It is also necessary to know who shall try in the first instance the sailors and officers of ships, and those who work at ship-trades, inasmuch as they have no commander or admiral, nor any lieutenant of mine, in such charge, to whom it is committed by any decree of your Majesty. The same doubt exists in regard to the artillerymen, who now have a general of the artillery, as your Majesty has ordered one to be appointed; and if, when that office is lacking or suspended, it [i.e., the right of trial in the first instance] is vested in the lieutenant or captain of the artillery, as it was before. I have written this so long and specific relation to your Majesty, as I desire that you may in each and every thing order what is most suitable for your service.[4]
I have found introduced here the custom that retired officers, upon finding themselves without office, even though it be that of sergeant, will not serve in the regular companies. Thence results a decided inconvenience, for when a soldier has once become skilful and known as a good man, and when he is admitted to greater obligations and made an officer, upon leaving that office, not only are his services lost, but even his person likewise, and he becomes corrupted, when outside of military discipline. Consequently instead of the companies continuing to increase their number of well-disciplined and old soldiers, those who by excelling most and being the best soldiers have been appointed officers, are daily leaving them, and there is a continual lack of those particular persons who are the masters and patterns in the companies for the new soldiers, of those who are trustworthy for matters of importance and opportunity, and of those who are generally the cause of the best results and the avoidance of ill. As causes for not continuing their services in the regular companies, they assign the fact that those retired are not given any preferments here, as in other districts. Will your Majesty have considered the question of whether it will be proper to give the usual additional pay in excess of ordinary pay to retired officers who shall have served in their offices in Flandes; and, before having those offices, the time set by the ordinance that treats of it—even though it be not the additional pay of Flandes, but that of España. By this method excellent soldiers will be kept and your Majesty will be very well served.
It has been the custom to send presents and gifts at your Majesty’s cost from this place to the king of Japon and to certain private persons, great vassals, and lords of the ports of that kingdom, every year when a ship was sent to that country for the necessary commerce, and the provisions which it sends to this country—inasmuch as it is the fashion not to deliver an embassy or message without taking a present. For some few years back we have neglected to send any. Some religious persons zealous for the service of God our Lord, and for the conversion of that nation and the salvation of its souls, and likewise for the welfare of these islands, desiring to have them as our best friends in all this archipelago, have considered and even say that it is well known that those Japanese have considered the decrease of the commerce, and attributed it to a disrespect for their friendship; and that consequently they were bound by treaty to prefer now that of the Dutch—whom they loved not a little, because they gave and continue to give them rich presents from what they plunder, since these do not cost them much. Having considered this matter and that there are certain conveniences in having friendly relations with that country, which has and gives to this country many necessary and useful things, and where our ships which ply between here and Nueva España are liable to put it in distress on both the outward and return trips when obliged by contrary weather as has been already seen and experienced—and on such occasions it has been important not to have them as enemies, for then the Japanese have given the crews of our ships a good supply of necessities, and have shown them a positive proof of good treatment in not seizing the so great profits and wealth carried on the said ships; likewise having considered the friendship that they have established with the Dutch, and the persecution there indicted on Christians and their ministers, the Spanish priests, who preach the holy gospel: I have esteemed it advisable to give a report of the matter to your Majesty, so that you may have it examined and considered, together with the written reports of certain religious, experienced in those regions, as well as that of the fiscal of this Audiencia, who also, I am told, discusses it. Will you order the procedure most advisable for your royal service.
I would not be fulfilling my obligations to the service of your Majesty and to this land, unless I reported as to the faithfulness of your Majesty’s vassals here. For although it is true that this region is a place of concourse, or a halting-place, for men of different natures, qualities, and characteristics, who come here for various purposes, many of which are not good, or are brought here, and who leave their impress (and that not little) in extending their vices—still there are, on the other hand, highly honorable and loyal vassals, who attend to your Majesty’s service with so great love and willingness; and since the former comprise but the very least part of the citizens of this city, who in all number less than five hundred, not only did I find many who offered themselves and their servants to take part in your royal service on the past occasion when the enemy came here, but also they loaned me their slaves for the galleys, and one hundred and ninety-five thousand pesos. With that I have met the expenses of this camp for most of this year and of the other troops whom your Majesty sustains in your pay. I also built new or repaired the ships, both large and small, and galleys, and from them collected a fleet. The enemy upon seeing that fleet in the port, although it was not completely ready, did not choose to await it, as above written to your Majesty—not even for the profits to be derived from the ships that they were awaiting from China and Nueva España, which would have meant no little blessing to them and no little harm to us, if they had returned for it. All that relief resulted from the aid of so good vassals, who, although paid from the money—as were the Indian natives also, who have worked and given the supplies apportioned to them for the above purpose—are even very deserving of reward from your Majesty, if you esteem their service.
