The provincial began to govern with so much zeal and industry that it would be tedious for me to tell how much he accomplished in one year only—the least being that he had visited all the provinces, even to those of Ilocos and Bisayas, without omitting in one point his exercises of prayer and mortification. Of this I can give reliable testimony, as one who was his secretary and companion during the twenty-two months while he governed, his death being caused by the great labors of this visitation, in which with holy zeal and activity he performed incredible labors in promoting the religious observance, and in securing the cleansing and adornment of the altars and the ornaments, in which he was exceedingly careful and assiduous. He suffered much from the continual harassment of the scruples which tormented him, so much that it caused one grief to see the so heavy cross which the Lord placed on the shoulders of this His creature, which he bore with great fortitude and courage....
Among the excellent arrangements made by this chapter was the chief one, which was that father Fray Álvaro de Benavente should go to España as procurator; he had a few months before returned from China, where he left our missions very well established in the kingdom of Cantón, with houses at Xaoquinfú and Nanhiunfú, and two others in other places of less note. At the same time he was appointed definitor for the general chapter which was to meet in Roma, to which father Fray Alvaro was very desirous of going on account of the affairs of the missions conducted by the regulars in China, from whom he carried letters and authority to act in regard to the remission of the oath of subjection to the apostolic vicars. They gave him the necessary despatches, and he determined to make the voyage by way of the Cape of Good Hope, because that year there was no galleon going to Nueva España, the cause of which will be told later. He embarked for Batavia on a Portuguese vessel, and as his companion was assigned the brother Fray Juan Verganzo, who had come with the mission of the year 1684. He arrived at Batavia, where he encountered great difficulties in making the voyage to Amsterdam; but all these were overcome by a Dutchman, a Calvinist preacher named Teodoro Zas—a very benevolent and courteous man, and very fond of doing good to others; this caused grief in those who knew him, at seeing him misled by the false doctrines of Calvin, when he was so eminent in the moral virtues.
Father Fray Alvaro carried with him the first part of this History, which after a long time came from the press, although only as far as the year 1616—while I had given it to him complete up to the year 1647—because at that time this province had not funds at Madrid sufficient to print it all. That first division of the history was printed at the said court in the year 1698, by Manuel Ruiz de Murga; and it was dedicated to her Ladyship the Duquesa de Aveiro, although it was my intention that it be dedicated to the king our sovereign, in his royal and supreme Council of the Indias. The rest of the said first part remained laid aside and forgotten in the convent of San Felipe at Madrid, until I determined to write it again and complete it, by means of the rough drafts that had remained here.[68]
About April of 1687, father Fray Alvaro sailed from Batavia in [one of the] galleons of the Company of Holanda, and after many and fearful tempests it reached the Cape of Good Hope, where the Dutch made a halt of two months at the great colony and settlement which that nation maintain there for this purpose; it is a very populous city, and well supplied with all that is necessary to human life, for it possesses a very healthful climate, at the latitude of 36° [on the side] of the tropic of Capricorn. In this city they have a large hospital for treating the sick, with very skilful physicians and surgeons, and with all the comfort that could be found in any other part of the world. Among the magnificent and delightful things which are in that city is a garden, the largest that is known, which, according to report, is only second to the earthly Paradise. It is many leguas in circumference, and is divided, like the world, into four parts. In the part called Europa, there are trees of all the fruits that grow in our Europa; in that called Asia, all those from Asia; and the same in those of Africa and America. This garden has a river, opened by hand-labor, which waters all the four divisions; and for its cultivation many Dutch gardeners and more than two thousand Cafres are kept there. In this place is produced very rich wine, which they call “Cape wine;” for the climate is the same as in Andalucía and Extremadura, although in the opposite zone [trópico], and is different only in having summer at Christmas and winter at St. John’s day.[69]
Father Fray Alvaro left this pleasant town and pursued his voyage to Holanda, and landed at Roterdán, the native place of Desiderius Erasmus;[70] and thence he went to Amsterdam, where he remained some time. There he made inquiries to ascertain whether he could print the history that he carried in that great city, on account of the beautiful work done by its famous printers; but he gave up this intention, on account of the numerous errors which they made, being ignorant of our language. Thence he embarked for Bilbao, where he and his companion resumed wearing their habits, which they had laid aside in order to go on shore at Batavia. The rest of the tedious peregrinations of father Fray Alvaro will be related, if we can reach the time when he returned [to Manila] with a mission in the year 1690, when we shall observe his entrance into Madrid and his voyage to Roma, and his negotiations at that court in behalf of the regulars of the China missions.
For these missions the chapter designated the father reader Fray Juan de Aguilar, who remained in them several years, and afterward retired on account of failing health; but the chapter sent in his place father Fray Juan Gómez, who continued there until his death. Afterward a large reënforcement of religious was sent to China for the aforesaid missions, which have increased and become very large; and they would have prospered much more, if they had not been so hindered by the claim of subjection to the vicars-apostolic, who made so strenuous efforts to introduce it.
