“ So active was his zeal that he spared neither labor nor diligence to secure the attendance of the Indians at the holy sacrifice of the mass, at the sermons, and at the other church functions; and he cheerfully endured the inconvenience of waiting for them a long time, in order that their natural slothfulness might not have this excuse. His persistence secured considerable results, notwithstanding that wild grapevines were not lacking even in the midst of so much cultivation. But what assiduity does not the obstinate perversity of men frustrate? ”

“ Whoever sets foot in a boat resolutely confronts all the elements, which conspire in arms to terrify and destroy him. The water upon which he journeys, the air by which he sails, the fire by which he lives, the land which he so anxiously seeks—all are declared enemies of the traveler. The sea is, by antonomasia, the theater for [all] perils; and no one who has not been tossed upon its foaming waves can speak with justice of its dangers, just as the blind man cannot dispute about colors. ”

“ Your Majesty could, in the course of several years, prevent the silver that comes from Mexico to these islands from passing over to China, to the Coast, or to Batabia, by commanding your governors and other officials at Manila to make strenuous efforts that in the islands the natives, mestizos, creoles, and various other castes who live in them and are naturalized as subjects, be compelled to weave the cloth goods which are manufactured in other regions; and these people are no less skilful for the mechanical and even the liberal arts than are those of other nations. ”

“ That commerce benefited the poor citizen as well as the rich; but the trade in silks is only for the benefit of the wealthy merchant and the rich consumer, as they are articles of luxury. The earlier commerce of Manila also supported and stimulated the consumption of Spanish silks in Nueva España and Peru, and the silk industry flourished in the mother-country; but the later introduction of Chinese silks into the American colonies, and the frauds and excess connected with this trade, have ruined the silk industry on both sides of the Atlantic, and even impaired the prosperity of Manila. ”

“ Their imaginations, overborne with foolish trifles, and accustomed to our voices, become so relaxed that even the most forcible and persuasive discourses make little, if any, impression. Nevertheless, there are many in whom the holy fear of God reigns, and the seed of the gospel takes root—which they embrace with seriousness and simplicity, as the importance of the subject demands. ”

“ He who is always declaiming, in either a gloomy or a careless spirit, against the faith and Christian spirit of the Indians, shows great ignorance of the world, if not levity or malice. If he would but reflect that not many years ago this was a land overgrown with the thorns and brambles of ignorance, unbelief, and barbarism, he would give a thousand thanks to the Lord at the sight of so much fruit obtained for heaven ”

“ Declarations of goods shipped are absolutely prohibited; those who are permitted to trade must be chosen by the city of Manila, without the aid of any official; the duties to be paid are fixed at 100,000 pesos for each voyage, with the express stipulation that this payment is to be called adjustment [regulation] of duties, and not indult; no religious person and no stranger may be allowed to ship goods; every shipper must present an itemized invoice of the goods sent; the ships must not be overloaded; no right to lading space may be transferred to another person. ”

“ It makes them bear all these annoyances patiently, and even sweetens these, to see how many souls are kept pure by the grace of God, in the midst of so many temptations, like the bramble in the midst of the fire without being burned. ”

“ The objects of this memorial are two: first, the honor and glory of our Lord, and the exaltation and increase of His holy faith; and second, the hope that the Christian zeal of your Lordship will, by all the proper means that will present themselves to your great intellect, furnish effective control of evils so serious and so general, and cause them to cease—so that the Christian faith and justice may again flourish, the people who formerly possessed these islands renew their abundance of population, and the increase of our faith continue its progress, with the reduction of the infidels. ”

“ Those who are ministering in the native villages are the men who have been masters of theology, and famous preachers, and officials of the order, and even provincials; and other members who, on account of their abilities, have merited repeated applause. The same is true in the other religious orders; as a result, there is not in all the Indias a field of Christian labor that is better cultivated; and I may add that there is no Christian church in the world that has ministers with higher qualifications, or more who have received academic degrees. ”

“ Another of the means of which the Society avails itself for the good of souls is, to print and distribute free many spiritual books in various languages, which are most efficacious although mute preachers. These, removing from men their erroneous ideas by clear exposition [of the truth] , and leaving them without the cloak of their own fantastic notions, persuade them, without being wearisome, to abandon vice or error; and then they embrace virtue and the Christian mode of life. ”

