled in Andalucía returned to their provinces; and father Fray Cristobal Enriquez, having spent all his supply money, died in the city of Cáceres, which was his birthplace.

With these losses the province found itself in the greatest need because of the lack of workmen for the missions in its charge, until the arrival in 1654 of the galleon “San Diego” in charge of the commander Pedro Villarroel de la Cuesta—which was wrecked in the beginning of June near the harbor and bay of Manila, as it went aground on an unknown shoal. However, only the hull of the ship was lost and all the men and the cargo were saved. That galleon brought fifteen religious, who had been sent by the provincial of the province of Méjico, by virtue of the authorization given him by the last procurator of this province, Fray Francisco de Victoria, who died in Méjico. The said religious were admitted into this province at a private meeting of the definitors held on June 13 of the said year 1654. They are as follows:

Father Fray Gerónimo de la Serna, who was in [208]charge of that mission, forty years old, and twenty-five in the habit. He had been a prior with vote three times in his province, and died in the year 1668.

Father Fray José Polanco, a theologue. He was an excellent minister to the Tagálogs and Ilocans, and served in this province for many years with great credit, for he was an able minister and skilled in both languages. He died in the year 1681, in a grievous manner; for, when coming in a champan from the province of Ilocos, where he was prior of the convent of Bauang, the vessel went to pieces and he was drowned together with sixteen persons in the same boat.

Father Fray José de la Cruz, minister of the province of Pampanga, where he rendered much service to the order, and left a lively remembrance of his zeal in the churches of Candaba, Betis, and México, which he built from the foundations with great beauty and strength. He died in the year 1695.

Father Fray Francisco Jordán, an excellent theologue, who was afterward given the title of lecturer. He was a successful minister to the Ilocans, and a good preacher. He died in the year 1666.

The father lecturer Fray Lorenzo de Cisneros, who had taken the habit after he had been a secular priest for many years. He was an able theologue, and had been one of the household of Don Juan de Palafox, whom he had served considerably in his litigations with the regulars of Nueva España. That religious was minister to a Christian village some time in Ilocos; but afterward his mind failed him, and he lived so for many years, suffering the troubles and hardships that so troublesome an infirmity [209]causes. I knew him for many years, and he was never furious, but very mild and gentle. Consequently, he was always left unshackled, and gave no other sign of the infirmity from which he was suffering than his outbursts of greatest nonsense. He was ever very affable and courteous. A few days before his death, he recovered his mental faculties; and, after having received all the holy sacraments, he died in great calm in 1662, at an age of more than seventy.

Father Fray Pedro de la Plaza, fifty-three years old, an excellent theologue, who had also been a secular priest for many years, and only had three years of profession. He died in 1665 in the convent of Manila.

The brother chorister, Fray Antonio de Quesada, twenty-two years old, a student in the arts. He seems to have been a minister in the province of Pampanga, and very skilful in that language. He died in 1661.

Brother Fray José de Sotomayor, who was a minister in the province of Ilocos, and died in the year 1665.

Brother Fray Bartolomé de la Torre, twenty-two years old, who had completed his studies. Afterward he became lecturer in arts in the convent of Manila, and was sent to the province of Bisayas, where he was an able minister, definitor, and vicar-provincial. He died in 1684.

Brother Fray Marcos Zapata, a theological student, twenty-two years old and five in the habit; he was a minister in the province of Ilocos, where he died in 1673.

Brother Fray Francisco Flores, of the same age [210]and [length of time in the] habit, was minister in the province of Tagalos, and died in 1675.

Brother Fray José de Mendoza, twenty years of age, was minister in the province of Ilocos, and a fine preacher in that language. He died in the convent of Manila in 1678.

Brother Fray Luis de Montujar [or Montufar: Pérez] twenty years old, was an excellent minister in the province of Tagalos, definitor, president of the chapter, and my predecessor in the office of commissary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. He was a very observant religious, and died in 1690.

Brother Fray Domingo de San Miguel, twenty-four years old, a student in the arts. He was a fine religious, of much modesty and great virtue. He served much and well in the province of Ilocos. He became visitor, and died in the Manila convent in 1677.

Brother Fray Miguel de Quesada, nineteen years old. I can find no notice of the province in which he was minister, or of his death.

Fray Antonio de Salcedo (or San Nicolás), a lay-brother, of great virtue and simple humility. He served the Manila convent well, and died in 1690.40

All those religious were natives of Nueva España, and sons of the province of Santísimo Nombre de Jesús of Méjico. Before admitting them as sons of this province, many and great difficulties were experienced.

[Continuing, the author discusses these difficulties, with citation of various authorities. The religious of Nueva España and Peru administer the sacraments [211]by authority of the ordinary; while in the Philippines it has been delegated by the popes to the definitors, who sub-delegate it to the various religious. In order to go to the Indias, the consent of the general and of the king is necessary, and is obtained through the royal Council of the Indias. The difficulty arises, then, because these religious have not been previously presented in the above Council. Necessity, however, rules the day, and they are admitted—although the precaution is taken by the heads of the order in the islands to state their intention of obtaining, within six years, the consent and approbation of the royal Council of the Indias to that admission.]

The loss of the galleon “San Diego” was felt keenly, as there was a great lack of ships in these islands because of the repeated shipwrecks of preceding years. But all knew that it was apparently permitted by divine Providence so that they might not have a ship which was built by so many extortions on the natives. That is an irremediable difficulty in the shipyards and in the cutting of timber in these islands, as was seen in the building of that galleon “San Diego,” which was built in the time of the most disinterested governor, and one who had the cleanest hands that can be imagined; such was Don Diego Fajardo, who was a wonder in that way. Also as superintendent of its building was appointed the commander Don Pedro de Mendiola, a man as creditable in this particular as the governor. Yet with all that vigilance, great vexations, wrongs, and expenses were heaped on the natives. The chief cause was the foreman and master of the building, who was a Moro named Nadir, who assuredly was [212]the very opposite41 from the disinterestedness of Don Pedro Mendiola. This man, from one thousand two hundred Indians who were drafted monthly from the provinces of Tondo, Bulacán, Balayán,and Tayabas, occupied scarcely four hundred in the work, and sometimes five hundred. The [service of the] remainder he reduced to money, in which they redeemed their oppression. A curious person, having reckoned the cost of that galleon, found that it had cost the king sixty thousand pesos, and the natives more than one hundred and fifty thousand. This is an evil that has been seen to be irremediable; for it is impossible to build galleons in any other way, because the cutting of the timber must be managed by sailors—a class of men who lack pity, and have too much greed—and because the Indian natives are so weak and so hostile to work that they prefer their ease to all advantage to themselves. This has been the cause of the tumults and insurrections, such as that of Palapag in 1649, and that of the province of Pampanga in 1660; and, in the time of Governor Don Juan de Silva, that of 1614, because of the considerable felling of timber which was occasioned by so much shipbuilding as was caused by the undertaking against the Dutch. Then, most of the provinces of these islands mutinied and almost rose in insurrection; and there was danger of a general outbreak, had not the religious who were ministers in the provinces reduced the minds of the natives to quiet; for they, overburdened by so heavy a load, were at the point of desperation.

[In December of 1654 is celebrated the feast of [213]the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin—which was formally proclaimed as a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, December 8, 1854. The celebrations in Manila extend over a number of days, and all take part in them. The papal permission for the feast has been obtained from Innocent X by the entreaty of Felipe IV.]

[The loss of the galleon “San Francisco Javier” in the port of Boronga, in the island of Leyte—one of the best harbors in the Philippines—is keenly felt in the islands; and, together with the putting back in 1655 of the two ships “Victoria” and “Santiago,” which had sailed for Nueva España, is provocative of much misery. The people of the first-named vessel are all saved, but all the cargo and money are lost. The Filipinos along that coast are the only gainers of the wreck, for they recover much of the money. The loss is investigated by the auditor, Francisco Samaniego Cuesta, who shows himself unnecessarily severe in his investigations. The wreck is looked upon by people generally as a punishment from Heaven for the cruelties practiced on the natives in the building of the “San Francisco Javier.” The islands are reduced to a wretched condition “both for the lack of money (although some was recovered from the ‘San Francisco Javier’), and because the reënforcements of infantry were delayed which the governor had requested from the duke of [214]Alburquerque, “who was governing Nueva España; as well as through the fact that trade with China had greatly fallen off, because of the lack of the food which preserves it, namely, Mexican pesos.”]

Our father provincial, the lecturer Fray Andres Verdugo, finished the term of his governorship to the universal satisfaction of all because of his great prudence; and all were desirous to reëlect him after the six years had passed, which is the length of time assigned by our rules before the provincial as well as the definitors and visitors can be reëlected. The time for the chapter meeting having arrived, the fathers assembled May 6, 1650, in the convent of Manila. Father Fray José de la Cuesta, the only definitor (as the other three first ones had died) presided over the chapter. As provincial they elected our father Fray Alonso Quijano, a native of Corral de Almaguer in La Mancha, a minister of very long standing in the provinces of Visayas; he was a man of great prudence and wisdom, and great knowledge, and very skilled in the difficult science of commanding. As definitors were elected Fray Dionisio Suárez, the lecturer Fray Baltasar de Herrera42 (who afterward joined the Order of St. Francis), the father master Fray Lucas Ortiz,43 and father Fray Juan de [215]Torres.44 The visitor of the preceding triennium, father Fray Alonso Clemente45 and Fray Pablo Maldonado, were present. They passed acts very suitable to the excellent administration of the missions in our charge, and for the better observance of our rules.

After that chapter had been concluded, not only our order but also the fathers of St. Dominic and our discalced Recollects (who had celebrated their chapters on the same day) were confronted by a great exigency. [This is an order by the governor and royal Audiencia requiring the presentation of the lists of the chapters, as is done in the other parts of the Indias. The Audiencia being petitioned allows the orders to continue their former practice in this regard, after sending an account of the matter to the Council of the Indias. After a digression called forth by this exigency, the author proceeds:]

As soon as the new governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara assumed his office, and had performed his first duties, and had taken the residencia of his [216]predecessor and given sentence in the cause of the latter’s favorite, he devoted himself with great activity to carrying out such measures as were possible for establishing the prosperity of his government. He found the community of Manila greatly afflicted and weakened by its past troubles and wars, and its wealth exhausted by the lack of commerce with Nueva España, because of the so repeated return of the ships in distress and the wrecking of the galleons. In that year of 1654 was lost a large galleon which was being built in the kingdom of Camboja at great expense to the royal treasury; it was dashed to pieces near Luban, fourteen leguas from Manila, when it was coming here after having been completely finished.

[The remainder of the chapter is concerned with Mindanao affairs, which will be sufficiently noted elsewhere.]

