Chapter XIV
The two galleons which had sailed for Nueva España in the preceding year arrived safely at Filipinas [1684], although they did not make port at Cavite, but at Solsogon, within the Embocadero. The flagship “Santa Rosa,” which had gone out in charge of Antonio Nieto (who had remained as warden of the castle at Capulco), brought back as its commander Don Juan de Zalaeta, a native of Vizcaya, and a knight of the Order of Santiago. He had spent many years in these islands, and had been a soldier in Ternate; and, having returned to [Nueva?] España, had held several honorable offices—as, being alcalde-mayor of Hicayán and Puebla de los Angeles, and warden of Acapulco. In this galleon came the governor who was to succeed Don Juan de Vargas; this was the admiral of galleons, Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, a knight of the Order of Santiago, and a member of the “twenty-four” of Sevilla and of the supreme Council of War. He had been commander of the Windward fleet,[59] and had held other responsible positions on sea and land; and he was a Vizcayan, a native of Elgoibar. Don Juan de Zalaeta carried the commission for taking the residencia of Don Juan de Vargas, and other warrants; but the most important person among those whose residencias he must take was the master-of-camp Don Francisco Guerrero de Ardila, uncle of Don Juan de Vargas’s wife. It was this man who had enjoyed the profits of the office of government, and this year he was returning to España as commander of the galleon “Santo Niño.” That vessel met within the Embocadero the galleon “Santa Rosa,” and, learning that in the latter had come a successor to Don Juan de Vargas, he hoisted the anchors without waiting for further information, whether opportune or not [con tiempo ó sin él], and sailed into the sea outside; and he was not ill-advised in this step, since in the residencia he would have been the chief personage. When Don Juan de Zalaeta learned that the best of the hunt had escaped from him, he was much grieved that he could not catch him; although it would have grieved Don Francisco Guerrero more if they had seized him. That gentleman knew how to enjoy the advantages of Filipinas quite alone, and to go away laughing at the citizens and every one else; but Don Juan de Vargas remained behind, in custody, to make amends for his own faults and those of others.
In company with the above-mentioned governor came very distinguished officers, all Vizcayans; there were Don José de Escorta, Don Pedro Uriósolo, Don Francisco Alvarez, Don Bernardo de Endaya (who carried the despatches from his Majesty), Don Pedro de Avendaño, Don Matías de Mugórtegui, Don Francisco de León y Leal, Don Juan Bautista Curucelaegui, Don Andrés de Mirafuentes, Don José de Herrera, Don Manuel González, Don Lorenzo Mesala, Don Francisco Carsiga (who died a priest), Don José Arriola, Don Martín Martínez de Tejada, and Don Lucas Vais; all of them were generals and sargentos-mayor, whom we know as captains, and rendered much service and honor to these islands. In this galleon came Don Mateo Lucas de Urquiza; also Captain Lorenzo Lázaro, a noted pilot; Captain Don Francisco Cortés, boatswain; and for ship’s storekeeper Juan de Aramburu, a brave Vizcayan who served in many important exploits.
View of Strait of Manila; photographic facsimile from Recueil des voiages Comp. Indes orientales (Amsterdam, 1725)
[from copy in library of Wisconsin Historical Society]
In the almiranta “San Telmo,” in which returned the admiral Don Francisco Manuel de Fabra, came a numerous and excellent mission of religious of our father St. Augustine; it was sent by father Fray Manuel de la Cruz, who left these islands in the year 1680; he himself had been left in our hospice of Santo Tomás de Villanueva, outside the city of Méjico. This galleon “San Telmo” was in great danger of not being able to return hither, for, having set sail several days after the flagship, on leaving the port the rudder-irons broke, and the ship was almost unmanageable—a defect very difficult to repair in that place, on account of the scarcity of artisans at Acapulco. If it had not been for the diligence and energy of the warden Antonio Nieto, who sent to a great distance to get workmen, and made the repairs at his own cost and with his personal attention, this loss would have been irremediable; but his zeal and good judgment enabled the ship to pursue its voyage with but a few days’ loss of time, and to succeed in making port at these islands.
On the eve of St. Bartholomew’s day, August 23, in the afternoon, the distinguished mission of our religious entered Manila; in numbers it was the largest that had entered this province,[60] and in quality unequaled. This province received them with great tokens of rejoicing; and the land welcomed them with an earthquake, and not a slight one, which occurred that night. On August 29 the private session of the definitory was held, to draw up the formal statement of receiving and incorporating them [into the province].
On the day following the entry of our religious into Manila, that is, the day of St. Bartholomew, the new governor, Don Miguel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, made his entry into the city; this was done with great pomp, and two triumphal arches were erected for him, by the college of the Society of Jesus and our convent, with very ingenious emblematic allusions in Latin and Castilian verse, and very expressive laudations. At this entry occurred a disaster which might have served to the heathen as a bad omen. Hardly had the governor entered through the Puerta Real, which they call Puerta de Bagumbayan, when a balcony that was on the side within the city wall above the said gate gave way, and fell, with great injury to those who were within it; so that many were left cripples, and among these a Recollect religious named Fray Luis. The fiscal of the royal Audiencia, Doctor Don Estebán de la Fuente Alanis, escaped the danger, the falling balcony striking his horse’s tail; and Captain Don Francisco de Arcocha, the equerry of the new governor, was hurt. But, although many were injured, the life of no person was endangered.
