[1] A marginal note reads: “Translated from the Spanish relation printed at Mexico in the year 1638; dedicated to Don Garcia de Haro y Abellaneda, count of Castilla, president of the royal Council of the Indias.”
[2] Marginal note: “The rules of this traffic, which will be found at the end of the relations of the Filipinas, elucidate this point.” This evidently refers to the Spanish originals.
The “list of relations and voyages” at the beginning of Thevenot’s work contains this title: “Three relations of the Philippine Islands, with a large map of China,” etc. To correspond with this, the text contains: the “Relation” of Bañuelos y Carrillo; the “Relation and memorial” by Hernando de los Rios Coronel; and a “Memorial in behalf of the commerce of the Philipine Islands,” by Juan Grau y Monfalcon—all with consecutive pagination; and apparently abridged or paraphrased to suit the editor. These are followed by (Bobadilla’s) “Relation of the Philipine Islands,” and an “Account of the great island of Mindanao” (which contains a letter by Mastrilli)—also with their own and consecutive pagination; these, however, are not mentioned in the list above referred to. We translate from Thevenot the documents by Bañuelos and Bobadilla; but for the others we have recourse to the Spanish originals.
[3] Lope Diaz de Armendariz, marquis of Cadereita, the sixteenth viceroy of Mexico, was appointed (1635) to succeed the marquis of Cerralvo (who was removed at his own request, because of poor health). His term of office was quiet, and only marked especially by his quarrel with the archbishop, with whom the royal Audiencia seem to have sided. He was removed in 1640, his successor being Diego Lopez Pacheco Cabrera y Bobadilla, duke of Escalona and marquis de Villena. See Bancroft’s Hist. Mexico, iii, pp. 93–98.
[4] Marginal note: “Bartolome Tenorione.”
[5] The following letter from the Sevilla archives (“Cartas y espedientes del gobernador de Filipinas vistos en el Consejo; años 1629 á [1640]; est. 67, caj. 6, leg. 8”), contains an interesting reference to Bañuelos’s relation, and also suggests the well-known deficiencies in Thevenot’s “translations.” It is to be feared that he has omitted much valuable matter from Bañuelos’s account; but no other source is available:
“I return the paper which your Lordship sent me, concerning the military exploit in Mindanao, which was written and sent, as appears, by Father Marcelo Mastrili. Although its contents must be true, and it is well written, yet as your Lordship knows, the Council thought it advisable not to have it printed until they could compare it with the letters that the governor had written about the same exploit, and with others written by various persons, which make it out to have been of little value and importance. They even attempt to say that we have lost rather than gained in that campaign—particularly in a discourse or treatise printed in Mexico by Don Geronimo de Bañuelos y Carrillo, and addressed to your Lordship. In it he declares that those who were conquered were not Moros, but certain poor Indians; I do not know whether [he says this] from zeal for the truth, or because he has little affection for the governor. He wounds him quite to the quick in this and in other things. I was making an abstract of them in order to report to the Council, as I was ordered; but today, on going out, Don Juan Grao Monfalcon told me that he is at present printing another report, to oppose that of Bañuelos. I do not know who has given permission for it, nor that, in the care of the relation of Father Mastrili, there is anything that is not well understood. What the Council discussed was (as I have said), only whether it is exact and faithful to what happened; and of this I have not yet been able to form a sufficient judgment or idea. I am getting new documents hourly from the secretary’s office, and I shall detain them until the one that I am now enclosing is returned, if convenient. May God preserve your Lordship, as we your servants desire. Today, Tuesday, February eight, one thousand six hundred and thirty-nine.
Don Juan de Solorzano Pereira”
“The count, my master, has ordered me to send again to your Lordship the enclosed relation of his success from the governor of Filipinas, in order that there may be progress in the deliberations of the Council on this question. May God preserve your Lordship, as I desire. Buen Retiro, February 16, 639.
Antonio Carnero”