[Chapter xiv treats of the Chinese pirate Kuesing, and of the answer sent him by the governor of the Philippines; chapter xv of the earthquake at Manila, August 20, 1658, and the embassies from Siam and other kingdoms to the governor; and chapter xvi of Mindanao and Joló affairs, all of which will be noted hereafter.]

During all his three years in the government of this province, our father Fray Alonso de Quijano proved himself a prudent and devout superior—and [217]such were needed in times so calamitous as were those of which we are writing; for a great deal of misfortune fell to the lot of our province, as we were very short of religious to serve in the hard work of the missions. For as an offset to the small reënforcement that had come in the year 1654 from Nueva España, twenty had died—among whom were the former provincial fathers, Fray Jerónimo Medrano and Fray Andrés Verdugo, who were equivalent to the loss of many, as they were two firm columns of this province. The procurator who was sent during the past years, Fray Cristobal Enriquez, had died in Cáceres, his birthplace, before obtaining a mission, because of the many difficulties that he had to encounter, and that is the main cause of his early death. Father Fray Juan de Torres, who had been despatched after him, died in this Southern Sea while sailing toward Acapulco. Thus did this afflicted province find itself reduced to so short a number of religious that they were unable to sustain so great a weight. That lack of religious was suffered not alone by our province but by all the other orders, who complained of the same affliction; for the loss of so many galleons, and the difficulty in securing despatches in España because of the many war expenses, delayed the reënforcements necessary for the aid of the missions. The worst was, that as they were so few and carried the work of many, more of them died; for they were worn out by the too heavy load which necessity laid upon them. All those adversities were tempered by the wisdom and great prudence of our father Fray Alonso Quijano during his afflicted triennium; for his peaceful countenance quieted the most severe storms, and gave proofs of [218]the great wealth of prudence and sagacity which reposed in his breast, so that he left all the province desirous of again placing him in the foremost place of the command whenever they had an opportunity of making so wise a choice—as happened in the year 1665, which will be related in its proper place.

When the term of the three years of his government had expired, the day assigned by our rules for the celebration of the new provincial chapter in the Manila convent of San Pablo arrived, namely, May three, 1659. Father Fray Dionisio Suárez, senior definitor of the former chapter, presided. Our father Fray Diego de Ordás was elected for the second time as provincial, by universal accord; but with many objections on his side, for he made as many efforts as possible to escape the election. But the urging of all the capitulars—or, to speak more truly, the great prudence and religious zeal with which he had governed the first time when he was elected, in the year 1647—was opposed to his resistance. This province has always been very cautious in not handing over the helm of its government to new pilots, even when it has possessed such, skilled and experienced; for more often the election results with but little satisfaction if one trusts to appearances, which are wont to be costly to good government.... The system and composition of this province is very different from those of the others in Europa, and needs another kind of competency than what they demand; and so one learns by the road of experience, in which there is usually less error. There is no greater assurance for victory than having already conquered. [Some further reflections similar to the above follow.] As definitors were elected fathers [219]Fray Pedro Mejia, Fray Pablo Maldonado, Fray Juan de Borja, and Fray José Duque.46 The visitors elected were the father lecturer Fray Antonio Carrión47 and Fray Isidro Rodríguez.48 They enacted some very useful ordinances for the good government of the province, and the better prosecution of gospel preaching, to the observance of which great attention was paid during their triennium.

[“All the ten years’ term of the government of the prudent and magnanimous governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, were a fatal period of troubles and disasters, such as these islands had never suffered, so great and continued were they.” A eulogy and partial sketch of the governor follows. Losses of ships, men, and money, and the scanty reënforcements sent from Nueva España—only a hundred soldiers having arrived, while as many have died on the way—are dwelt on. “In addition to that, four [220]galleons had been wrecked, which buried more than five hundred men in these seas—a loss which was the final blow to the prosperity of these islands.... One million pesos was all the aid that Don Sabiniano received in ten years, although in years when there were fewer demands on the treasury five hundred thousand were sent from Nueva España annually. And the least cost of the construction of a galleon is sixty thousand, and they are very frequently wrecked because of the turbulence of the seas.” The author mentions a number of disastrous shipwrecks occurring at various times in the islands, describing especially that of the “Victoria” in 1660, which had been sent to Zamboanga and Ternate with reënforcements of men. That wreck occurs while sailing from Iloilo to Zamboanga, and all hands are lost—among them being three Jesuits, Father Francisco Roa,49 the provincial of the Society, Father José Pimentel,50 and the lay-brother, Lorenzo de Alba.51 The chapter closes with the beginning of the insurrection of [221]the Pampangos in 1660, “the most warlike and noble people in these islands, and near Manila.”]

[That insurrection is continued in chapter xviii, and that chapter and the two following deal also with the insurrection of the Pangasinans in 1660–1661. Chapter xxi deals with the raid of the Pangasinans and Zambals into the province of Ilocos in 1660–61, and the insurrection of the latter people is continued also in the three following chapters. All of these insurrections will be dealt with later in this series.]

(1662)

Under the mild and pacific government of our father provincial Fray Diego de Ordás, this afflicted province was able to lift the burden of so many troubles as the adversity of the times and the great lack of religious occasioned. That lack increased to the pass that many were giving out under the heavy burden that necessity forced them to assume; for those most privileged by their age and by sickness carried burdens that were enough for two, and most of them the burden of three, so that many succumbed and made the lack greater. With these disasters came the time for the celebration of a new chapter, to the great sorrow of all the province at taking farewell of the mild and prudent government of our father [222]Fray Diego de Ordás. They also grieved because there were few experienced persons to substitute in his place; for a time so full of dangers needed a pilot experienced in the government of a province so assailed by its adversaries.

The capitular members assembled in the Manila convent, and all were unanimous in [their purpose to] elect as provincial father Fray José de la Cuesta, prior of Bulacán, an able religious. He was very learned and experienced in the Greek language, which chair he had filled by substitution in the university of Salamanca, because of the death of his father, Master Andrés de la Cuesta Olmedo, the regularly-appointed professor of that subject. But that hope was frustrated, for God had taken him to himself two days before the chapter, to the general sorrow of all the province—especially of our father Fray Diego de Ordás, who had brought him from his province of Castilla in the fine mission that entered this province in the year 1635. Accordingly, the chapter was convened under the presidency of father Fray Juan de Borja, the third definitor, because of the deaths of the [two] others, Fray Pedro Mejía and Fray Pablo Maldonado. Our father, Fray Alonso Coronel,52 a religious of great virtue and prudence, and such an one as the times needed—[223]also of the said mission conducted by our father Fray Diego de Ordás—was elected, April 29, 1662. The definitors elected in the chapter were fathers Fray Gonzalo de la Palma,53 Fray Luis de Medina,54 Fray Isidro Rodríguez, and the lecturer Fray Antonio Carrión, and the visitors, father Fray Juan de Vergara55 and Fray Juan de Isla.56 They passed the acts necessary for the efficient government of the province and for the administration of the doctrinas where were missions of new reductions of people, especially on the outskirts of the province of Ilocos—which is also the farthest [from Manila] in this great island called Luzón. There father Fray Benito [224]de Mena57 was progressing finely with the conversion of the Indians of Aclán and Vera in the mountains contiguous to Cagayán, of which we shall treat more fully hereafter.

[All the past dangers and difficulties are now overshadowed by the attempts of the Chinese pirate Kuesing, the recital of which takes up the rest of this chapter and the following one. Chapter xxvii deals principally with the rising by the Chinese of the Manila Parián, and their punishment (1662–63); and chapter xxviii, with raids of the Joloans and Mindanaos among the Visayas (1662–63), in which father Fray Francisco de Mesa, O.S.A.,58 loses his life. These various topics will be sufficiently treated hereafter.]

(1663–64)

It was the will of divine Providence that, after so many and continual returns of the galleons to port, [225]as aforesaid, the ship “San José” which had left the port of Cavite in the past year of 1662 under charge of Commander Francisco Garcia del Fresno—a native of Cadiz, and very skilful on the sea; and afterward artillery general for his Majesty—should reach Nueva España in safety. The viceroy of Nueva España was the conde de Baños, Marqués de Labrada,59 who, after he became a widower, left the vanities of the world, took the discalced Carmelite habit, was ordained a priest, and died, bequeathing fine examples of virtue and admonition. His example was later followed by his son, Don Juan de Leiva, who received the habit of a lay religious of our father St. Augustine in the convent of San Felipe in Madrid. The successor of Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, namely, the master-of-camp Don Diego Salcedo, a native of Bruselas—a son of a Spanish gentleman (a native of Cuenca) and a Flemish lady—was then in the city of Méjico. He had been a very brave soldier in the Low Countries for many years, and for his services had been made master-of-camp of an army of Walloons.60 For that reason, and because he was a favorite of Don Juan de Austria, whose captain of the guard he is said to have been, he was granted the government of these islands. On account of the fact that so many galleons [226]had put back [to these islands] he had been detained in Méjico for several years.

In the same city was also found father Fray José de Paternina,61 a son of the convent of Badaya, who had been detained for three years with a mission of ten religious who had been sent from the province of Castilla by the procurators of this province of Filipinas, the father masters Fray Gaspar de Lorenzana and Fray Francisco de Aguilera. That mission was conducted with the money which was left owing to this province by its procurator and definitor, Fray Cristóbal Enríquez, who had died in the city of Cáceres, his native place.

At that time our most reverend father-general of all the Order of St. Augustine, the master Fray Pablo Luquino, was at the court of Madrid. He had gone to visit the provinces of España and Portugal. Moved by his great zeal, he aided greatly with his authority in the collection of that mission, which was small because of the scarcity of means for its transportation, but large because of the great lack of religious in this province. As his vicar and prelate of that mission, he appointed father Fray Diego de Jesús, a son of the convent of Salamanca and a native of Béjar, and then master of novices in the convent of San Felipe in Madrid. But the latter having petitioned our most reverend father-general to be excused [227]from it, because of legitimate reasons that he had, father Fray José de Paternina, a native of the town of Álava, and son of the convent of Santa Catalina in Badaya, was assigned for that duty in his place. He conducted eleven religious of the province of Castilla and of this province, as they were given the habit in order to pass thither.62 They reached Méjico, where they were detained three years because of the lack of the galleons from these islands, as we have related.

