[77] Pedro Mejorada, O.P., professed in the convent at Salamanca, and on going to the Philippines was assigned to the Tagálog district. He ministered four years in Binondo, then the same period in Sámal, in the province of Bataán. In 1694, he was assigned as lecturer on theology at the college of Santo Tomás in Manila, where he remained for four years. The following eight years were spent in Abucay and Oriong. In the year 1702 he received the title of calificador of the Holy Office, and in 1706 was appointed rector and chancellor of the university, which position he filled until 1710, when he was elected provincial of the order. On the termination of that office in 1714, he was elected regent of studies in the college of Santo Tomás. In November of that same year, however, he resigned in order to return to his convent at Salamanca, arriving in Madrid in 1716. Although lie was elected prior of the Salamanca convent, he was not to be allowed to enjoy that position, for a royal appointment as bishop of Nueva Segovia caused him, howbeit unwillingly, to return to the Philippines. Entering those islands once more in 1718, he assumed the duties of his office, but died in Vigan in June of the following year in the sixty-third year of his age, and after a residence in the islands of thirty-one years. See Reseña biográfica, ii, pp. 230–234.
[78] Domingo Collantes, the author of the fourth part of the Dominican history of the Philippines, was a native of Villa de Herrin de Campos, in the bishopric of Palencia. He professed in the convent at Valladolid, in 1764, and arrived in Manila, July 8, 1769. He held several conventual posts in his order there, among them that of provincial. The bishopric of Nueva Cáceres was later given to him. His death occurred in Manila in 1808 at the age of sixty. See Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca filipina, p. 107.
Bibliographical Data
The documents in this volume are obtained from the following sources:
1. Jesuit letters.—From Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library), iv, pp. 1–3, 69–72.
2. Discovery of Palaos.—From Lettres édifiantes (1st Paris ed.) i (1717), pp. 112–136, from a copy in the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
3. Recollect missions.—From Pedro de San Francisco de Assis’s Historia general de los religiosos descalzos de San Agustin (Zargoza, 1756), all that relates to Philippine missions; from a copy in the Library of Congress. Also Juan de la Concepción’s Historia de Philipinas, viii, pp. 3–16, 135–144, and ix, pp. 123–150; from a copy in possession of the Editors.
4. Appendix: Moro pirates.—From Combés’s Historia de Mindanao, Iolo, etc.; Murillo Velarde’s Historia de Philipinas; Diaz’s Conquistas; and other works, as is fully indicated in the text.