[7] A contemporary copy of this letter—the original is not known—lay forgotten and unnoticed in the Archives of the Indies (1–1–3/25, no. 52), Torres, III, no. 4151, p. 83, until discovered there by Pascual de Gayangos, who called it to the attention of W.E. Retana, who first printed it in La Politica de Espana en Filipinas, no. 97, Oct. 23, 1894. It was later rediscovered independently by Medina who also printed it in his La Imprenta en Manila, p. xix. Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, formerly corregidor of Murcia and Cartagena in Spain, was appointed governor of the Philippines in 1589, landed at Manila in May 1590, and remained in office until his death in October 1593.
[8] Relacion de lo que se ha escrito y escribe en las Filipinas fecho este año de 1593, an apparently inedited MS. in the A. of I., Index 9, no. 81, from which the passage was quoted by Retana in his edition of Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, Madrid, 1909, p. 425, and Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, La Primera Imprenta en Filipinas, Manila, 1910, p. xi. This may be the MS. listed by Torres, III, no. 4229, p. 91, as Breve sumario y memorial de apuntamientos de lo que se ha escrito y escribe en las Islas Filipinas, undated but probably 1593.
[9] Recopilacion de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, Madrid, 1681, I, ff. 123v–124r, where they are Laws 1 and 3, Title XXIV, Book I.
[10] Medina, p. xxviii, from. Libro de provisiones reales, Madrid, 1596, I, p. 231.
[11] Inflation in the Philippines was discussed in a report sent by Bishop Salazar to the King in 1583, B. & R., V, pp. 210–11, translated from Retana, Archivo del bibliófilo filipino, Madrid, 1895–97, III. no 1.
[12] Henry R. Wagner, The House of Cromberger, in To Doctor R[osenbach], Philadelphia, 1946, pp. 234 & 238, where he gives some interesting comparative figures: in 1542 the Casa de Cromberger could charge 17 maravedís a sheet; in Spain in 1552 Lopez de Gómara’s Historia de las Indias was appraised at 2 maravedís a sheet; and in Mexico Vasco de Puga’s Provisiones of 1563 was permitted to sell at the tremendous figure of one real or 34 maravedís a sheet.
[13] Juan de Cuellar was mentioned in the Letter of Instruction given by Philip II to Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas on August 9, 1589, as among those “who are men of worth and account” in the Philippines and who should be provided for and rewarded accordingly, B. & R., VII, p. 151, translated from the original MS. in the A. of I. (105–2–11), Torres, III, no. 3567, p. 17. Cuellar received a commission from Dasmariñas and signed various documents during his administration as secretary and notary. Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, Mexico, 1609, f. 13v, reports that Cuellar was one of two survivors of the ship on which Dasmariñas sailed in October 1593 as part of an expedition to conquer the fort of Terrenate in Maluco. On the second day out, while the ship was weather-bound at Punta del Acufre, the Chinese rowers mutinied, and only Cuellar, there described as the governor’s secretary, and the Franciscan father, Francisco de Montilla, survived the ensuing massacre. They were set ashore on the coast of Ylocos, and made their way back to Manila. A similar account appears in Chapter XVI of Leonardo de Argensola’s, Conqvista delas Islas Malvcas, Madrid, 1609. We have been able to find no subsequent record of Cuellar.
[14] Colín, I, pp. 501, 507–14, 561–6.
[15] Pedro Chirino, Primera parte de la Historia de la provincia de Philipinas de la Compañia de Ihs, unpublished MS. of 1610, from which the present passage was quoted by Retana, col. 25. For an account of the MS. see Santiago Vela, VI, p. 435n. Schilling, p. 214, demonstrates that according to the original punctuation the meaning is that the first printers were Villanueva and Blancas de San José, but with the shifting of a semi-colon it could be read to mean that the first printers were of the Order of St. Augustine. We can see no reason to shift the semi-colon, and have retained it in its original place.
[16] Retana, col. 26, said that he was able to find no information regarding Villanueva except for the listing of his name by Cano, p. 43, as having arrived in the Philippines at an unknown date. The destruction of the early records of the Augustinians when the English sacked Manila in 1762 accounts for the paucity of information, but there are a few references which throw some little light on the two Villanuevas. San Agustin, p. 212, says that when Herrara sailed for Mexico in 1569 he left in Cebú only “P. Fr. Martin de Rada and two virtuous clerics, the one named Juan de Vivero, and the other Juan de Villanueva, who had come with Felipe de Salcedo.” Salcedo had come back to Cebú in 1566. Francisco Moreno, Historia de la Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de Filipinas hasta 1650, Manila, 1877, p. 226, states that Villanueva came in 1566, and died shortly after 1569. San Antonio, I, p. 173, writes, “Another cleric was the Licentiate Don Juan de Villanueva, of whom the only thing known is that he was a churchman and lived but a short time—and that after the erection of the church.” This refers to the foundation of the church in Manila in 1571. Of the other Villanueva our information comes from Perez, p. 63.