At the same time Don Andrés de Medina, with a Peruvian gentleman, a man most skilful in astrology, mathematics, and cosmography, had arrived at Méjico from Madrid. He had offered to his Majesty to discover the islands called Salomón because of their great wealth.63 These are the islands which Adelantado Alvaro de Mendaña y Neira went to discover in the year 1595, with four vessels which he took from Callao in April of the said year. His chief pilot was Pedro Fernández de Quirós, who is mentioned in the first part, book 3, chapter 16, page 476.64 After having endured many hardships, and after the adelantado had died, his men reached the port of Cavite under command of the adelantado’s wife, Doña Isabel Barreto, in February of 1596, and later returned to Nueva España in the galleon “San Gerónimo.” Mention of that discovery will be found [228]in the relations of Doctor Don Antonio de Morga, which I omit here, as it is foreign to our subject. Don Andrés de Medina brought royal decrees ordering the viceroy of Nueva España to give him vessels in the South Sea, and men, for that discovery and conquest; but it was impossible to do so at that time, because of the lack of ships, which is constant on the said sea. However, in order to content him, because of the letters and decrees that he bore, the viceroy, Conde de Baños, appointed him commander of the galleon “San José,” after removing its commander, Francisco Garcia del Fresno, who had brought the galleon from Filipinas. That was contrary to the royal ordinance, which prohibits the viceroys to change the commanders (unless the commander has died), and those who have the future succession to the governorship of the Filipinas.

When the time arrived, Governor Don Diego de Salcedo embarked, taking with him the most distinguished train of people that has been seen on any occasion. For of captains alone there were twenty-six, and I think it advisable to inscribe their names here, because of the great honor and prestige that they brought to the community of Manila. They were as follows: Don Antonio Sanchez de Quirós, ex-captain of cuirassiers in Flandes; Juan Martinez Corrionero, alférez and adjutant in Flandes; Don Francisco de Moya, Don Juan de Briones, and Don Tomás de Castro Andrade;65 Don Pedro de la Peña Maceda, a soldier of Flandes; Don Antonio Xigundi; [229]Don Francisco and Don Martín de Tejada, brothers; Don Luis Matienzo, Don Juan de Guzman, Don Pedro Mendiguerren, and Don José Alsara; Don José Cornices, and Don Gonzalo Samaniego; Juan de Alquica, a brave Vizcayan; Juan de Palomares Castro, Don Juan de Pimentel, Don Feliciano Velázquez, and Don Joaquin Ramírez; Don Francisco Vanderváez, Don Alonso Valdés, and Don Juan Giménez; Don Pedro de la Mancha, Don Diego Castañeda, and Don Miguel de Alegría; the chief pilot, Leandro Cuello; and others. Two auditors embarked, namely, Licentiate Don Francisco de Coloma Maceda, and Licentiate Don Francisco de Mansilla Montemayor; and many other persons of account.

Father Fray José de Paternina, whom the Inquisitors of Méjico had appointed commissary of the Holy Office for the city of Manila, embarked with eleven of our religious; and father Fray Cristobal de Santa Mónica, of the discalced religious of our father St. Augustine, with another fine and more numerous mission—among whom was that virtuous and erudite preacher, Fray Isidoro de Jesús María, one of the best preachers of that century, whose sermons might arouse admiration in Europa. Where he surpassed, moreover, was in those that he preached, for twenty consecutive years, on the sorrows of most holy Mary. But his sermons did not have the good fortune to be printed, except the first on that subject, and a few others on other festal occasions.

Governor Don Diego was very angry at the affront that the viceroy had put upon the commander, Francisco García del Fresno, without any authority [230]for it beyond the mere authority of viceroy. Therefore, as soon as the galleon left the port of Acapulco and had lost sight of land, he ordered the drums to be beaten, and deprived the commander Don Andrés de Medina of his office, which he restored to Francisco García. When that was learned in the royal and supreme Council of the Indias, his Majesty approved of it, and issued a new decree ordering the viceroys of Nueva España not to change the commanders or those who were to succeed in the second place [as governor]. Don Andrés de Medina, being a wise and prudent man, made no resistance, except that he retired to the quarters of the boatswain, from which he did not emerge until the galleon after many months cast anchor at Cavite.

The galleon “San José” sighted these islands late, and, as the vendavals had set in, could not make port in either Palapag or Lampón. After having suffered many storms they were obliged to make port in the most remote and unsuitable harbor—namely, that of Pasipit, in the province of Cagayán, which lies in 19 degrees north latitude. The governor, the auditors, and the two missions disembarked, and after many hardships traversed five provinces by land, three of which (Ilocos, Pampanga, and Bulacán) were in our charge, and two (Cagayán and Pangasinán) in charge of the religious of St. Dominic. Our small mission was so unfortunate that three of them died in the province of Ilocos: namely, father Fray Tomás de Villanueva, a religious already aged, of the province of Castilla; brother Fray Bartolomé de Grecia, a native of La Mancha; and father Fray Juan de Ezquerra. The other eight reached Manila after so long a journey; and these [231]were received there [with the demonstrations] that the great lack of religious in the province demanded. They were as follows:

The father-commissary of the Holy Office, Fray José de Paternina, son of the convent of Badaya, forty years old. He became prior of Manila and Guadalupe, and died at sea in the year 1674.

Father Fray Juan García, of the convent of Burgos, and a native of Álava. He was an excellent and efficient minister in the province of Ilocos. He went to España and Roma as procurator for this province, whence he returned with a plentiful mission of religious in the year 1679. He returned to the province of Ilocos, where he died in the year 1699 with the reputation of great virtue.

Father Fray Pedro Martínez, son of the convent of Burgos and native of Las Encartaciones;66 an able minister in the province of Ilocos, where he was vicar-provincial, and came to be definitor of our province. He was a religious of great virtue, mildness, and peaceableness. His death occurred in Manila, in the year 1683.

Father Fray Juan de Guedeja, native of Salamanca, son of that convent, and thirty years old. He was a minister in Pampanga, and very skilful in that language. He was a religious of various capacities, and was greatly beloved for his gentleness. He was occupied in honorable posts in this province, and died in the year 1689.

Father Fray Francisco Muñoz, son of the same [232]convent of Burgos and native of Álava, thirty years old. He was a zealous minister in the province of Ilocos, where he died in the year 1687.

Father Fray Diego Gutiérrez, native of Madrid, son of the convent of San Felipe, twenty-eight years old and eight years in the habit. He was an excellent minister in the province of Tagalos, and died in the year 1676.

Father Fray Nicolás de la Cruz, native of Zalaya, son of the convent of San Felipe, twenty-eight years old. He was a minister in the provinces of Bisayas, and died in Cebú in the year 1675.

Brother Fray Diego de la Puente, native of Madrid, son of this province, twenty-one years old. He was a minister in the province of Pampanga, and very fluent in that language. He was a religious in whom were reposed great hopes, which were disappointed by his early death in 1677.

Brother Fray Juan de Ibarra, native of Durango, son of this province. He was a minister in Ilocos for a short time; most of his life (which was very long), he passed in the convent of Manila, where he was an example of poverty and humility, and where he died in 1713, aged 75.67

Of the two auditors the senior in rank, by concession of his Majesty, was Don Francisco Coloma. But Don Francisco Mansilla, as he was stronger and younger went on ahead in forced journeys, and took possession of his seat in the royal Audiencia. After a considerable time, Don Francisco de Coloma arrived, and demanded the seniority that belonged to him by precedence in their appointments as auditor. [233]Don Francisco de Mansilla alleged the act of prior possession; and that gave rise to a suit that caused great trouble, as will be seen later.68 The sentence was sent to the supreme Council of the Indias, and the preference was given to Don Francisco de Coloma, in whose favor the declaration from España came after a number of years.

[One of the first acts of the new governor is the taking of the previous governor’s residencia which is entrusted to Auditor Coloma. Many complaints are made by the citizens; for the government of Filipinas “as it is more absolute, is more apt to create dissatisfaction,” arising from the governor’s severity, or from envy. He is, however, cleared of all charges in Spain; and 60,000 pesos that he has been compelled to deposit are returned to him from the treasury of Mexico.]

Don Diego Salcedo commenced his government with the disaster of the return in distress of the ship “San Sabiniano,” under charge of Commander Juan de Chaves. That caused great affliction, since no [234]galleon had succeeded in making its voyage to Nueva España in safety. But divine clemency willed that better success should be experienced by the first galleon that he despatched during his government, namely, the “San José”—the vessel in which he had come, and in which Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara returned to Nueva España. That galleon was the most fortunate of all that have been built in these islands, for it never had to put back in distress, and lasted for many years. It brought two governors to Filipinas, Don Diego de Salcedo and Don Manuel de León; besides taking back in safety the other, Don Sabiniano.

[Andrés de Medina, who had been deposed by the new governor on the high sea from his ill-gotten command, obtains permission from the latter after their arrival in the islands to go wherever he wishes, to secure treatment for the illness from which he is suffering. He has a ship prepared secretly, and goes first to Bolinao, “where he discharged and paid the rowers. With the aid of father Fray Juan de la Santísima Trinidad—a discalced Augustinian religious who was minister of that village, and afterward provincial of that province of San Nicolás—ship’s-stores and all else needed for the voyage were prepared, and they crossed the sea toward the west to the mainland of Cochinchina, where it appears that they arrived; and where the natives of that country murdered them for the sake of robbing them.” Some of their merchandise, and some of the mathematical instruments belonging to Medina are afterward offered for sale to some Portuguese who go to Cochinchina.]

Governor Don Diego de Salcedo was a man of [235]great intelligence and wisdom, and commenced to govern to the satisfaction of all. His first measure was to place on the stocks the galleon “Nuestra Señora de la Concepción” a work of the great master, Juan Bautista Nicolás. He sent ambassadors to the surrounding kingdoms to build up the commerce which is the mainspring of the community of Manila and all these islands. He sent the commander Don Juan de Vergara to the kingdom of Camboja, accompanied by Captain Fernando Quintela, to discuss the building of galleons in that kingdom. That mission had no effect, however. He sent Don José de la Vega, a native of Manila, treasurer of the royal exchequer, a man of great intelligence and capacity, to the kingdom of Banta; and Don Francisco Enríquez de Losada to the kingdom of Siam. All complied with the obligation of their duty, which was directed to the establishment of commerce and friendly relations. He also sent Don Juan de Zalaeta to Batavia to buy anchors for his galleons, as there were no smithies in Filipinas where they could be made of the size demanded by those galleons. That commerce was very good in his time, and Captains Juan de Ergueza, Diego de Palencia, and others made repeated voyages, and brought back quantities of cinnamon and spices which are very profitable to the commerce of Nueva España. In these and other arrangements and provisions the whole year 1664 passed during which time no event of consideration, or any worth writing, occurred. [236]

(1665–67)

Our father Fray Alonso Coronel having completed the term of three years of his government—which was filled with fears and hardships, because of the unfortunate events that we have just related in the threats of the pirate Kuesing Pompoán—the time assigned for the celebration of the chapter in the convent of Manila arrived, namely, April 25, 1665. The senior father definitor, Fray Luis de Medina, presided at that chapter, in which our father Fray Alonso Quijano was elected for the second time, as he was a person of whom this province had experienced the worthiness of administering the government of it; for he had ruled so efficiently during the triennium when he was provincial the first time. As definitors were elected the following fathers: Fray Tomás de Villanueva, Fray Cosme de Hiz,69 Fray Francisco del Moral,70 and Fray Enrique [237]de Castro.71 The visitors of the past triennium were present, fathers Fray José de Mendoza,72 and Fray Francisco de Medina de Basco;73 and as new visitors were elected the father lecturer Fray Cristobal Marroquí74 and Fray Carlos Bautista.75 They passed very useful acts for the efficient government of the province, and such that one recognizes the [238]care and vigilance that were taken in preventing the slightest neglect in matters pertaining to the regular observance, and in the care for better administration in the office of parish priest. In that chapter was renewed once more the urgent request of the governor for the list of the appointments of prior-ministers. But it was resolved not to establish such a precedent and they were aided in that by the fathers of St. Dominic, who also held their chapter on the same day—when they elected as their provincial father Fray Juan de los Ángeles, who was worthy of that name because of his many virtues.