“ The confessional is, as it were, the harvesting of the crop; and the pulpit is the sowing, in which the seed of the gospel is scattered in the hearts of men, where with the watering of grace it bears fruit in due time, according to the coöperation [of the Holy Ghost?] ”

“ The marvel is, that many Indians and a great many Indian women, only by the sound of [the preaching in] the mission, and without understanding what they hear, are stricken with contrition, confess themselves, and receive communion, in order to gain the indulgences—to their own great advantage, and to the unspeakable consolation of their confessors at seeing the wonderfully loving providence of God for these souls. ”

“ However that may be, his decision was a very sagacious one, and advantageous to this country; for the Sangleys who come to Manila are more slothful than the Indians themselves. They remain here [pretending] to cultivate the land, and on account of this pretext licenses are given to them; but there is not one in each thousand of the Chinese who applies himself to this labor. The rest of them are all devoted to trade, a mode of life well suited to their idle dispositions and to the [social] system of their nation—where it is a received idea that he who is most deceitful is most clever. ”

“ The transgressions of law connected with the Acapulco commerce have been mainly committed by high officials, but have not been so great, or so injurious to Spanish trade, as Sevilla and Cadiz represent; the deputies assert that “these abuses cannot be checked, or most of them even ascertained, so long as the terms of the concession are in pesos,” and that it ought to prescribe a definite number of piezas, of specified measures and weight. They therefore propose a new ordinance for regulating the traffic, which embodies the above suggestions and requests, with some additional points. ”

“ The feeling of loneliness is very great; we are in this world, which, besides being a vale of tears, for us is as it were, a limbo,18 separated by thousands of leguas from the rest of the world; it is exceedingly seldom [84] that the missionary meets any person through whom he can obtain any alleviation of his troubles, or any assistance or consolation. Few Spaniards traverse those regions, and those who do pass through are usually of such character that merely the knowledge that they are going about through the country causes grief, anxiety, and vigilance to the minister. ”

“ Thus an Indian hardly ever dies without the sacraments, except by some sudden fatal accident; for at the instance of the ministers the people are instructed to summon the father as soon as any one becomes dangerously ill. Many Indians hear mass every day; recite the rosary in concert in their houses, on the streets, and while they are sailing; say the litanies, and sing with most delightful harmony the Salve, the praises of God and of His mother resounding in every direction. They offer to the Church the first-fruits of their products ”

“ Those who are most eminent in all this are the members of the congregation, by whose zeal and pious customs the Christian religion is preserved and promoted in these islands. They are the select of the select, like the soldiers of Gideon; and may be called the religious among the Indians. The functions of Holy Week, the principal feast-days, and the processions are carried out with great solemnity and pomp. In their houses the people erect little altars, which they adorn with various prints and images; on their arms they depict crosses, and almost all wear rosaries about their necks ”

“ Some alcaldes-mayor have gone to such an extreme of violence that, in case the said petty chiefs are unable to dispose of the goods which are thus committed to them, the alcalde compels them to assume the obligation, and to bind themselves to take the goods. Thus some of the Indians are constantly bringing upon others irreparable consequences and losses that are worthy of redress—all springing from the first injustice of compelling those to buy who neither possess nor can take charge of such commodities. ”

“ The sad thing is, that all those who leave the islands are ordinarily apostates from the faith, and live and die among heretics, Mahometans, and other barbarous people; and no reparation has ever been made for this great evil, nor has any obstacle been placed in the way of men passing freely [from these islands] to foreign kingdoms, even those who are well known to be married. ”

“ There are many who are striving for perfection, who frequent the sacraments, who maintain prayer and spiritual reading, and who give much in alms and perform other works of charity. And it is cause for the greatest consolation to see, at the solemn festivals of the Virgin and other important feasts, the confessional surrounded by Indians, Cafres, and negroes, men and women, great and small, who are awaiting their turns with incredible patience, kept there through the grace of God, against every impulse of their natural dispositions [32] and their slothfulness. ”

