While this loss was so great, one of the most grievous losses that these islands have suffered, it was made worse by the non-arrival of the galleon that was expected that year, the “Santo Cristo de Burgos,” in charge of General Don Bernardo Ignacio del Bayo—who, as we have said, was sent by the viceroy Conde de Galves in the year of 1691, and returned in the same ship the following year; and it put back to the port of Solsogón, after having endured great tempests. It remained at Solsogón in order to continue its voyage the year of 1693, as it did; but it not only failed to reach port, but was wrecked, without our gaining the least knowledge of the place where that occurred. There were some suspicions that it was destroyed by fire (a danger for which there is on the sea no help), for at one of the Marianas Islands were found fragments of burned wood, which were sent [here] by the governor of Filipinas, Don José Madrazo, and were recognized to be of woods that are found in these islands only. Careful search was made for many years along the coasts of South America, and in other regions; but not the least news of this ship has been received. Among the persons who were lost in this galleon was a religious who was most highly esteemed by this province for his great virtue and learning; this was the father reader Fray Francisco de Ugarte, a Vizcayan, a native of Marquina, who came as superior of the mission which reached this province in the year 1684; he had been sent in this galleon to España, as procurator of the province, to ask for a new reënforcement of missionaries. Much could be said of the great virtue of this religious, of his frequent prayer and mortification, his poverty, his extraordinary humility and affability—which I omit, in order not to seem too partial to him, or expose myself to the censure which I have seen incurred by many historians among the regulars, who have indulged in so excessive praises of this sort that they expose themselves to the charge of being too partial, because the persons eulogized are of their own houses.
By these so calamitous events the islands were reduced to a miserable condition, on account of the loss of two good galleons and of so much wealth, belonging to so many that one might say it was the wealth of all [the citizens of Manila]. There was a little alleviation of our affliction that year, but it was so little that it could hardly be regarded as succor—that before the great galleon left Cavite a small patache entered that port which the viceroy of Nueva España had sent with some slight assistance, in charge of Don Andrés de Arriola, a Sevillan gentleman of great courage and renown. He returned to Nueva España in a small vessel which was purchased for 6,000 pesos from a Portuguese merchant named Juan de Abreu; it was so small that the authorities ordered, under heavy penalties, that no citizen should send in this vessel anything except letters, a rule which was enforced most rigorously. This patache made a very prosperous voyage; for, having passed the Marianas Islands, which is the most difficult part of this navigation, and finding that their provisions were nearly gone, and that it was almost impossible to pursue their voyage, divine Providence aided them by revealing to them an unknown island, not set down on any navigation chart. They found it uninhabited by men, but abounding in certain birds, large and heavy, and little inclined to fly, and so easy to catch that the men gave them the name of “fool birds”[89] either because of their stupidity, or as being the same as those birds which are found in Brasil and some islands of India which the Portuguese call dodos, which is the same as tontos [i.e., “stupid”]. The flesh of these birds is very good, and so, by killing many of them and drying their flesh in the wind, the sailors made a very good provision of food. They also found very good water and firewood, so that they were able to continue their voyage to Acapulco. What they most regretted was, that they could not fix the latitude and situation of this island, for lack of seeing the sun; and thus the island became again unknown, and inaccessible for another like emergency. [If its location were known], it would be a great assistance in making easier this arduous and severe navigation from Filipinas to Acapulco.
Don Andrés de Arriola was afterward a knight of the Order of Santiago, commander of the Windward fleet, and governor of Vera Cruz and of Pançacola, where he rendered great services to his Majesty King Don Felipe V—his great courage enabling him to furnish large supplies of silver [to the king], despite the perils of the sea and the enemies of the crown, in the time when the armed fleets of Inglaterra and Holanda were infesting the seas and obstructing the commerce with America.
Among the losses which Governor Don Fausto experienced in the time of his government, the greatest in his estimation was the death of his spouse Doña Beatriz de Aróstegui, in 1694; he loved her dearly, an affection deserved by her beauty, the many children that she had borne him, her great virtues, and sweet disposition—for which all the people loved her as the rainbow of peace, as she greatly moderated the choleric disposition of her husband. She died, this Rachel in beauty and Leah in fruitfulness, in the second year of the government of Don Fausto.[90] She was given a burial with honors in our church at Manila, and in the following year her remains were transferred to a beautiful chapel in the chancel, erected and adorned for this purpose. [This chapel contains the sculptured figure of the lady, with some Latin inscriptions, which are here omitted.] Well was this monument merited by a matron so virtuous, loved and reverenced by all for her great virtues; and her death was all the more regretted on account of her youth. The funeral honors which were solemnized for her were the most splendid ever seen in these islands (and it would be difficult to equal them in any other country, even with great expenditures); for the great abundance in these islands of wax and of the other materials for pomp which can increase the magnificence of functions of this kind, render them very easy. But this abuse is at present greatly moderated, as a result of the recent royal decree which was published that these vain parades be diminished.
[1] Francisco de Mesina was born in Messina, Sicily, in 1614; at the age of fifteen he became a Jesuit novice, and in 1643 came to the Philippines. He acted as minister at the college of Manila during one year, and then went to Camboja with a Spanish expedition who built a ship there, ministering to the Spaniards, and to the natives of the country. For two years he was rector of Silang, and more than twenty years minister to the Chinese at Santa Cruz, near Manila, becoming very proficient in their language. He was three years provincial, and was sent to Macan and Camboja by the governor “on affairs of the royal service;” and he died at Santa Cruz, October 12, 1682. (Murillo Velarde, Hist. Philipinas, fol. 354.)
[2] Spanish, almojarifazgo: export and import duties, as our modern officials would call them. This tax was first collected by the Moors in the cities and coasts of Andalucía, and afterward—in the times of St. Fernando, according to various authors—came to be introduced among the Christians; and they, on accepting or establishing this impost, adopted the name by which the Arabs designated it.—Fray Tirso López (editor of Diaz).
[3] Don Francísco Xavier, in the year 1670 (Murillo Velarde, Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 300).
[4] Francisco Miedes was a native of Madrid, born about 1621; he entered the Jesuit order about 1643, and in 1643 came to the islands. During the first year he was an instructor at the college of Manila; the rest of his life was spent in the missions of Ternate and Siao. He compiled grammars and vocabularies of the dialects spoken in those islands, and performed his missionary labors with great self-sacrifice and devotion, suffering much from poverty and lack of the usual comforts of life. The hardships of this career, and his frequent austerities, broke down his strength, and he finally died at Iloilo, on June 21, 1674. (Murillo Velarde, ut supra, fol. 352 b, 353.)
Gerónimo Cebreros was born in Mexico on May 30, 1626, and at the age of twenty-three entered the Jesuit novitiate, and four years later came to the islands. He was a missionary in Ternate and Siao, and for six years the superior of those missions; afterward he labored among the Spaniards and Tagals in Luzón, and died on August 15, 1713. (Ut supra, fol. 400 b.)