The new provincial, seeing the lack of religious from which this province was suffering, on account of its failure to receive large missions, which would furnish abundant workers for the maintenance of so many and remote convents and missions as were in its charge—for, although diligent efforts had been made to remedy that lack, three procurators who had been sent to España had died; and the third, father Fray José Botoño, after having been forced to put back to port twice, died during the voyage, the third time when he embarked—appointed for that duty father Fray Isidro Rodríguez, a native of Madrid and minister of the province of Pampanga, of whom we have given a memorial in the [relation of the] insurrection of the said province. That was an excellent appointment, for he made his voyage successfully, having embarked on the galleon “Nuestra Señora de la Concepción,” under command of the commander José de Zamora. He brought back the most numerous mission that had thus far entered these islands.

On June 17, 1665, the fortunate galleon “San José” [239]arrived at the port of Cavite, with the most illustrious bishop of Cebú, already consecrated, the master Don Fray Juan López, of the Order of Preachers, native of Martín-Muñoz de las Pasadas. He was a prelate who gave great consolation to the Christian people of these islands—both in the bishopric of Cebú, where he remained for seven years; and in Manila, where he died archbishop-elect in the year 1674, after having suffered many cares. He was a very learned and affable prelate, and was accordingly greatly beloved by all. In the same galleon came also the auditor Licentiate Don Juan de Peña Bonifáz, a native of Segovia, of whom there will be much to say in due time, because of his beginning to govern the military department in the year 1668, which was the origin of great disturbances.

Near the boundaries of the province of Ilocos, in the mountains of Cape Engaño, near the province of Cagayán, belonging to the mission of the convent of Bacarra, the conversion of the natives of the villages of Aclán and Vera (now Bangbanglo) was commenced that year by the ardent zeal and diligence of father Fray Benito de Mena, a native of Manila and son of our Manila convent San Pablo; he was a religious of great virtue, and one very fluent in the tongues of Ilocos and Cagayán. Those villages are more than twenty leguas distant from the central town Bacarra; and their people are a barbarous and spirited nation, and for that reason are feared by the Indians round about. They are known by the name of Payaos.76 That nation had not received the light [240]of the holy gospel, because of the ruggedness of their mountains. They were living in the darkness of their blind paganism, protected by the inaccessibility of those lofty mountains, and exempt from the yoke of subjection—the only means by which one is able to introduce the evangelical preaching among barbarous nations. For since they are the last nations whom the Celestial Paterfamilias invites to the banquet of glory, which so many noble and civilized nations have despised, in them is verified the command to make them enter by means of force: Compelle intrare, ut impleatur domus mea.77...

Father Fray Benito, moved to piety by his great zeal at seeing how difficult it was for those natives to receive the knowledge of our faith in that way, as they were remote and invincible, having first consulted with God in prayer, determined to enter those mountains, accompanied, in order to remove suspicions, by only the few whom he could take. He went to the village of Bañgui, the last visita of Bacarra, where he established a military base [plaza de armas] for that spiritual conquest. Bañgui is distant four long leguas from the first settlement of the Payaos,and one must ascend a river with a strong current. Wisely repeating his entrances by means of that river, he introduced himself gradually among them, and preached the holy gospel to them, which they heard without any difficulty, as they are a people who have but little tenacity in holding to their heathen ceremonies. They only practice various [241]superstitions, auguries, and a servile worship to the souls of their first progenitors—whom they reverenced not as gods, but like the Indigetes78 of the Romans, to whom the people offered sacrifices to keep them propitious. This method of worshiping deceased ancestors is very common in these Filipinas, and very difficult to stamp out, even in those who are to all appearances faithful Christians. For in this regard fear has a great influence over them; and most of them believe that it is not opposed to the Christian faith to place on one and the same altar the ark of the testament and the idol Dagón.... But scarce a trace of this malign belief is to be found in the villages near Manila.

[Many miracles and prodigies influence those rude people to receive baptism. Especially efficacious for the faith is the resurrection of a child who has died, and who after receiving holy baptism dies again (five hundred and two persons becoming baptized in consequence). A leper is also healed with the ceremony of baptism. The chief seeks salvation in the holy waters before his death. The new converts prove exceptionally clever in learning the prayers and the Christian doctrine, a night or a day often sufficing.]

Great were the troubles that father Fray Benito de Mena suffered in that conversion, because of the steepness of the mountains, and because there was no lack of ministers of Satan among the Payaos who endeavored to dissuade the people from what that religious was teaching them. But he, persevering in teaching them the truth until the year 1668, attained [242]the fruit of his fatigue; for he converted so many that he was able to found the three villages of Aclán, Vera, and Bangbanglo, which were administered in the church that he built in the village of Aclán under the advocacy of St. Catherine, virgin and martyr. Those villages are today a part of the ministry of Bañgui, the most remote of all this island of Manila. A settled minister is assigned to it when there are plenty of religious in this province for such work. When there is the greatest lack of religious, the administration is under the charge of the prior and minister of the village of Bacarra.

The villages of Aclán and Vera are very useful as frontiers opposed to the Calanasas, a cruel heathen nation; and for that reason the governors of Manila have exempted them from paying tribute. That religious Fray Benito de Mena was an able evangelical minister, and obtained much fruit in the province of Ilocos. He was much given to prayer and mortification; and a long chapter could be written of his life, if the notices of the curious prodigies that happened to him had not been lost—events in the conversion of the Indians of the mountains of Aclán and Vera, and in other villages of that province, where he died holily as prior of the convent of Bacarra in 1676.

Don Diego de Salcedo, having heard of the remote nations who were living free from the yoke of political subjection in the larger and better part of the island of Manila, and who possessed the best lands of the fertile forests of Ilocos—the worst thing being that they were living in the Cimmerian darkness of paganism, and that so many souls were being lost because of our neglect and carelessness; and seeing [243]that the islands, harassed for so many years by the insurrections of those natives and the threats of foreigners, seemed to be quiet (for the gates of the temple of Janus were shut in his time, which had been open during all the terms of his three predecessors): planned to undertake some conquest that would result to the honor of God and extend the Spanish government. He assembled the most experienced and skilful captains of those islands and the provincials of the orders, as they were the ones who would have the greatest part in the preservation and continual increase of what would be conquered. All thought that the best field of conquest in which to employ their arms with some profit was the mountains of Ilocos, where the Igolotes lived in broad and fertile lands, abounding not only in food but in minerals rich in gold—which the natives themselves bring in great plenty to Pangasinán and Ilocos to barter for clothes, salt, and other things which they need.

The Igolotes79 are a barbaric race of scanty intelligence. They are of lighter complexion than the other natives, both because they are born in a cooler climate and because they are descended, according to their own traditions, from Chinese who were shipwrecked on those coasts long before the Spaniards arrived in those islands, as say their barbaric and confused accounts. That assertion is proved by the closeness with which their customs approach those of the Chinese although they are not provided with a regular government, or civilized, as are the latter. [244]For they are deceitful, cunning, and cruel, a sign of their cowardice. Accordingly, they never undertake any warlike deed unless it promises them perfect security; and to such an extent is that true that it is sufficient for one to fall to make them all seek safety in flight. Therefore they do considerable harm in the villages of Pangasinán and Ilocos alone, by setting fire to them, or by means of very safe ambushes. They have but little adherence to their false religions, but are very superstitious and practice divination. In that respect they greatly resemble the Payaos and Calanasas80 above mentioned. They are opposed in all their customs to the Abacaes81 and Italones82 of the mountains of Santor in Pampanga. They practice bigamy [sic] for they marry many women; and they regard theft as great cleverness. Their usual weapons are arrows, and some chiefs carry lances and balaraos [i.e., daggers] which they buy in other villages with their gold. Father Fray Esteban Marin,83 a religious of Ours, suffered [245]martyrdom among that race in the year 1601, as is mentioned in the first part, book 3, chapter 22, folio 502.84

Having made the preparations for that conquest, the governor appointed Admiral Pedro Durán de Monforte, a brave and experienced soldier (of whom repeated mention has been made in this history) the chief commander of it. He gave him the title of lieutenant captain-general, and a sufficient number of soldiers, both Spanish and Pampango. The sargentos-mayor Blas Rodríguez and Don José de Robles Cortés accompanied him, as did also Captains Gabriel de la Jara, Francisco de Espinosa, Don Pablo de la Piedra, and Lorenzo Rubio, and Adjutants Pedro Bravo, Juan de Mercado, and Francisco de la Jara—all leaders and veteran soldiers. He asked our father provincial, Fray Alonso Quijano, to appoint evangelical ministers to go to the preaching and teaching of the villages which would be conquered. The provincial appointed father Fray Lorenzo de Herrera85 (former prior of Narbacán in [246]Ilocos), father Fray Luís de la Fuente,86 and Fray Gabriel Alvarez,87 for that mission. The governor also appointed the commander Don Felipe de Ugalde as purveyor and paymaster for those troops, giving him four thousand pesos for that purpose. Don Felipe, however, did not accompany the army, but went later; and his self-confidence was the cause of his death. For at the point of the uninhabited district the Zambals went out against him; and, although he defended himself with great valor, a valiant Zambal named Tumalang killed him. That man became a Christian after the event of Pignauén, and was named Don Alonso. He cut off the purveyor’s head, as we have mentioned in another chapter, [treating] of the year 1656.

Pedro Durán marched with his men by short stages, because of the inconvenience to the infantry and baggage, and for fear of the ambushes which could be set against him in the many defiles that offered along the road. He always had spies who knew the roads, and Pampanga scouts, and friendly Zambals together with Sargento-mayor Blas Rodríguez and the adjutant Francisco de la Jara, and some Spaniards. Without the occurrence of anything [247]worthy of consideration, they arrived at the first two villages of the Igolotes—called Cayang,88 of one hundred and fifty houses; and Lobing, of a few less. They found these deserted, but they remained there to await the rest of the convoy. The site of Cayang was very pleasant, and suitable for a military post, as it was the nearest to the villages that had been subdued. Consequently, Pedro Durán determined to build a fort for his defense until, by means of the Zambals and Ilocans, the Igolotes should become quieted and reduced to their houses. He treated the natives well, and the soldiers who might transgress by offering them the least injury he punished. Gradually many of the chief Igolotes came, and showed themselves to be obedient, and friends of the Spaniards, and well inclined to profess the evangelical law and be baptized. A church was built of such materials as could be found in those mountains, because of the difficulty of finding bamboo near there. The same and greater difficulty was experienced in building a fort of palisades and a terreplein; for all that land was bare, and had no forests of timber. Therefore it cost the soldiers considerable labor to find timber and bring it from afar, as they did, without any disaster having happened to them.

