“ Nevertheless, the royal Audiencia and the governor sent for the bishop of Cebú, who reached Manila on the twenty-second of January, 1630. The cabildo having been commanded, by a royal decree, to hold a session, Don Fray Pedro de Arce presented himself at that meeting, and made the following proposition: “Sirs, it is well understood, as you will satisfy yourselves, that my coming to this city, and just now to this cabildo, is quite contrary to my own inclinations; for I desire and love a quiet life, and I hold very dear the sheep of my bishopric. ”

“ They reached Mindanao and the army disembarked. When the enemy saw such a force, they began to flee, and a victory was declared for España; but our satisfaction was soon disturbed, for a wretched Mindanao audaciously resolved—it is said, after he had taken opium, with which these people intoxicate themselves—to assassinate our captain-general, even though he should die in the attempt. The deed was to be done with his campilan, a weapon something like a cutlass, with a lead weight at the hilt. The weight makes its blows so terrible that it will cleave a man through the middle. ”

“ It is not sufficient to give the offices to sailors who deserve them; it is not at all necessary to compel them to perform the functions of soldiers when they have no inclination for it, or to punish them when they gamble, as is done.
It is of great importance to have galleys on these coasts; that is the means of keeping away from them the Dutch, and the Indians from Mindanao and Jolo—who do not cease to be hostile to the Spaniards, although they have neither courage nor discipline; for one Spaniard has been seen to put twenty of their caracoas to flight with only one shot from his musket. ”

“ I may be told that the king of China does not use that silver to make war on us; but even if it is used only to swell his treasury, it is as lost to us as if it were at the bottom of the sea. Your Excellency should consider that one and one-half millions in gold are sent annually to China. If what I have just said be closely observed, the merchandise of the Manilas will be sold to good advantage, and the natives of the country will become our friends ”

“ Before the conquest of those islands by the Spaniards, the natives of the country were subject to the chiefs among them, who were recognized as nobles, and all the others obeyed them. Those chiefs possessed a great amount of gold, and slaves in proportion to their nobility. I knew two chiefs, one in Bohol, and the other at Dapitan, a village of Mindanao, who had more than one hundred slaves apiece. They are not foreign slaves, as those of Angola who are in Europa, but of the same nation. ”

“ The privilege of those half slaves is that if they pay a certain sum of money to their master, they may oblige him to grant them their liberty—an advantage that is not possessed by those who are wholly slaves.
All the religion of those Indians is founded on tradition, and on a custom introduced by the devil himself, who formerly spoke to them by the mouth of their idols and of their priests. ”

“ In one of these recent years, during a great baquio or typhoon, eighteen Dutch ships were wrecked on the coast of Chincheo. The Chinese beheaded some of those who escaped alive, and, having seasoned those heads with salt, took them with the other men whom they left alive to the court of Paquin, where they were all beheaded. For the aversion of the Chinese to people with blue eyes is great; and the reason is that it is said that there is an ancient prophecy that men with eyes of that color will conquer their kingdom. ”

“ The houses of the city are so suitable and those of the country so charming that life in those islands is altogether delightful. At one musket-shot from the city can be seen the Parián, the lodging of the Sangleys or Chinese merchants. There are about twenty thousand of them, all merchants whom business has attracted to that place. It is a very curious place to see, because of the fine order in which they live. Every kind of merchandise has its own separate quarter, and those goods are so rare and curious that they merit the admiration of the most civilized nations.2
View of city of Manila ”

“ The commandant added that the Society of Jesus is now preaching in that island, and that the people are rapidly embracing Christianity. The fathers had brought six boys, sons of the most influential men, to Macau to be educated better, and they show signs of great ability. When I asked him about the exile of the preachers from Chincheo, he only replied that the Castilians, as they are prepared to hold subject all the Indians of their conquests—as Mexico, Peru, and these islands—enter into other kingdoms with great bragging and boasts, which is the occasion of their ruin. ”

“ If the inhabitants of the Manilas had trade with Japon, they would derive great profit from it; but a secret judgment of God has broken the communication that we had [80] with those islanders, and has given it into the hands of the heretics, after having permitted them to destroy our churches there, and their having put to fire and sword all the Spaniards or Japanese Christians there. Hence we do not believe that a single religious is now left in all the country; and the people are compelled, under pain of death, to come to denounce those whom they know to be Christians. ”

“ Our religious have printed books in the languages of the islands, concerning the matters of our religion. In the Malucas, they have a very pretty method of writing [290] to their friends. They collect flowers of various colors, and make a bouquet of them; and he who receives the bouquet understands, on beholding the varieties of flowers and their colors, as if they were so many different characters, the thoughts of his friend. They have not sufficient capacity to apply themselves to learning, and they content themselves with being good carpenters, and with working gold and iron well. ”

“ Japon is a thing of the past if God do not, in His mercy, aid it. China was increasing greatly in Christianity during these years, but with the entrance of the friars, it is being thrown into confusion; for all the religious have been exiled in Chincheo, and the churches destroyed, [38] where they and we were [laboring] in a flourishing Christian church. For as the friars treat of conquests, saying openly that China can be conquered with four thousand Spaniards, such talk can have no good effect on the natives, who immediately tell it to their mandarins, and we are all lost. ”