The governor, Don Gabriel Curucelaegui, had determined to send this year [1686] to Nueva España the galleon “Santo Niño,” in charge of General Lucas Mateo de Urquiza; but his efforts to despatch it were ineffectual, because information was received that seven vessels of corsairs or pirates were sailing outside of the Embocadero, and it was feared that their principal intention was to seize the galleon “San Telmo,” which was expected on the return trip from Nueva España. Two fragatas of theirs had been in the Babuyanes Islands, between Cagayán and Hermosa Island, and had slain two religious of [the Order of] St. Dominic; these were father Fray Jacinto de Samper, a native of Caspe, an able minister to the Chinese in the Parián, and father Fray José Seijas, a nephew of the archbishop of Méjico, Don Francisco Seijas, both of them being religious of great virtue.[71] Moreover, the pirates had committed other acts of hostility in Cagayán and Ilocos. The governor determined to suspend the voyage of the galleon for Nueva España, and gave orders to equip it for war—cutting in it many portholes, in order to furnish it with more than a hundred pieces of artillery of large calibre (all of bronze); and placing aboard it a thousand soldiers, Spaniards, Pampangos, Merdicas, Malays, and Zambal Indian bowmen. In its company went two pataches, which had just come for trade with the Coromandel coast, well armed and furnished with soldiers; and for commander of this enterprise the governor appointed Don Tomás de Endaya, with the title of deputy captain-general. To his valor could be entrusted any undertaking, however perilous it might be; for he was valiant, and had great skill in navigation, and had gone three times to España as commander [of the galleons]. This splendid armada set out, small in number [of ships], but having great strength. Having escorted through the Embocadero and secured the galleon “San Telmo” (which reached these islands safely), the armada reconnoitered all the places where the piratical enemy might be, but did not find them, but learned that there had been no more than the two vessels which had been in Babuyanes. Thereupon the armada returned to Cavite, without accomplishing anything more than the great expenses which the royal treasury had incurred, and having weakened the great strength of the galleon “Santo Niño,” with the numerous portholes which had been cut in it for mounting the artillery; for it was necessary for this purpose to cut through the ribs of the ship’s sides, in the preservation of which consisted its greatest strength.
The two pataches proceeded in search of the pirates to the locality of the Babuyanes; and the commander, Don Tomás de Endaya, went with a strong force of men by land to the province of Ilocos to look for them—where, it was said, the said corsairs had arrived, although the news did not prove to be accurate. He went as far as the capital town of Vigan, where his encomienda was; and after having spent some time there, not receiving information of the enemy, he returned to Manila. He left there established a village of the blacks from the mountains, called Santo Tomás, between Tarlac and Magalan, headed by a notable chief of theirs named Don Juan Valiga. A few months after Don Tomás de Endaya had arrived at Manila, he succeeded in the office of master-of-camp to Don Fernando de Bobadilla (who held it by proprietary appointment from his Majesty), who died about this time. The latter was a great soldier, and the governor of Zamboanga, and is often named in the history; he was a native of Sevilla, and a son of one of the “twenty-four” of that city. The ships that went by sea, after having searched many ports where they thought to find the corsairs, and having no further news of them, returned to Manila without having accomplished anything remarkable. Don Tomás de Endaya was confirmed in the post of master-of-camp, and held it twenty-eight years; and then he died from old age.
In this year of 1686, about June, occurred the revolt of the Sangleys of the Parián of Manila, which I related in book ii, chapter 21, as I did not suppose that I would reach these times with the thread of the narrative; and therefore I do not repeat it [here], as it was written with sufficient fulness, and the curious reader can find it in the place I have cited. [This citation is incorrect, in the arrangement of the chapters as given in Fray Lopez’s edition of Diaz; the number of the chapter should be xxxiv. Diaz’s account, as there given (pp. 440, 441), we transfer to this place, adding his comments on the question of allowing the Chinese to reside at Manila; it is as follows:]
While these islands were governed by the admiral of the galleons, Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, of the Order of Santiago and one of the “twenty-four” of Sevilla, in the year 1686 [misprinted 1636] there occurred a tumult in the Parián which it was feared would become a general uprising [—which was planned,] according to the investigations afterward made. In the said market there were many recently-arrived Sangleys, of so bad reputation that the Sangley merchants themselves had no confidence in these men, and said that they were disguised thieves and highwaymen who had come from China that year, having fled from a mandarin who was a very severe judge, whom the emperor had sent from the court to drive out so mischievous a sort of folk from the province of Fo-Kien, which at that time was infested by criminals of that sort. The said mandarin had executed his commission with such severity that those who were put to death numbered more than sixty thousand—which in China is a small number, because that country abounds in robbers—and for this reason many had made their escape to Manila and other regions, fleeing from the harshness of that judge. These people did all the harm that they could, robbing inside the Parián the Chinese themselves, when they could not rob outsiders.