That exploration was made near the end of 1668, the time when the Spaniards were in those parts. Of their doings in detail, only very short and confused accounts have remained. It is only reported that they explored one hundred and fifty villages, from [248]the heights of Cayang to the mountains of Cagayán. Most or them are located on the shores of large rivers, all of which flow into the great river of Cagayán, which empties [into the sea] at Lalo. It is the largest river that is known in all the Filipinas Islands; and is said to be larger than the Danubio [i.e., the Danube.]

The Spaniards did not neglect to look for gold-mines, for the working of which they took along miners and plenty of tools. But although they found mines in the latitude of 17 degrees, from which the Igolotes extract very fine gold, our miners could not obtain any in all the assays that they made; for all went up in smoke. That was one of the reasons that made that conquest drag on, as it was very costly and very remote. The names of the villages which rendered obedience were the following: Cayang, Lobing, Masla, Sumader, Anquiling, Balugan, Maguimey, Tadián, Balococ, Caagitan, Otocan, Bila, Cagubatan, Guindajan, Banaao, Pingar, Pandayan, Naligua, Singa, Banao, Payao, Agava, Lobo, Madaguem, Balicoey, Bilogan, Balicnon, Biacan, Pangpanavil, Gambang, Mogo, Leodan, Dugungan, Sayot, Calilimban, Sanap, Sabangan, Alap, and a valley called Loo, with nine villages. But those which paid something as recognition were Peglisan, Tanon, Maynit, Guinaan, Amtadao, Malibuen, Bucog, Balignono, Balián, Malibcon, Dingle, Datalan, Agava, Malibuen, Talabao, and others—whose names I omit, as they are of little importance, and which exceed one hundred in number.

The governor, in order that that conquest might be made more easily, ordered that the fort of Pignauén be established in Zambales, with a sufficient [249]garrison of soldiers and some small pieces of artillery. As its commandant he appointed Sargento-mayor Blas Rodríguez. Afterward, in the term of Governor Don Juan de Bargas jurisdiction was given to the commandant who then was Captain Alonso Martín Franco; he is still living to govern the villages of Zambales, Nuevo Toledo, and others, in which he places justices and governors. That fort is the check that restrains the raids of the Zambals of Playa Honda, a cruel and barbarous race, who consider their highest good the cutting off of heads, which is their great badge of nobility.

The fruit obtained by fathers Fray Lorenzo de Herrera, Fray Luís de la Fuente, and Fray Gabriel Alvarez in that conquest was considerable, for they reduced entire villages to the knowledge of our holy faith; in the beginning, they succeeded in inducing many children and old people who were about to die to have the good fortune to die as Christians. But they bore themselves with great caution and prudence, for they feared that it would be very difficult to preserve that field of Christendom unless those people were reduced, and removed to a more suitable site, secure from the continual wars which some villages waged against others. Thus many were led to settle in the villages of Ilocos, and others in those of Zambales. But what most hindered that so important reduction was the frustration of the hopes for the rich gold mines which so incited greed; for all those who went on that expedition were boasting that they were already Crœsuses and Midases. It is certain that there are very wealthy mines and placers in the rivers, whence the Igolotes get the great quantities of gold which they have brought [250]down to sell to the provinces of Ilocos and Pangasinán; but it appears that divine wisdom does not choose that they shall fall into our hands, for it was very certain that we would make an ill use of that benefit....

[Great sorrow is caused to the province by the death of Fray Diego de Ordáx, August 12, 1666. He was a native of the city of León, and had come to the islands in 1635. He became a missionary in the Bisayas, and was twice prior of Manila, and twice provincial. Most of his life in the islands was passed in the convent at Manila. In 1666 are celebrated the funeral ceremonies for Felipe IV, who died September 17, 1665.]

Governor Don Diego de Salcedo, considering the many oppressions that were experienced by the provinces near Manila from the continual cutting of timber and building of galleons—a necessary evil, and one in which the wrongs that are committed in it can be obviated only with great difficulty—very prudently determined to build the galleon “Nuestra Señora del Buen Socorro” in the province of Albay. He entrusted its execution to the commander Diego de Arévalo who was most experienced in maritime matters. He appointed him alcalde-mayor of the adjoining province of Camarines, for the better expedition of the timber-cutting, putting him under greater obligations [to do well] by the future reward of commander of the galleon which he was about to build. In order that that galleon might be built more quickly and finished sooner, he sent as chief overseer his lieutenant master-of-camp, Don Agustín de Cepada Carnacedo, who was then master-of-camp of the army of these islands for his Majesty, in order [251]that he might live in the port of Albay. He did that with so great care that in little more than one year the largest and best galleon that had yet been seen in the islands was built—and very few so large have been seen in European seas, and extremely few that are larger. For that purpose the woods of Filipinas are the best that can be found in all the universe; because for the inside work, the ribs and knees, the keel and rudder molave is used—which is the hardest wood known; and at its disintegration it is converted into stone by being kept in the water. Lavang89 is used for the sheathing outside the ribs; it is so strong and of such a nature that no artillery ball will pass through it; and the greatest harm that the ball can do is to stick in the wood without entering inside the ship. On account of that advantage the galleons of these islands are so formidable to the Dutch; for each one is a strong castle in the sea. When the galleon “Nuestra Señora del Buen Socorro” was finished, it sailed from Albay, August 28, 1667, under command of Diego de Arévalo, with Juan Rodriguez, a Portuguese, as its chief pilot. The patache “San Diego” left Cavite to accompany it, under charge of Admiral Bartolomé Muñoz. They had a fortunate voyage, and arrived in due time at the port of Acapulco.

The ship “Concepción,” which had sailed from these islands in the previous year of 1666, in charge of Commander Don Juan de Zalaeta—who remained in Nueva España, where he took the habit of Santiago, and was alcalde-mayor of the city of La Puebla de los Angeles, and castellan of Acapulco[252]—also arrived in safety at these islands. (Afterward Don Juan returned to these islands, in the year 1684, as judge of the residencia of Governor Don Juan de Vargas Hurtado. That residencia was very tedious and occasioned that judge great troubles.) On that voyage he had taken with him the famous and valiant commander Francisco de Estéybar who also remained in Méjico, where he lived blind for many years.... On its return trip that galleon carried Doctor Don Diego de Corbeta, his Majesty’s fiscal, and Doña María Jiménez, his wife. A mission of the discalced religious of our father St. Augustine also came. The galleon was in great danger, for some of the criminals who were being sent in it for the galleys and presidios of these islands tried to mutiny; but this was checked in time, and the guilty were punished.

Those and other like troubles have occurred in Filipinas because so many criminals and persons who have committed various crimes have been sent from Méjico, and form in these islands the sink [of the iniquity] that prevails here. For those who sometimes merited the punishment of the gallows are confined here, under pretext that they are sent to serve in the galleys, of which we generally have none. And since the need of men is so great, because of the lack of Spaniards, the authorities are compelled to enlist them as soldiers; and from that they continue to advance to the highest military rank, for they are the ones to whom Fortune is more favorable than to others who are more worthy of taking precedence of them.... It is true that there is some relief from that abuse at present. For, on petition of the governors of these islands, the viceroys [253]of Nueva España now send those condemned for such crimes to the conquest of Pansacola [i.e., Florida], which was discovered in the time of the Conde de Galber [i.e., Galves].

That year the galleon “Buen Socorro” sailed from Albay after it was completed, under its commander Diego de Arévalo and its chief pilot Juan Rodríguez. It sailed August 28, and was in great danger for it ran aground as it left the harbor; but it was gotten off easily by the great energy and skill of the commander. The galleon was the best that was ever built thus far in these islands; and its size, beauty, and swiftness were amazing. It had two tanks of water, so large that one of them was more than enough for the entire voyage to Acapulco, and the other served for the return, and a quantity of water was left—a great convenience for the sea, when one suffers so great lack of water. From this it is inferred that the water of Filipinas does not become foul, either going or coming, as the English say of the water of the river Támesis of Londrés [i.e., Thames, of London]. The patache “San Diego” left the port of Cavite, under command of Admiral Bartholomé Muñoz,to go in its convoy—the fortunate Argo that was to conduct those chosen heroes, the apostles for the Marianas Islands, the associates of the venerable father Diego Luís de San Vitores.

[The following chapter contains the biography of the Augustinian father Fray Luís López de Amezquita, who died June 26, 1667.] [254]

(1668–69)

The time assigned by our sacred rules for the election of a new provincial came. The fathers who had votes, having assembled in the Manila convent, held their chapter on April 21, 1668, under the presidency of father Fray Tomás de Villanueva, as he was the senior definitor of the preceding chapter. He was assisted by the rector provincial, our father Fray Alonso Coronel. Our father Fray Dionisio Suárez a celebrated minister of the provinces of Tagalos, son of the convent of Salamanca, who came to these islands in 1627, was elected provincial, to the general satisfaction of all. As definitors were elected fathers Fray Juan de Vergara, Fray Francisco de Medina Basco, Fray Andrés de Salazar,90 and Fray Pedro de Mesa.91 The visitors, Fray José de Mendoza, and Fray José Duque, were present—in whose [255]place were elected fathers Fray Cristóbal Marroquí and Fray Carlos Bautista.

They enacted ordinances and statutes of great utility for the better administration of the missions in our charge, and for the better government of the province, which, as they were so good and proved so useful, have been reënacted in many subsequent chapters. At that time this province was in great need of religious to serve in the ministry of the missions. Consequently, it was necessary to pile work upon them till they were overburdened (that addition being the most grievous part of the load); and therefore many fathers were entrusted with two districts, and only one was placed in other large districts that needed two or three. The other orders were suffering from the same diminution, and the secular clergy was almost a cipher. Consequently, there was no recourse but to abandon some missions, so that those which remained in our charge might be better administered. But divine Providence hastened to our relief in that great affliction with an abundant reënforcement, the greatest that this province had obtained since its origin.

