He prays your Highness, in view of the service which he has done for your Highness in the Philippinas, in Eastern Indias, and in sending out the religious whom he, father Fray Diego Aduarte, conducted, and in that which he is now about to undertake in his own person, and considering how small is the allowance granted to the religious for their voyage, that your Majesty will be pleased to make an allowance for additional expense for himself and for the religious whom he conducts with him; and he prays your Majesty that, in order to relieve the difficulties referred to, you will decree that which is most suitable to your royal service and to the prompt despatch of the religious.
Fray Gabriel de San Antonio)
[1] Diego Aduarte was born at Zaragoza, about 1570, and at the age of sixteen entered a Dominican convent at Alcalá de Henares. In 1594 he joined the mission to the Philippines, arriving at Manila June 12, 1595. In the following January Aduarte accompanied the expedition sent by Luis Dasmariñas to Cambodia (see Vol. IX, pp. 161–180, 265, 277); the result of this was disastrous, and after many dangers and hardships, and a long illness, he returned to Manila on June 24, 1597. Two years later he went to China, to rescue Dasmariñas (stranded there after another unsuccessful expedition to Cambodia), and remained until February, 1600. Soon afterward he went to Spain on business of his order, arriving there in September, 1603. There he obtained a reënforcement of missionaries for the Philippines, arriving at the islands in August, 1606. He was again despatched to Spain (July, 1607), where he remained until 1628; he then returned to the Philippines with another missionary band. He was seen afterward elected prior of the convent at Manila, and later became bishop of Nueva Segovia; but exercised the latter office only a year and a half, dying in the summer of 1636. Aduarte’s Historia de la provincia del Sancto Rosario (Manila, 1640) is his chief work; we shall present it in later volumes of this series. See biography of Aduarte in Reseña biografica de los religiosos de la provincia del Santísimo Rosario de Filipinas (Manila, 1891), pp. 148–172.
[2] Master (Latin magister, Spanish maestro): a title of honor given to religious of venerable age or distinguished services; see Du Cange, s.vv. dominus ordinis, magister ordinis.
[3] So in the MS., but apparently an error of cuatro for cinco (“five”), as the evidence of this and the other documents of this group indicates that this warrant was given in 1605, not 1604.
[4] The garment placed by the tribunal of the Inquisition upon persons who, after trial, became penitent and were reconciled to the church.
[5] San Juan de Ulua (or Lua, also Ulloa), in Mexico, was thus named (1518) for St. John and in honor of Juan Grijalva, one of Cortés’s officers, who in that year discovered Yucatan. In the summer of the following year, Cortés founded, not far from this place, the city of Vera Cruz.
[6] In our copy of this document (the official transcript) the text reads que son 80 pesos; but as in half a year but two of these tri-yearly payments would be made, it seems more probable that this was intended for 20 pesos.
[7] Gabriel Quiroga de San Antonio came to the Philippines in 1595, and was assigned to the mission among the Chinese in Binondo; but he could not learn their language, and, becoming discouraged thereat, returned to Spain. Finally, being troubled by his conscience for having abandoned his post, he obtained permission from his superiors to conduct a band of new missionaries to the islands. Embarking with them, he was overcome by sickness and the hardships of the voyage, and died before reaching Mexico (1608). He was appointed (apparently after his departure on this journey) bishop of Nueva Caceres.