“ These people have enjoyed (as they still do) free intercourse and trade with every class of people, and are causing notable injury to the spiritual welfare of the Indians—lording it over them, and setting a bad example in morals to all of them. Accordingly our affection and obligation [to the service of God] desire the exercise of your Lordship’s justice and Christian procedure, that this injury, so universal and so opposed to the Christian and praiseworthy usages which they ought [to follow] , and which our missionaries are endeavoring to introduce among all the natives, may entirely cease. ”

“ Every Sunday the Christian doctrine is explained to the boys in the school, and some example [for their imitation] is related to them; and they walk in procession through the streets, chanting the doctrine. The Indian servants of the college have their own assembly, conducted in a very decorous manner, with continual instruction in the doctrine. Every Saturday an address in Tagálog is given to the beatas who attend our church; they have their own society, and exercise themselves in frequent devotions, furnishing an excellent and useful example to the community. ”

“ It would be of no little advantage to be able to cultivate the cinnamon, as the Dutch do; for the silver which that nation would be obliged to carry for that product would remain among the vassals of your Majesty, and thus there would be an end to that difficulty (which the merchants of Sevilla certainly exaggerate) of your Majesty forbidding the shipment of the goods which your royal decree specifies, which are those that have some value, in order to be able to pay the cost on the more bulky goods. Who will have courage to weave them, or hunt for them, when he knows that he must lose on them? ”

“ If the king will prohibit the importation of silk woven with silver and gold, and “check the hand which Mexico moves at the command of Manila,” the silk industry will be revived in España, its people will be kept from idleness and poverty, and foreign countries will no longer drain its resources. Cadiz desires Manila to content itself with the spice-trade, which is a staple and profitable line of commerce, and which Manila can carry on more cheaply and promptly than Spanish merchants can ”

“ The only ones who can oppose the injustice of such men are the gospel ministers. These fathers undertook to defend the Indians, and took it upon themselves to endure the anger of those men—who, raised from a low condition to places of authority, made their mean origin evident in their coarse natures and lawless passions; and the license of some of them went to such extremes that it was necessary for the soldiers to seize them as intolerable; and, to revenge themselves for the outrageous conduct of the officials, they accused the latter as traitors. ”

“ Even greater are the fatigues endured by the soul in the frequent occasions which disturb its patience. The feeling of indifference which is native to the country tends to undermine gradually the wall of poverty, weaken the spirit of obedience, and cool the most fervent spiritual ardor and strictness of observance. ”

“ Every one of them is a monopolist; they all secrete their wares, even those of prime necessity, and sell them at the price that they choose to ask. The oddest thing is, that by dint of presents they are able to gain protectors, who defend them; and even if sometimes a fine is imposed on them, on that very day they plunder [people] in their trading, in order to pay for their losses. In this way they become rich in a short time, and send much money to their relatives in China, or else go back with it to their own country, defrauding the Philipinas Islands of this silver. ”

“ In Lent, as being an acceptable time and especially opportune for the harvest, the dikes are opened, in order that the waters of the word of God may flow more abundantly. On Tuesdays there is preaching to the Spaniards, and these sermons usually have the efficacy of a mission, although not given under that name. On Thursdays there is explanation of the doctrine, and preaching, in Tagálog, to the Indians; the attendance is very great, since many come, not only from the numerous suburbs of Manila, but even from the more distant villages. ”

“ The governor and officials of the port of Acapulco should not be allowed to exercise any authority or pressure over the Manila traders, beyond the proper inspection of the vessels and lading and the collection of duties; and the traders should be allowed to sell their goods as they please, either in or out of the fair there, or transport them to Mexico, if they prefer. They should not be expected to pay alcabala on the first sale at Acapulco, or any extraordinary imposts. ”

“ Such, Sir, are the evils, and such are the remedies which our consciences, our charity, and our zeal [140] have dictated to us as being most worthy of gaining the attention of your Lordship—at whose feet, through the means of these lines, so many poor Indians approach to prostrate themselves. Neophytes, and bereft of all human protection, they have recourse to your Lordship, not only as to their governor and judge, but also as to a kind father—in whose term of office they hope that peace and justice will again flourish ”