LETTER FROM MIGUEL LOARCA TO MARTIN ENRIQUEZ
Most Excellent Sir:
Whenever I have been in this city at the departure of the ship, I have sent your Excellency a report of matters in this country. I did so last year by the ship “Trinidad” which left this port of Manilla. I informed your Excellency of the trouble and the expense to my property to build that ship and the other oared vessels which were built during the two years that the shipyard was established there and I was superintendent of it; and of the pay which Doctor Francisco de Sande gave me for it. He not only did not reward me, but tried to undo me in all possible ways. [He would have done that] if it had been possible, but God has ever upheld me by His hand, so that no unfitting thing could be done to me. When he saw that he could not harm me, he deceived me with promises, all of which have turned out false. All this great hatred that he has exercised toward me has been because of my having gone to explore China by order of Guido de Laveçaris while he was inside the islands. He would have liked that expedition to have been carried on by his own order. Now God has been pleased to deliver us from his wrath. May it please God that it be for the best. I shall tell here in brief what I know about China and this land, as a man who has seen it all and understands a part.[1] I petition your Excellency most humbly to pardon my extreme boldness. It is a fact that neither his Majesty in España nor your Excellency in that land are informed truly of what is advisable for the prosecution of these conquests and the increase of his royal crown. Consequently, just the reverse to what is necessary here is enacted, and thus the money is wasted, and all the men who are sent are exhausted. I have recognized this during the present year more strongly than in former years. I would willingly be more specific, but I am sharply warned by experience. Thus the letters which I wrote to your Excellency last year which were carried by father Fray Jeronimo Marin,[2] the latter wrote me were either lost or stolen from him. Next year, if it please God to have Captain Pedro Caraballo make the journey I shall dare to write your Excellency at greater length. I beg your Excellency to make use of me as a servant and to shield me with your protection. That is what sustains all of us who are here; and I need it more today than any one else. For, since I had the shipyards for two years in my villages[3] without receiving any salary, and without anything needed for the construction of the ships being furnished, or help being sent to those who were working there, and since I was continually written by Dr. Sande and his Majesty’s officials that the royal treasury was entirely empty, and that I should advance money from my household: consequently, as I attended to my obligations in his Majesty’s service, I spent all my substance and have exhausted all my repartimiento. Therefore have I become poor and have now so little relief from any reward unless your Excellency concedes it from there by ordering it to be given me. May our Lord preserve your Excellency’s person for many long and happy years with the health and increasing prosperity that your Excellency merits and that your Excellency’s servants desire. The city of Manilla, June 15, 1580. Most excellent sir, your Excellency’s humble servant kisses the very excellent hands of your Excellency.
[1] See VOL. VI, p. 116, note 28; also Loarca’s Relation, VOL. V, pp. 34–187. [↑]
[2] See VOL. VI, p. 88, note 22. [↑]
[3] The preceding document says that Legazpi assigned the villages of Oton (where the shipyard was established) to Miguel de Loarca, June 1, 1572. [↑]