About the end of July in this year of 1678 came news that the galleon “San Telmo” had sighted these islands; it was under the command of General Don Tomás de Endaya, and had sailed for the port of Acapulco in the preceding year. It brought the proprietary governor, Master-of-camp Don Juan de Vargas Hurtado, a knight of the Order of Santiago; he was a native of Toledo, and nephew of the venerable mother Jerónima de la Asunción, foundress of the convent of Santa Clara in Manila—whose admirable life has been written by the father reader Fray Antonio de Leytona,[31] of the Observantine Order of St. Francis; and the investigations preliminary to her beatification have been begun. This knight had served many years in Flandes, Cataluña, and Extremadura, always with great commendation for his valor, which was as great as his nobility. He came with his wife, Doña Isabel de Ardila, a native of Badajoz; and brought in his company her uncle, a captain of cuirassiers, Don Francisco Guerrero y Ardila—a man of lofty stature, who, like another Saul, surpassed by the head and shoulders the tallest man in the Manila garrison—who showed that he possessed great valor. The new governor brought with him a numerous and brilliant retinue, and those who afterward attained most note were: his secretary, Miguel Sánchez Villanueva y Tejada, a man of great virtue, who came with his wife and three children, and afterward, having lost his wife, was ordained as a priest, and lived a long time an example for ecclesiastics, as before he had been one for laymen; Captains Don Juan Gallardo, Don Pedro Oriosolo, Don Jacinto Lobán, Don Tomás Martínez de Trillanes, Don Diego Vivien, Don Felipe Ceballos, Don José Armijo, Don Francisco Fabra, Don Antonio de Tabora, Don Juan Castel, Don Juan de Tricaldir, Don Manuel Alvarado; and others, all of whom served long in these islands. As fiscal for his Majesty came Licentiate Don Diego de Viga, a native of Bejar; he was afterward an auditor for many years, and was a very upright and disinterested official. The governor also brought some reenforcements of troops. The appointment of commandant of the castle of Santiago came to General Fernando de Bobadilla, who afterward was master-of-camp.
On the day of our Lady’s nativity Don Juan de Vargas entered Manila, being received with great festivities; there were two ingenious triumphal arches, which were erected by the religious orders of our father St. Augustine and the Society, because both had their houses on the principal street through which the procession would pass. Don Juan began to govern with much prudence and desire to do well; he was very punctual in fulfilling his duties, and never failed in his daily attendance on the sessions of the Audiencia (in which some governors had displayed much negligence); and therefore in his time the court business was despatched more promptly, for he found many suits unsettled and delayed. This is an insuperable difficulty in these islands, where the lawsuits are eternal and constitute a perpetual source of income for court reporters, secretaries, and commissioners[32]—who, with the slow steps of judicial procedure, are continually plundering the litigants, until, impoverished or exhausted, they give up the suit, which is incorporated into a great mass of documents, which they call “Proceedings in lawsuits” [autos] in the archives of the court. Don Juan de Vargas was more fit for a soldier than for a governor; and gradually he looked with distaste on the duties of so arduous a post, and turned his attention to the means for securing his own advantage. The uncle of his wife, Don Francisco Guerrero de Ardila, became so much the master of Don Juan that, by his craftiness and great ability, he came to be the arbiter of the government. Accordingly, it was he who was governor, and he was the drayman who guided Don Juan de Vargas, while the latter, like a wagon, was carrying the weight of the government. Yet later Don Francisco Guerrero left him alone, and went to Nueva España, at so important a juncture that he met in the Embocadero the succeeding governor, Don Gabriel Crucelaegui, and Don Juan de Vargas in the residencia was laden with his own transgressions and those of others, as we shall see in due time. He had a great advantage for thus making himself arbiter of everything, in having more affability and more shrewdness than the governor, who was naturally harsh and unamiable and easily fretted. Accordingly, every one set on foot his claims with more confidence by the hand of the uncle, who, as all knew, was the fly-wheel for the movements of the government; and thus in a short time he secured following and applause, [although] without the formal marks of respect which belong to the dignity of a ruler; and he came to direct the entire government, with authority and without opposition. The authority of Don Francisco Guerrero was greatly increased because the governor had made him master-of-camp, because of the death of Alonso López, who died within a short time [after his appointment], at an advanced age; this increased Don Francisco’s authority, and strengthened his influence over the governor. The servants [of the governor] made more effort to secure their own advantage than that of their master, and therefore Don Juan de Vargas found himself alone in everything that was not to the profit of the uncle and his familiars. He appointed as castellan and governor of Cavite Don Juan Gallardo; this is the most influential and profitable position that the governors of Filipinas have at their disposal—although at the present time his Majesty fills this office from Madrid; and in this way it was held more than twenty-eight years by Sargento-mayor Don Francisco de Atienza y Bañes, who died while holding the post of master-of-camp, in the year 1718. Another servant, Don Francisco Fabra, he appointed chief guard of the Parián, an office which affords great opportunities and facilities for securing the best goods; and thus in this occupation he was, so to speak, the governor’s agent, for which employ he had much ability.