In the middle of July 1668, the galleon “Nuestra Señora del Buen Socorro,” in charge of the commander Don Diego de Arévalo, sighted the first land of Filipinas, namely, the cape of Espiritu-Santo. That vessel carried seventeen religious who were sent from España by the father procurator of this province, Fray Isidro Rodríguez as part of [a band of] fifty priests and choristers, and in addition three lay-brothers of the mission, whom he had obtained from the queen-mother, who was acting as ruler. They were not all able to embark, partly because the [256]fleet which was to sail to Nueva España had been broken up, and partly because the religious could not be accommodated in two ships of the windward fleet—which was in charge of Don Agustín de Yustigue, knight of the Habit of Santiago, its commander—which were to carry back quicksilver for the mines. For Don Diego Espejo with his family was crossing [the ocean], with the appointment of corregidor from Méjico; and he presented a royal decree ordering that one-half of the poop, in which some of the religious had to come, be given to him. For that reason only twenty-two could embark in the flagship, where they suffered great discomfort. Two of them died in Nueva España and some remained there sick, so that only seventeen sailed in that ship “Buen Socorro.” In the following year of 1669, father Fray Isidro sailed with the rest. The patache “San Diego” took Father Diego Luís de San Vitores and his associates to the islands of Marianas to begin that spiritual conquest. He was an apostolic man, and even to look at and talk to him infused an inner joy and consolation—as I confess happened to me in Acapulco, where I had the good fortune to know and talk to him. Two Dominican religious [also came], namely, father Fray Antonio Calderón, who came as chaplain, and father Fray Arcadio del Rosario; besides father Fray Antonio Godinez of St. Francis, who came as his associate and secretary,92 to visit this province of San Gregorio. [257]

I cannot refrain from mentioning what happened to that galleon when it was at Capul, an island of the Embocadero of San Bernardino; namely, that when the nineteenth of July dawned the galleon was joined by a craft of peculiar shape—somewhat like those used by the Indians of the Marianas Islands, painted with the same color of vermilion earth, but larger than four of their boats. It held six persons, whose entire bodies were painted93 black. But they were so weak that they seemed to be living skeletons, except one of middle age who was fat and robust, tattooed, and with a long beard. They ascended into the galleon without showing fear or distrust; but no one understood their language, although we had a sailor who knew the language of Marianas well, as he had been shipwrecked in the galleon “Concepción” in the year 1636, and had lived for some time in those islands. It could only be conjectured from the signs that they made that they had come from the south. They remained in the galleon, where they were relieved in their necessity, which was lack of nourishment. They ate nothing that had touched the fire; but rice and fish, all raw. All of them died except the boys, of whom the commander and pilot took charge. After some years, when they knew our language, they said that they came from an island near Nueva Guinea—without doubt the Garbanzos, Columnas, Jardines, or others which the maps show; or the islands of the Palaos, in the discovery of which Father Andrés Serrano of the Society of Jesus toiled so much, until he lost his life by drowning, with other religious and many Spaniards, in the [258]year 1711, after having gone to Roma, Madrid, and Paris, to negotiate the affairs of that discovery and the conversion of those souls. But he will have already received the reward for his holy zeal and great labors.

The religious of the mission disembarked at Capul July 20, and the flagship “Buen Socorro,” after weathering many storms, made the harbor of Lampón. The religious reached Manila in groups all through the month of August, after making their voyage by land, and receiving the greatest attentions from the religious of the Order of St. Francis—in whose vigilant care are the provinces of Camarines, Tayabas, and Laguna de Bay; and they showed the fervent charity which was left them as an inheritance by their seraphic patriarch.

That mission was a great relief, although it was small; for most of the choristers were very soon ordained, dispensation for their age being granted through the omnimodo authority conceded by his Holiness Adrian VI to the prelates of the mendicant orders of Indias in his famous bull given at Zaragoza in 1522, the first year of his pontificate. That privilege has been very useful for the conversion and instruction of the natives of the Indias; and it is still in force, as it was conceded to the emperor Carlos V, although foreign authors have tried to destroy it by saying that it was revoked—authors such as Angelo María Berrecili, Fagnano,94 and others.

The death of our father Fray Alonso Coronel was regretted deeply in this province (he died in Manila, [259]August 9 of that year 1668), for he was one of the prudent superiors that this province has had, and a very learned and able religious. He was an efficient minister in Tagalos for the period of thirty-three years that he spent in these islands.

Father Fray Manuel Quintero,95 accompanied by the father visitor Fray Antonio Godínez, his two associates, and father Fray Arcadio, embarked in a caracoa to cross the Embocadero of San Bernardino, to land in Bulusan. In crossing there one must leave affairs to the disposition of the Indians of the country, pilots who know the time when one must cross—namely, when the tide ceases to rise, and has stopped—for then one can pass without the slightest difficulty. But if one chooses another time, no ship of high freeboard, [even] with all its sails and with a favorable wind, can resist the current, which is so strong that it will cause the ship to spin round and round. Those fathers being newly come, were unwilling to leave themselves to the management of Indians, or to await the point of the tide, but obliged the Indians to cross. In the midst of the passage the boat overturned; and a Spaniard, the nephew of father Fray Manuel, named Don Gregorio Quintero, and two other Spaniards were drowned. Father Fray Manuel and the secretary of the father visitor, a Vizcayan, who were fine swimmers, reached land with great difficulty. The father visitor, his associate, and father Fray Arcadio did not abandon the craft, and [260]accordingly were saved by the Indian rowers; but they reached land after being sadly buffeted about. The father visitor lost his letters-patent and papers, and consequently did not make his visit. He returned to Nueva España after having passed many seas and suffered many troubles, and after having been obliged to put back to port in the year 1669. He was later provincial of the province of San Diego. The currents of that Embocadero are so terrible that the roar of the tide when it is low can be heard for many leguas.96 The reckoning of its flow and ebb is so variable that great mathematicians who have given themselves to that speculation have not been able to understand it....

Shortly after their arrival at the Manila convent, in the month of October, the Lord was pleased to take to himself His devoted servant father Fray Jerónimo de Ramos, 84 years of age, a native of Castilla la Vieja, and son of the convent of Burgos, who came to this province in the year 1627.97 He was a Tagálog minister, and was indefatigable in instructing his parishioners. He was much given to mortification [261]and prayer, so that most of his time was passed in that holy exercise in the choir. For many years he had lived retired in the Manila convent, without leaving the house; and he was the example and wonder of that community. He suffered very patiently from a very troublesome illness for the space of twenty years. No word was heard from him except those of great edification and full of love of God, and hence his death was like his holy life.

During all of Don Diego Salcedo’s term of office, which lasted for five years, there was little satisfaction for the community of Manila, for the commerce of China which is the most necessary thing was very slight, because of the wars which Sipuán, the son of Kuesing, waged with the Tartars; and consequently the champan that came from China was very rare indeed. The inhabitants of Manila were very greatly dissatisfied with his government, for they thought that he was hindering their interests by preferring his own—the ordinary complaint against the governors. Since the merchandise was but little in that time, all could not be satisfied—a matter almost impossible for those who govern, and especially in these islands, where he who has the supreme command is regarded as guilty of all the disasters. Added to this, he had had disputes with the municipal corporation of the city; for he tried to give his captain of the guard, Don Juan de Ezquerra, a public seat with the cabildo, and he had arrested the alcalde-in-ordinary, General Don Sebastián Rayo Doria, over that matter. But what the citizens regretted most keenly was the loss of their wealth—for the governor bought at wholesale most of the merchandise, by the hand of his factor Gaspar [262]Ruiz de Aguayo—and the repeated voyages which Juan de Ezquerra made to Batavia at his account, in which they had no part or profit. It is certain that a fine intelligence was wasted in that gentleman; but his mind swelling with pride on account of his great authority made the citizens despise him, and from that he finally became hated.98 Consequently he had a fatal end, namely, arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition through the father commissary, Fray José de Paternina.99 And inasmuch as I am in duty bound to mention that imprisonment, I shall only relate what belongs to the matter, as my obligation includes nothing else.

At eleven o’clock at night on October nine, the [263]father commissary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition went to the governor’s palace, accompanied by brother Fray Juan de Panos.100 In their company they took Captain Francisco de Vizcarra, alguacil-mayor of the Holy Office; the commander Sebastián Rayo Doria and Captain Don Nicolás Muñoz de Pamplona, alcaldes-in-ordinary of the city of Manila; Sargento-mayor Don Juan de Morales, and Captain Juan Tirado; Captain Don Luís de Morales Camacho, Captain Don Tomás de Castro y Andrade, and Captain Don Gonzalo Samaniego. Besides these, entered Captain Miguel de Cárdenas, and Captain Diego de Palencia; Alférez Antonio de Monroy, familiar of the Holy Office; the reverend father Fray Francisco Solier, provincial of the Order of St. Francis; and fathers Fray Mateo Bayón101 and Fray Francisco de Pamplona of the same order, of the Friars Minor. The master-of-camp, Don Agustín de Cepeda Carnacedo, who had purposely placed on guard in the palace his nephew, Don Miguel de Alegría, with his company, was there beforehand waiting for them. They all went up to [264]the sleeping-apartment of the governor, while the master-of-camp remained in the guardroom and gave orders to the soldiers not to stir even if they heard some noise above.

The father commissary, the alcaldes, the religious, and some of the company went upstairs, while the others remained below with the master-of-camp; and the former reached the sleeping-apartments of Don Diego de Salcedo. They summoned a servant maid to open the door, telling her that the factor Juan de Verastein, who was bringing the silver from the ship “Buen Socorro” which was at Lampón, had arrived; and the maid opened the door without mistrusting danger.102 All of them entered the apartment and, reaching the governor’s bed, awakened him. At the same time they cut the fastenings of the bed-canopy, which, falling down upon the governor in his half-awake condition, left him enveloped in it, and unable to make the slightest movement of defense. They had planned to do this, in order that the governor might not be able to make use of a rack well supplied with firearms, which he kept loaded and ready at his bedside. At that juncture the commissary arrived, and told the governor that he must surrender to the Holy Office of the Inquisition, to which the governor in his confusion had no other answer to make than “Yes,” and saying that he yielded himself a prisoner. A pair of manacles that they had prepared were placed on him. As they were riveted home Don Diego de Salcedo said “Do not [265]hurt me;” to which one of the bystanders answered “Your Lordship has hurt us more.” That appeared very wrong to the others, and they checked the lack of respect which that person showed. That man, it is said, was the commander and alcalde-in-ordinary Sebastián Rayo Doria.103

A hammock was brought, and, half dressed as he was, the governor was placed inside it. Descending by a private stairway, and taking him through a rear door quite remote from the guardroom, they took him to the convent of St. Francis,104 where he stayed one day. Next day he was taken to the house of Captain Diego de Palencia, where he was kept for some days until he was removed to the convent of our father St. Augustine. There he was imprisoned in a high, large, and comfortable room, which was used by the religious for the view and for recreation. He remained there until he was embarked on the patache “San Diego;” and while there his custodian, steward, and servant was Captain Miguel de Cárdenas, who looked after his comfort with great care. That captain embarked with him and tended him until his death, which occurred in the year 1670, in the second voyage that he made; for the patache “San Diego” had put back to this port, under charge of Admiral Don Francisco de Vizcarra, alguacil-mayor of the Holy Office. After the eve of the Nativity, the [266]father commissary, who was appointed prior of the convent—as the father-definitor, Fray Pedro de Mesa, who had been prior, had resigned—ordered that Don Diego be fastened to a chain. The reason for chaining him was, that many signs showed that his servants and adherents were trying to rescue him on the night of the Nativity. It was even reported, but not believed, that poison was first to be given to the prior and the commissary and to the religious of the convent, by means of a splendid collation which was to be sent them.

