The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 36, 1649-1666 / 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 present volume, covering the years 1649–66, is mainly ecclesiastical in scope. An appendix, showing the judicial state of the islands in 1842, is added. A number of the documents are from Jesuit sources, or treat of the affairs of that order. Among these are an account of the Jesuit missions in the islands, and their protest against the erection of the Dominican college at Manila into a university. The archdiocese of Manila strives to gain more authority, both in the outlying islands of the Eastern Archipelago and over the administration of parishes by the regular orders; and effort is made to strengthen the power of the tribunal of the Inquisition at Manila. The question of episcopal visitation of the regular curas is already vital, and the later conflicts over this question are plainly foreshadowed, and even begun. The history of the Recollect missions for the above period shows their prosperous condition until the time when so many of their laborers die that the work is partially crippled. As for secular affairs, the most important is the Chinese revolt, of 1662; this and other disturbances greatly hinder and injure the prosperity of the islands.
Reverting to the separate documents: a curious pamphlet (Manila, 1649) describes the funeral ceremonies recently solemnized in that city in honor of the deceased crown prince of Spain, Baltasar Carlos. Solemn and magnificent rites are celebrated, both civil and religious; and a funeral pyre, or chapelle ardente , is erected in the royal military chapel, the splendors of which are minutely described.
The Manila cabildo send a letter (June 20, 1652) to the king, praising the work of the Jesuits in the Philippines, and urging the king to send thither more men of that order. Their services as confessors, preachers, missionaries, and peacemakers are recounted, and their poverty is urged; they are sending an envoy to Spain, to ask for royal aid, a request supported by the cabildo.
The Jesuit Magino Sola represents, in a memorial (September 15, 1652) to Governor Manrique de Lara, the needs of the Philippine Islands. The greatest of these is men and arms; and with these must be provided money to pay the soldiers. Sola enumerates the many misfortunes which have reduced the islands to poverty, and urges that the aid sent from Mexico be greatly increased.