In the above campaign, the most aid furnished me, by his person, followers, and servants, was from General Don Juan Ronquillo del Castillo. By his intelligence, assiduity, and labor, I was able to make the preparations that I did; and I do not think that it could have been done without him so well, with so incredible rapidity. Will your Majesty be pleased to have this considered in his behalf, on the occasions that arise for showing him honor and favor. That favor that I petitioned your Majesty to show Admiral Rodrigo de Guilleztegui last year, will be very well extended, for the reasons then advanced. Don Fernando Centeno Maldonado, who is serving in these galleys as commander of them, is a man who, by the honorable rank of his birth, has personal merits and good qualities—so that your Majesty may make use of him in his profession as soldier, or in any other thing, even though it be a position of great labor. He is the man for it, and one who will well use any honor that your Majesty may be pleased to bestow upon him. Many judicial inquiries [informaciones] are made here of merits and services; and although there are some among them of men who have merits, and who have not obtained their reward because of a lack in means to give it to them, or in the failure of their said inquiry to obtain it, the majority consist of the inquiries of men who are or could be ashamed. Of them what they claim might be advanced as a reason for their not deserving even what has been given them. Although it is always to be believed that the auditors, to whom the inquiries are entrusted, ought to make them, not only as judges, but as interested parties, so that sinister inquiries should not be sent to your Majesty’s royal Council to defraud your royal treasury and the merits of those who have served well, I assure your Majesty that I have heard that many inquiries have been made with less justification than might be advisable. Moreover, I am an eye-witness of the evidence taken so earnestly by Auditor Don Albaro de Messa in the assembly in the case of one Juan de Herrera, whose inquiry he had made. Because we did not detail so fully as he wished regarding [the reward] that we informed your Majesty could be given him, he refused to affix his signature after the opinion that he there gave in favor of Captain Alonso Estever, a valiant man who has served and serves very well. I do not know whether he has signed in his opinion of Captain Antonio de Esquibel, which he also gave to him at that time. In order that your Majesty may know with what passions they proceed in this, and on what this was based, and may see how little was the justification of this protegé of Don Albaro, namely, the said Juan de Herrera (who it is said came here as the servant of the factor Juan Saenz de Quen[5]—of which I am not at all certain, since he has been a soldier here, and even a collector of tributes and encomiendas, and once alcalde-mayor, when the Audiencia was governing; and after his services in these employments, he was found deserving of an encomienda of two thousand tributes, of being appointed commander in the Nueva España line, and of an allowance); because cognizance was not taken of this in its order, in the report, Don Albaro was made especially angry. There are also other and less justifiable inquiries, for there was an excellent notary, named Gonçalo Velazquez de Lara, who forged many inquiries and other papers; and who recently forged my signature, in order to defraud your Majesty of the fees from the licenses of the Sangley Chinese. I sentenced him to be hanged yesterday, so that he may do it no more, and that others might be warned.
The fathers of the Society of Jesus say that they need more religious of their order than are here. They have asked me to petition your Majesty to grant them the accustomed grace in this matter. What I can certify is that whatever aid and concession your Majesty may grant them will be well employed, for they are men who bear considerable fruit, and not as many of them return [to Nueva España] as of the other orders, particularly that of St. Dominic. Of the latter I have heard that more of them than I would wish have left the order,”[6] for they are well regulated men and furnish a good example. Although they deny it, I have come to believe that it is not because of the strictness of their life, and that they can all endure it, if your Majesty will order something to prevent it. Of the Order of St. Augustine, I can tell your Majesty that I have heard that they have always applied themselves very earnestly to their charge of facilitating and executing all that has been, and is, necessary to be done in your royal service. In what I have experienced hitherto, I am under obligations to them to confess it, and of especial indebtedness and gratefulness to the provincial, namely, Fray Alonso Barahona,[7] and to the definitors; and inasmuch as it is a matter that concerns the service of your Majesty, I have wished in this letter to mention it to you. I shall close at this point, acknowledging the receipt of only one letter that has come to me from your Majesty in these vessels that have just arrived. It is dated El Pardo, November twenty, one thousand six hundred and seventeen. Consequently with what I have written, I have nothing more to reply to it than that I shall do all in my power, as I ought and as I am obliged to do in fulfilment of its commands, and in all that concerns your Majesty’s service. May God preserve the Catholic and royal person of your Majesty, as is needed by Christendom. Manila, August 10, 1619.
Don Alonso Faxardo de Tença
[Appended to this letter is the following, to which the clause of the letter speaking of the fleet to be sent from Spain evidently refers.]
On August third, one thousand six hundred and nineteen, Secretary Juan Ruiz de Contreras ordered that Licentiate Antonio Moreno, cosmographer, and Captain Juan Media, be summoned to confer with Pedro Miguel, alias Dubal, a pilot, sent by his Highness, the most serene Archduke Alberto,[8] to make a voyage to the Filipinas Islands in his Majesty’s service by way of the cape of Buena Esperanza or by the new strait of Mayre.[9] In the presence of Don Lorenzo de Cracola, commander of the fleet, he was asked which of the two routes seemed the most suitable for the voyage of which they were conferring. He answered that that by the cape of Buena Esperanza was most suitable, if the voyage were to be made at the end of this year, because it could not be made by the new strait, as it was now very late in the year. He said that the season most suitable for that was any time in May; and that although, in accordance with the voyages that he has made, the Dutch sail from their country during any time of the year, he thought that this fleet should sail during the month of March, notwithstanding that he offered to make the voyage by sailing the last of November or the first of December, as above stated. He supposes that by making a way-station in the regions, and in the manner that the Dutch do, they would spend thirteen or fourteen months; and they would not make the time at all shorter by not having made the voyage by the open sea. He asserts that the voyage by way of the new strait is much longer, by at least one thousand leguas. He knows this as one who has made the voyage by both routes, and the last time by that of Magallanes, although not by that newly-discovered way called the strait of Mayre; and because he has gone to Filipinas and Terrenate twice by way of the cape of Buena Esperanza. He affixed his signature in presence of the above-mentioned persons and of Cornelio Smout (who came to España with the said pilot, having been sent by his Highness), and by Henrrique Serbaer, an inhabitant of this city of Sevilla, who served him as interpreter.