Don Diego de Salcedo sustained that so grievous blow with so great steadfastness that he caused admiration in all people; for he was never heard to assign another reason for his imprisonment than that it was a present which God was sending him for his many sins. For it is considered certain that if he had cried out, when he was arrested, to the halberdiers of his guard, and if they had called upon the soldiers of the guardroom, a great disturbance would have happened, however much the master-of-camp tried to restrain them. I am witness of that, for I went often by order of the father commissary and prior to amuse him when he was sick. I admired his great courage and prudence, as well as his strong mind; and it seemed as if he had no resentment that could give him anxiety. One may believe that so great conformity to His most holy will was gained by the aid of God. That which I always heard to be a fact must have been true, namely, that that gentleman had great love and special veneration for the most venerable father Diego de San Víctores,105 of [267]the holy Society of Jesus, whom the governor aided considerably by coöperation [with him] in his entrance into the Marianas Islands. It is said that he requested the said venerable father to ask God to give him in this world his purgatory for his sins. The venerable father replied that he should think well what he was asking, for the Lord’s aid is necessary when He bears down His hand, in order that one may not refuse to endure His paternal correction. The father told him that time after time, but Don Diego de Salcedo always persevered in asking the same thing. The venerable father must have obtained that heroic petition from God; for when he bade farewell to him on going to the mission of the Marianas Islands, it appears that he gave Don Diego de Salcedo to understand that the Lord had granted his petition. Therefore, that very submissive spirit and the prayers of the venerable father Diego Luís de San Vítores,one can believe, were the cause of his great patience and resignation.

Such was the imprisonment of Governor Don Diego de Salcedo, and the evil lot of that gentleman who possessed so great endowments of valor, discretion, and urbanity, besides his personal qualities; for he was tall and well-proportioned in all parts of his body, and his face was handsome, serious, and modest. His flowing hair was very long and white; and his mustache, a distinction in the men of [268]that time, was very black. His complexion was very light, and his eyes blue, and all gave him a grave and noble appearance. Nothing could be seen in him that was not very chaste, and only in his covetousness was any transgression recognized in him. As covetousness is the root of all evils, his lukewarmness in attending to many obligations belonging to a Christian governor proceeded from that. The consequences of his imprisonment lasted for twenty years, counting imprisonments, embargoes, exiles, and refuge sought in the sanctuary by those who took part in that imprisonment. The father commissary, Fray José de Paternina, was summoned to Méjico by the Inquisitors; and the reverend father master Fray Felipe Pardo, of the Order of Preachers, afterward archbishop of Manila, was appointed in his place. Father Fray José de Paternina died on the voyage to Acapulco, and we only know that the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition of Méjico celebrated public and honorary funeral services for him. The rest of the matter does not concern me; it was my part only to refer to the fact of this imprisonment, in order to follow the thread of my history.

The alcaldes-in-ordinary and the municipal corporation of the cabildo informed the gentlemen of the royal Audiencia [of the arrest] that same night, in order that they might fulfil their obligation, which was to appoint the senior auditor to the government. The auditors—Licentiates Don Francisco de Coloma y Maceda, Don Francisco de Monsilla y Montemayor, and Don Juan Manuel de la Peña Bonifaz—and Doctor Don Diego de Corbera, the fiscal, met in the assembly hall. They discussed the question of who was the senior auditor; for Don Francisco [269]de Coloma had held that office longer, but had assumed the office later, because Don Francisco Mansilla (as we have mentioned before) had gone on ahead from Cagayán. The controversy waxed very bitter, for neither would yield; and the third auditor, Don Juan Manuel, and the fiscal sided with neither of the contestants. Finally Don Juan Manuel treated the matter so ably and wisely that he made them agree to give him charge of the government until the controversy should be decided. The two other auditors and the fiscal assenting thereto, the charge of military affairs was given to Don Juan Manuel de la Peña Bonifaz; and the master-of-camp took possession of the army, and the city received his oath.

On the same day, Don Juan Manuel arranged the camp to suit his own pleasure. He appointed Don Juan de Morales Valenzuela sargento-mayor, after removing Don Nicolás Sarmiento; he made his own son, Don Juan Manuel, captain of his guard, and changed many of the infantry captains. It seems that the two auditors Coloma and Mansilla feared some violence; and for greater harmony retired, together with the fiscal Don Diego de Corbera and the secretary of the chamber, Tomás de Palenzuela Zurbarán to the college of the Society of Jesus, and convened the Audiencia in the library of the said college. They despatched a number of royal decrees ordering Don Juan Manuel to govern and rule as they two determined, since it was they who owned that right, which was still in litigation. But it appears that Don Juan Manuel had no such intention, and so much was he able to do by his sagacity and the interposition of grave persons (in which intervened [270]Fathers Javier Riquelme,106 the rector, Miguel Solana, and Pedro de Espinar107 of the Society of Jesus)—and of lawyers, such as Manuel Suárez de Olivera, Don Eugenio Gutiérrez de Mendoza, and Don Juan de Rosales, that after many controversies, which have no place here, the two auditors and the fiscal were confined to their homes. When one would have thought them safest, Don Juan Manuel arrested them all in their own houses. He sent Don Francisco de Coloma to the village of Bay with an order to the alcalde-mayor Don Antonio Quijano to watch over his person; and Doctor Don Diego de Corbera, the fiscal, and his wife Doña María Jiménez to the island of Luban, fourteen leguas from Manila—where he died in a few months, I know not whether of sorrow or illness. He ordered Don Francisco Mansilla108 to [271]embark in a champan for Octong, delivering the care of his person to a brave mulatto—a native of Sevilla, and a soldier of Ternate—named Simón de Torres, whom he made captain of the fleet of Iloilo, sending a very stringent order to the sargento-mayor Francisco Prado de Quirós not to allow Don Francisco to leave that presidio. He did so, and the auditor remained there until the new governor, Don Manuel de León, ordered that he be recalled thence. Don Francisco de Coloma remained but a short time in Bay, for, like the good Christian that he was, he submitted himself, yielding to the condition of the times, in order to avoid scandal. Thus Don Juan Manuel withdrew him, and the two ruled over political matters, Don Francisco Coloma signing first, and Don Juan Manuel de la Peña governed in military affairs.

All that government of the usurper Don Juan Manuel was very peaceable; for he was a wise and prudent man, and of very excellent intentions. If the desire to command misled him into pushing himself into the government, which did not belong to him, the fault ought not to be attributed to him, but to those who allowed themselves to be deceived because of their passions.... The first thing that he did was to bring from Cebú that great soldier, so often appointed in past years, the commander Don Francisco de Atienza y Báñez—who had retired, and was passing his honorable old age in quiet; and Don Juan availed himself of his counsels for military [272]arrangements. He treated the soldiers very well, and increased their pay, and paid them a sum of money on account of what was due them for their services. In that way he exhausted the royal treasury; and it was this which created most hostility against him in the royal Council. He must have thought that his government would last a longer time, for Don Diego de Salcedo had served five years in his government, and, according to the length of time that his three predecessors had governed, a long time was still left for Don Juan. But this reckoning ended ill; for Governor Don Manuel de León was in Méjico, because authentic information had reached the royal Council of the Indias of the irregularities committed by Don Diego de Salcedo.

At that time the bishop of Cebú, Don Fray Juan López, arrived at Manila on matters pertaining to his church concerning the result of the visitation which he had made in the province of Ogtong. But as he found the governor very busy in strengthening his intrusion, while the royal Audiencia was much in need of ministers, he could get nothing done except the issue of some pontifical acts regarding orders and confirmations, and to return to his church.

However much Don Juan Manuel de la Peña tried by diligence to please all, he was not without danger of his life through the malice of assassins or the neglect of undisciplined soldiers. For while he was one afternoon watching the marching of the companies which are changed daily as guards at the gates of the city, it happened that when an obsequious military officer was ordering that a general salute to him be fired, a musket ball passed over Don Juan Manuel’s right shoulder, and was embedded in a [273]brick wall of the window from which he was leaning. Investigations were instituted in order to get at the cause; but they were all in vain, as those who fired were so many, and it could not be learned who had loaded with ball. The governors have many such dangers because of the carelessness of the undisciplined soldiers. Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara was in danger of being killed in another salute like that; and the ball passed clear through the hand of Licentiate Manuel de Olivera, who was at the governor’s side.

The pens of jurisconsults were not lacking to defend the government of Don Juan Manuel de la Peña as legitimate. Among others, Licentiate Don Juan de Rosales, a lawyer of the royal Audiencia and alcalde-mayor of Tondo for the new governor, published a printed manifesto of which many copies may be found in possession of persons who are curious. But afterward, at a safe time, he published another manuscript against his antagonist Licentiate Manuel Suárez de Olivera, in which he not only accuses Don Juan Manuel of being a usurper, but also as guilty of lese-majesty. Tot capita, tot sententiae.109

(1669–70)

The government of Don Juan Manuel de la Peña lasted for eleven months, amid great quiet for the community of Manila, as he was very prudent and [274]peaceable, and, above all, disinterested—which appears to have been lacking in his predecessor, on which account there was so great discontent with the latter’s government.110 He despatched two galleons [275]to Nueva España—“Nuestra Señora del Buen Socorro,” in charge of the same commander, Diego de Arévalo; and the flagship “San Diego,” in charge of Don Francisco Vizcarra, alguacil-mayor of the Holy Office, who had arrested Don Diego de Salcedo. The latter was served by Captain Miguel Cárdenas, Juan de Alquiza, and others. But neither of the two ships made the voyage; for the flagship, which sailed from Lampón, put back at Cavite, and the almiranta, which sailed from Cavite, put back at Lampón. They placed Don Diego in the convent of Guadalupe, whence, as he was sick, they took him to Los Baños on Laguna de Bay. He left there the following year, in order to prosecute his voyage to Acapulco; and he died in the northern latitude, very well prepared, and as a good Christian—leaving behind great hopes for his salvation, as one whom our Lord had brought back to obedience by the road of tribulation, through so grievous a stroke.