The religious of this mission brought with them an image for devotion, a painting of the holy Christ of Burgos, touched up to accord with the original. This was received in Manila with great solemnity, in a procession, the new governor taking part therein on account of being much given to that devotion, and with him the most distinguished persons in the city. The image was deposited in the main chapel, with an altar and retable which were very suitable for it, until the Conde de Lizárraga, Don Martín de Ursua y Arismendi, provided that which the image has at the present time. The governor went to mass every Friday, and there was a large attendance of citizens of Manila—I know not whether out of complaisance with him; for at the death of Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui, who was buried at the foot of the aforesaid altar, at the same time was buried with him the devotion of the citizens of Manila. The same occurred in the government of the said Conde de Lizárraga, who again revived this devotion; for it was likewise buried with him, in the same place. So much influence has the example of the governors in these islands, and so great is their power, that even devotion seems to need their aid. The religious also brought a brief from his Holiness Innocent XI for the erection of a confraternity of the holy Christ of Burgos; this undertaking was carried out, and its first director[61] was this devout governor. In his time it had a large membership, but today it has very few confriers; but they are most devout and sincere when they are least influenced by vain and worldly considerations, and most please the Lord when they are anxious to please not princes—men in whom there is no real prosperity—but the King of kings, who always repays them in money of infinite value.
Much did the Catholic governor grieve over entering upon his office without the benediction of the archbishop, and at finding the people of the city as a flock without a shepherd, their consciences loaded with scruples over matters of so much importance, and all of them perplexed and entangled in these dissensions; and therefore he resolved, with firm purpose and heroic determination, to cause the archbishop to be restored to his church. The opposition which he encountered among the auditors in his efforts to secure this cannot be expressed; but he firmly maintained his resolution, even to the extent of saying that he would restore the archbishop, even if it should cost him his head. He consulted the religious orders, asking them to give him their opinions, on the basis of law, both civil and canonical. I have not seen what the other corporations replied, which I suppose must have been what the governor desired; but I know well that the Order of St. Augustine adduced many and very substantial arguments in favor of the restitution of the archbishop to his church, and this with many citations from the authors on whom the auditors had taken their stand—who, as the royal Council of the Indias afterward declared, were greatly at error in their method, according to what the royal laws ordain in case it should be necessary to enforce the penalty of banishment against any prelate. The same error was committed by the capitulars of the ecclesiastical cabildo in declaring and proclaiming a vacant see, through their misunderstanding of the chapter Si Episcopus, “De supplenda negligentia prælatorum,” in VI[62]—an error which afterward cost them all so dear, especially the dean, Don Miguel Ortiz de Cóbarrubias.
The governor, Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui, determined to restore the archbishop to Manila, sent to Lingayén as his agent for accomplishing this, General Don Tomás de Endaya; and the city of Manila sent a regidor, Sargento-mayor Don Gonzalo de Samaniego, and some citizens. With them went the past provincial of Santo Domingo, Fray Baltasar de Santa Cruz, commissary of the Holy Office, and many others, with an escort of soldiers. On November 16 the archbishop came back from his exile, to the general rejoicing of the entire city, which had been so long a time afflicted by the absence of its pastor and prelate. The artillery was fired [as a salute], from the castle, and from the wall adjoining the gate of Santo Domingo, by which the archbishop made his entrance; and after he had visited the church he went to the palace, to see his liberator, the Catholic governor—who said that, in case his proceeding should displease his Majesty and the royal and supreme Council of the Indias, he would regard it as a great glory to have a punishment, even were it capital, imposed upon him. This may be believed of him, as he was a man of a great soul, although small in body; Major in exiguo regnavit corpore virtus.[63] What we saw in him was, that he was one of the best governors that these islands have had—affable, pious, magnanimous, and in the highest degree disinterested, and with this very liberal. And therefore he was wont to say that he had come to Filipinas to be poor, where other governors had come to be rich. This he said with truth, because in España and the Indias he had possessed much wealth, gained in the many voyages that he had made in command of the fleet and galleons to Perú and Nueva España, which had been consumed by his ostentation and liberality. We may therefore regard it as a punishment of God upon these islands that He removed him from us in the fifth year of his term of government—in which time he was severe with those only to whom he could not in justice be kind—unless it were that divine justice chose him for the punishment of those who had deserved it before his time.[64]
Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui began his government with great acceptability and satisfaction to all, and taking the measures necessary for the maintenance of these islands. The year of 1685 was a hard one on account of the general epidemic of smallpox which raged, not only in these islands but in all the kingdoms of China and Eastern India—especially on the Coromandel coast, where many millions of Malabàrs died. In Filipinas the ravages of the epidemic were great, principally among the infants; but the place where, it is affirmed, the pest caused incredible loss was in the mountains of Manila where the insurgent blacks [i.e., Negritos] dwell, so many dying that those mountain districts were left almost uninhabited. But it was not only among them that the disease wrought such destruction, but also among the deer and wild swine, of which there is an innumerable multitude in these mountains, even after they have contributed with their flesh to the support of so great a number of blacks. The reason why so many die with this contagion is, first, their weak physique; and second, the custom that they have of abandoning those who are attacked by the disease, on account of which they die much sooner—and, what is worse, in their heathen blindness. In China many millions of people died, so that there was no one to cultivate the fields; from this resulted great famine and mortality, after the epidemic of smallpox.