“ To the illustrious Marqués de Castel Rodrigo, my cousin, member of my Council, and ambassador in Roma: the bearer, Fray Mateo de Villa, of the Order of Preachers, procurator of the province of Santo Rosario of the Filipinas Islands in my Western Yndias, has informed me that his province has a college called Santo Tomas in the city of Manila, of which I am the patron, where there are thirty secular collegiates; that for some years past that college has been a university through royal permission; that bulls have been conceded twice for its conservation ”

“ The whole of the body is not pricked at once, but bit by bit; and formerly, in order that one might have the right of making it for each part, it was necessary to perform an illustrious deed, and to show new prowess. ”

“ Among all those one hundred and fifty families who are settled at Manila, there are not two who are very rich. My plan would be to allow those inhabitants to export Chinese merchandise to the value of two hundred and fifty thousand escudos, the greater part of which should be raw silk and cotton bolls, so that they could be manufactured in this country [i.e., Mexico] . For there is less [chance for] trickery in that sort of merchandise than in the stuffs manufactured in China, which ought never to be allowed to be taken to Manila. ”

“ At this port of Cavite the Chinese have remained peaceable, and with the Indians and Japanese they very willingly dragged out some pieces of artillery, with which Sargento-mayor Alonso Garcia Romero, who is in command of the port, armed two small forts, which are at the end of the village. With these and other precautions of an excellent soldier, we all consider ourselves very safe. The natives, although they have not forsaken their village, have sought shelter, as far as possible, with the religious orders. The Japanese, blacks, and Indians are full of courage, whatever be the outcome ”

“ The archbishop of Manila has three suffragans, those of Zebu, [Nueva] Caçares, and Nueva Segovia. They have no other income than what the king gives them; that of the archbishop is three [305] thousand ducados, while each of his suffragans receives one thousand five hundred. The city of Manila is small, but it is beautiful and well fortified. Its houses are all built of stone, and are spacious, and very airy. Its streets are long and straight, and one may walk in the shade all hours of the day. The churches are beautiful. ”

“ The largest craft of the second class are called caracoas. Although these are not very large, they do not hesitate to put one hundred Indians in them; for there are three banks of rowers on each side. They make use of those craft for trading among those islands; and they lade them with dried fish, wine, salt, wax, cotton, cocoanuts, and other like merchandise.
They are cowards naturally, and more apt to make an ambuscade than to face their enemies. Upon that is chiefly founded their submission to the Spaniards, for they do not serve them out of affection. ”

“ This morning, the twenty-ninth of this month, we saw many large fires toward Manila; we knew not what to think, until we received a letter in which we were informed that from the other side of the river from the river San Mateo, many new insurgents had come, who were burning everything; and the fires that we saw were Meyhaligue6 and Santa Cruz, on opposite sides of the river. From the Parián alone different troops of soldiers, both foot and horse, have sallied out against them; we are hoping for their entire success. ”

“ Desires for the increase of the royal revenues, which Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, governor of those islands, always tried to carry out, with greater exactitude in intention than success in the outcome, gave occasion to the Chinese of the city of Manila and its environs to attempt an insurrection, the destruction of that country, and the complete extermination of the Spaniards there. I do not mention other causes,1 in order to reduce them to those that have existed and those which the Sangleys have tried to assign as a pretext for their insurrection. ”

“ But now the Spaniards have taught them how to use firearms, and they get along very well—especially a nation called the Pampangos, many of whom are enrolled in the Spanish troops. These men serve with great fidelity, and well second the courage of which the Spaniards set them an example in their combats by sea and land.
They are very fertile, and I have seen but few married people without children. ”

“ When the governor saw the destruction that the enemy had wrought in the churches, and that he could not check it because the army that was fleeing always had the start of the other, he determined to put the churches in a condition of defense, and accordingly assigned to each one a number of soldiers who should confront the Sangleys—so that, since the people of the villages could not deliver themselves from the enemy’s fury, the temples and the dwellings of the religious, which were most important, might be saved. ”

“ An interesting description of the Philippine Islands is furnished (Mexico, 1638) by a Spanish admiral, Hieronimo de Bañuelos y Carrillo; it is addressed to the president of the Council of the Indias; the original is, so far as known, no longer [12] extant, and it is found only in the French version by Thevenot. Bañuelos finds life in Manila “altogether delightful,” as it has abundance of all supplies and comforts. He describes the Parián, and praises the ability of the Chinese; but he asserts that they are injuring the islands by their illicit connection with the Mexican trade. ”

“ They have no silver mines in those islands, and the little silver seen there has been carried from Mexico, in return for the merchandise exported there annually. There are gold mines in the island of Manila, and on the river of Butuan in the island of Mindanao. There is truly not sufficient to satisfy the desires of the Spaniards; but the little that there is of it sufficed the Indians, who value it only for the little use that they make of it, since it does not enter at all into trade. There is a quantity of honey and wax in their mountains ”

“ These priests, moreover, secure much advantage from this mode of life, since by it they make their living, and are feared and looked up to; for most of them have a compact with the devil, by means of which they wreak such evil as they can on those persons on whom they try to be revenged, or whom they wish to injure because some one else has done them harm. Against this infernal horde father Fray Alonso de Mentrida waged continual battle, roaming through those mountains on foot, and accompanied only by one servant, a very good Christian, who aided him much in his work. ”