The galleon “San José,” which had left Cavite the year before, returned from Acapulco in the month of July; and as the vendavals had prevented its making that port by way of the Embocadero, it was obliged to anchor, and to seek safety in the port of Palapag in the province of Leyte. That galleon brought the new governor, Master-of-camp Don Manuel de León y Saravia, a native of Paredes de Nava, a valiant soldier from his youth in the countries of Flandes, Galicia, and other parts. He had begun the rudiments of the military art in the celebrated battle of Lutzen, in which died that thunderbolt of the north, Gustavo Adolfo, king of Suecia, in the year 1632—who caused so great destruction in Alemania [i.e., Germany] by his captains Gustavo [276]Hom, Bernardo de Veymar, Bautis Gratz, and other heretics until the battle of Norlinguen, fought by the cardinal infante in the year 1634,111 which battle also Don Manuel de León participated; and the latter had been in other famous battles of those times. He had been an infantry captain for fifteen years in Flandes, and was afterward sargento-mayor and master-of-camp. He was moved from Flandes with his army to the frontiers of Galicia to fight against Portugal in the year 1660. There he gave so good an account of himself that he was called “the iron leader” because of his valor and daring. He was governor of Munzón and Valencia in Galicia. While he was soliciting an office in Madrid, the queen-mother and her associate governors tried to send him to be governor of Cádiz; but he elected to come to Filipinas, retaining the office of master-of-camp and the reward of the habit of Santiago. We can believe that divine Providence made him desire that charge so that he might be the consolation and remedy of these islands; for in his time the islands enjoyed the greatest quiet, happiness, and plenty that they had enjoyed for many years. For the voyages from Nueva España were more secure and not a single galleon was lost; and commerce with China and Macán was very flourishing, as it was likewise with the coast of Coromandel, this latter being established [277]in his term. There were no wars with the Dutch, nor with any other foreign nation; nor did any province revolt. The Mindanaos did not make their usual raids, and there was perpetual peace because of the quiet behavior and the death of Cachil Corralat. There were only some incursions by the Camucones, who are thieving pirates subject to Borney. The fruits of the earth were very plentiful, and no earthquakes or other disasters occurred. The community of Manila, which had been living for so many years in continual fear, thought now of nothing else than of their trade and merchandise, and of feasting and rejoicing. To that happiness was added the fact that Don Manuel de León was by nature very benevolent, pious, simple, and very even in disposition; and, above all, far removed from cupidity and self-interest, and desirous that all should enjoy peace and quiet. He brought an excellent household, who afterward proved of great honor to the community of Manila. Among the more illustrious were his nephew Don Alonso de León, who was an excellent citizen; Don Tomás de Endaya, a native of San Sebastián, who was thrice commander of the ships on the Nueva España line, and afterward master-of-camp for his Majesty in these islands for many years, until the year 1715, when he died; Don José de Medraza, native of Écija, twice commander on the Nueva-España line, and regularly-appointed castellan of the fort of Santiago in the city of Manila, Sargento-mayor Don José de Castellar, native of Valladolid, his secretary; Captain Don Juan de Cabrera; Don Agustín Crespo; and many others. In his company came Don Laureano de Vera, factor, and Don Antonio de Egea, accountant, of the royal [278]treasury, able ministers, and zealous for the king’s service. The governor made his way through the provinces of Camarines, Tayabas, and Laguna de Bay, and entered Manila to assume his office on September 8, the day consecrated to the nativity of our Lady the most holy Virgin, the mother of God.

In the company of that governor came the largest reënforcement that had thus far arrived—namely, thirty-two religious, whom the father-procurator, commissary, and vicar-general, Fray Isidro Rodríguez, had brought with him. It was the balance of the mission that he had sent the former year—which, all told, reckoning it as one mission, was the most goodly and numerous mission that had come to this province from its foundation; for it consisted of forty-eight religious and three lay-brothers. They entered the convent of Manila on October 4, the day of St. Francis.

As soon as Don Manuel de León assumed his government, Auditor Don Juan Manuel de la Peña Bonifaz appeared as a refugee at the porter’s lodge of our convent of Manila, with which the suits that were expected were avoided.112 However, he was hardly safe here, for a strenuous effort was made to drag him out of the sanctuary. For that attempt a very criminal opinion was given by Licentiate Don Manuel Suárez de Olivera; but the new governor, for greater assurance, referred the matter to Doctor [279]Don Francisco de Pizarra y Orellana, judge-provisor of the vacant see of Manila, and formerly the consecrated bishop of Nueva Segovia. He and the orders gave their opinion to the effect that Don Manuel ought not to be taken from the sanctuary, as his crime was not lacsae majestatis in primo capite113 which Don Manuel Suárez imputed to him for having usurped the government and for the diminution of the royal treasury. Don Juan Manuel passed considerable time in that retreat, until Death with his scythe cut the Gordian knot of that litigation. Some years later, the resolution of the royal Council of the Indias was received, in which all that Don Juan Manuel had done was annulled, as also were the concessions and military titles that he had conferred, as the rules laid down in the famous law Barbaribus Philippus II de offic. Praetor had no place. It is said that capital sentence came for him, but death had executed it. His wife and children were left very poor; but that has always been experienced with the children of auditors in these regions. That plague or punishment is seen in the citizens of Manila, for scarcely can one find a son who attains preëminence by inheritance from his parents. In the daughters alone is that penalty found to be diminished, but it is finally executed on the grandchildren. The suit between the two auditors was also decided by the supreme Council of the Indias in favor of Don Francisco de Coloma, and he accordingly assumed the government at the first vacancy.

The community of Manila began to breathe under the peaceable and disinterested government of Don Manuel de León, who tried throughout to fulfil his [280]duty. First he established order and discipline in the camp of Manila, by abolishing many abuses. He appointed Don Juan de Robles Cortés, a very noble citizen, as sargento-mayor, and veteran soldiers as captains. He placed the galleon “San Antonio” on the stocks, and constructed galleys for the fleet, as such vessels had been of great service for defense on the occasions when Manila had been invaded by the Dutch arms.114 As commanders of the galleys he appointed Pedro Lozano and Don José de Novoa, a valiant Galician. The latter went out the second time to pursue the hostile Camucones, in company with the valiant mulatto Simon de Torres, whose color alone prevented him from being the commander of the galleys. But those Camucones, as thievish enemies, carry out their enterprises in safety, and trust their retreat to the swiftness of their craft, which is remarkable. The governor ordered Don Pedro de la Peña to withdraw from the presidio of Orori on the frontier of the Igolotes, as that presidio was entirely useless and only an object of expense, without any profit. For the Igolotes, who are today friendly and subject, rebel tomorrow, and their villages disappear; and we controlled a few only, who were gathered in the villages of Bauang, Bangar, and Narbacán, where many souls of those who were baptized were obtained.

That year a function was solemnized which had [281]not been performed for many years, namely, the publication of the edicts of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in the cathedral of Manila, on the first Sunday in Lent. The father commissary, Fray José de Paternina, was present, as were also all the officials and servants of the Holy Office, who were but few in that time. The new governor and the royal Audiencia were present, and father master Juan de Paz preached. On the following Sunday the letter of excommunication [anatema] was read, in the form usual to this holy tribunal, against those who have not denounced within the term of one week those who had committed the crimes against our holy faith which are mentioned in the edicts. That solemn function was not again repeated every three years, as is ordered by the Inquisitors; this was not done, not only within three years, but not for forty-nine, and until the present year of 1718, in which this history is written—the commissary being the reverend master and father presentado, Fray Juan de Arichedera, of the Order of Preachers; and the governor, the mariscal of the army, Don Fernando Manuel Bustillo Bustamente y Rueda, in his first year. That religious ceremony was performed with the greatest solemnity that has been seen in these islands by the many ministers, commissaries, and calificadors, belonging to the secular clergy and orders, whom the holy tribunal had. The most eminent persons in the community acted as familiars; at the order of the Inquisitors of Méjico, these were present not only with banners, but also with the white and black cross (the insignia of this holy office) on their capes and mantles—the religious wearing it on their cowls, worked in gold and silver. On the [282]evening of Saturday, March 12, the procession marched through all the city, the standard of the faith setting out from the convent of St. Dominic, carried by Sargento-mayor Don Domingo Bermúdez, a citizen of Manila, who had been alcalde-in-ordinary the preceding year. The regidors and most eminent citizens accompanied him, dressed in gala attire and on gaily decked horses, and followed by many lackeys wearing rich livery (which is less costly in Manila than in other places). The father commissary rode a mule with trappings, and was accompanied by the servants of the holy tribunal, both ecclesiastical and lay, the alcaldes with their maces, and the drums, and followed by the other officials, all on horseback.

The second Sunday of Lent, March 13, the same parade was held from the convent of St. Dominic to the cathedral. The father commissary was there, under a canopy in the chancel on the gospel side; and the ministers of the Holy Office in the body of the church, on their benches on the epistle side. The above-mentioned governor was there, and was the head of the city, as there was no royal Audiencia. The father secretary, Fray Francisco de Contreras, read the edicts, and the father lecturer Varela, of the Order of St. Dominic, preached. After mass the standard of the faith was returned, and the father commissary and all the tribunal went to the convent of St. Dominic, accompanied by the governor and captain-general, and by the rest of his retinue of the preceding day.

The following Sunday, March 20, the father commissary and all the tribunal left the convent of St. Dominic, and went afoot to the cathedral, where the serious and fearful ceremony was performed of [283]reading the letter of excommunication against those who do not denounce persons whom they know to have fallen into heresies and the sins mentioned in the edicts. That is a ceremony that strikes fear and terror into the hardest heart; its tenor and details I omit, as it is long to tell and terrifying to hear. That ceremony was performed with the greatest solemnity and gravity possible. Inasmuch as it is not my intention, nor ought I, to come down to these present times with my records [in this history], I have thought it advisable to mention that matter in this place as a memorial of so holy a ceremony.

Our province was greatly advanced in that triennium by the great prudence and affability of its provincial, our father Fray Dionisio Suárez, who was more angel than man. With the abundant aid that had arrived in that year and the preceding one, plenty of ministers were appointed for all the convents; those convents which had been united with others were separated, and ministers placed in them; and in the large and populous places two [ministers were stationed]. The work was so apportioned that it could be endured; for the overwork occasioned by the lack [of ministers] had been the cause of many dying and others falling ill. Divine Providence also assisted by communicating grace to the newcomers, and facility in learning the languages of our provinces. Therefore, after a few months many of the latter found themselves sufficiently qualified in that respect to become ministers, alone and without company, in the missions. This province became renewed and flourishing with the abundance of religious, and the study of the arts and theology was greatly assisted in the convent of Manila. Ministers [284]were placed in the missions of those who were recently converted in the hill-country of Ilocos, in the villages of Aclán, Vera, and Bangbanglo, father Fray Benito de Mena assisting them all the days of his life—which lasted until the year 1695, after he had founded the mission called Bangi, on the outskirts of the province of Cagayán. [285]