The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 27 of 55 / 1636-37 / Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

The principal topics treated in this volume (1636–37) are the commerce of the Philippine Islands (especially with Nueva España) and the punishment inflicted by Corcuera on the Moro pirates of Mindanao. The former is fully discussed by Juan Grau y Monfalcón, procurator of Filipinas at the Spanish court; the latter is related in various documents, written mainly by participants in the Mindanao campaign. Certain minor documents relate to the administration of the islands and to the religious orders there.
A letter from Corcuera (June 30, 1636) gives a brief account of the great ecclesiastical controversy of that year; we present it here, not so much for the new information contained in it (which is not extensive) as for its being evidently the direct expression of the governor’s own opinions, and not (like some others of his reports) dictated more or less by other persons. Corcuera says that “the friars are lawless people, and he would rather fight the Dutch in Flandes than deal with them.” He asks that the king will adjust these matters, or else send another governor to the islands, so that one of them may attend to ecclesiastical affairs and the other to temporal. Part of Cerezo’s letter of August 10, 1634, to the king is answered by the latter (October 10, 1636) in his despatches to Corcuera; it relates to military affairs—approving Cerezo’s action, and giving some directions to Corcuera.
A royal decree of August 14, 1636, commands the municipality of Manila to reimburse their procurator-general, Juan Grau y Monfalcón, for the time and money that he has spent in attending to their business at the Spanish court. Another document of this sort (November 6, 1636) gives Corcuera orders regarding certain matters which his predecessor Cerezo had laid before the Spanish government. A third document (of the same date) approves the proceedings of Pedro de Heredia as governor of Terrenate, and promises reënforcements for the Spanish fort there.