Don Juan de Vargas, during his entire term of office, maintained trade and commerce with foreign nations, as those of the Coromandel coast, Bengal, and Surrate—which is the greatest emporium of Eastern India and of all the kingdoms subject to the emperor the Great Mogor [i.e., Mogul], a monarch more powerful than the Great Turk, and without doubt more wealthy. From this emporium of Surrate almost every year come one or two ships of great burden, like those that are called “ships of the line,” laden with many and varied wares of Eastern India. Within the last few years these traders are Mahometans, although before they were heathens; this is because they were obliged to accept the cursed doctrine of Mahoma by the former Great Mogor, Payxa Ali Ramasticán—who, trained up in his early years (when he was a fugitive from his family) by the house of Meca, was the cause of the total perdition of so many souls; for it is easier to convert to our holy faith a thousand heathens than one Mahometan. Trade and commerce were also very freely carried on with the Portuguese of Macán, and through their agency in Nueva Batavia in the island of Jacatra, the capital of the rich factories which the Dutch possess throughout India—where of the former Portuguese dominion only their language is left, since with that they trade and traffic; for they have been deprived of the fortified posts, which promised some advantage and profit, leaving to them only Goa (for the interment of Portuguese), and some posts to the north, such as Chaud, Dama, Diu, and Bassain. Only one who has seen it, as I have, can describe the great extent of every kind of trade which Manila enjoyed in the time of Don Juan de Vargas de Hurtado; and in that time, therefore, great fortunes were accumulated, and the city was adorned with magnificent edifices—the old ones being rebuilt, and new ones being erected, thus repairing the late havoc and destruction.
Chapter VI
[This is occupied with an account of the attempt made by the Augustinian Fray Juan de Rivera to go to the forbidden mission-field of Japan; it proved unsuccessful, and he was obliged to return to Manila.]
Chapter VII
On the day of the apostle James news came to Manila [in 1679] of the safe arrival of the galleon “San Telmo” at these islands, and of its being outside of the Embocadero; this news was brought, with the royal mails, by Sargento-mayor Juan Ventura Sarra. In this galleon came two large and well-selected mission bands of religious; one was composed of thirty-one from our order, conducted by father Fray Juan de García, who had been sent for this purpose in the year 1674. The other mission was composed of religious belonging to the Society of Jesus, who were brought by Father Francisco Salgado,[33] a religious of great learning and virtue. This mission [of ours] arrived at the most opportune time that could be imagined, for our province found itself in extreme necessity, on account of the scarcity of religious; for in ten years it had not received even the smallest reenforcement with which to replace them in the extensive and numerous ministries in its charge. So great was this lack that our province was already taking measures to give up some of those ministries; but all the religious orders and the secular clergy were suffering from the same need as was our province, on account of not having a consecrated bishop who might confer the holy orders. The ship “San Telmo” could not enter the Embocadero of San Bernardino, for it was hindered by the vendavals; and therefore it made port, after many hardships, in Palapag, in the province of Leyte—a very safe harbor, but outside of the Embocadero, and more than a hundred and twenty leguas distant from Manila. The religious of the mission came hither through the provinces of Camarines and Laguna de Bay; the roads were bad, for it was the rainy season, but the hardships of their journey were alleviated by the charitable hospitality which was given to them by the religious of St. Francis—who, heirs of that saint’s seraphic love, vied with each other, on such occasions, in showing themselves true sons of so holy a father.
They arrived at Manila, where they were received by the community as sons beloved by their affectionate mother, who was so eagerly expecting them; and on September 18—the day of the father of the poor, St. Thomas of Villanova—a private meeting of the definitors was held, and they were received by this province as her sons.