I see that your Reverences will tell me that I am tiring myself uselessly, and that nothing of this concerns me. This may all be true, but I believe that in the presence of God this my labor will have, if not reward, at least excuse, since I have undertaken it With an aim to the welfare of the souls in these islands, and to the progress in them of our holy faith, [objects] which are hindered by misgovernment here.

In regard to the other matters [here], I know that every one is sending in accounts of them, and I am sure that each one will give such information as he feels is true; as for all those who are doing this officially, who shall say that they will not report according to what is right, and with weighty arguments? I, at least, cannot persuade myself to think otherwise; for all the said persons I regard as truthful and God-fearing men. The one with whom I am better acquainted than with any of the others is Don Francisco Fernandez Toribio, an auditor, and now fiscal, and a [university] professor of the Institutes; and I can at once inform you that what he may say can be believed, that it is his own opinion, and that in saying it he will be governed more by reason than by prejudice. He is a man indeed, since he is so good, upright, disinterested, God-fearing, and truly honorable; and although he and others like him would be good for these places, yet they are not good for men of this sort. God preserve your Reverence for many years, as I desire. Manila, November 19, 1719. The humble servant of your Reverence, etc.,

Diego de Otazo

I.H.S.

Letter from the archbishop of Manila

I had given to your Paternity account [of affairs] last year, by way of Mejico, of the wretched condition in which this commonwealth and these islands were, and of the unspeakable grief with which I was living at seeing the lawlessness, tyranny, misgovernment, and insatiable greed of the new governor, Field-Marshal Don Fernando Manuel de Bustillo Bustamante y Rueda; and afterward in the same year, by the Eastern [India] route, I also sent to your Paternity an account of the commotion [here] and the violent death of the said gentleman, who perished on the eleventh day of October in the same year. Nevertheless, as the latter route is so irregular, and it may have happened that the said letter of mine has not reached your hands, it has seemed to me prudent to repeat my last letter, and send it by the galleon which is now sailing for Acapulco, in order that your Paternity may be fully informed about that event (although summarily), on account of what may yet occur.

The said gentleman reached this city on the thirty-first of July in the year 17; and from the outset it seemed, with his disposition—unquiet, changeable, petulant, and with inordinately bad tendencies—that he directed all his efforts to the ruin of these islands. He persecuted the citizens, arresting some, exiling others with pretexts of embassies, conquests, and new expeditions, and causing others to seek refuge for themselves, fearful of his harsh treatment; and he fattened on the wealth of all the people.

To these evil beginnings corresponded like ends; and from so mischievous causes were experienced the effects in the unlooked-for and miserable death which he, with his eldest son, encountered on the eleventh day of October in the past year. At that time the common people rose in rebellion, and, going to his palace, deprived him of life, without his having at his side any person who would defend him, even among his own servants. This is a proof that he was hated by all; and it is notorious confirmation of the truth of this statement that the great precautions which he had taken since the tenth [of that month] for his safety in his own palace availed him nothing; he had provided soldiers, both infantry and cavalry, who, as they affirmed to me, numbered more than three hundred. In the general opinion this success [in killing the governor] was gained by especial permission of His [Divine] Majesty, who by this act of providence, through His lofty and venerable judgments, chose to furnish relief when it could not be looked for so soon from human sources.

This tumult was caused by the arbitrary nature of the governor’s proceedings; for, without conforming to laws, either human or divine, it seems as if he had—according to my judgment before God, in whose presence I speak—no other law than his own will, from which proceeded his despotic decisions, directed to his own advantage and not to the general and public welfare, which ought to have been his chief care.

With this consideration [i.e., his own advantage], and in order to find the goods of the master-of-camp Don Esteban de Higuiño (whom he had kept a prisoner since the beginning of August), he gave orders that the chief notary of the municipal council of this city should demand, at the end of September, the official records of a notary-public who had taken refuge in my cathedral on the same day when the arrest of the said master-of-camp occurred. The consultation which he held and the petition which he presented to the ad interim fiscal of the Audiencia were merely formal; the matter was referred to the royal Audiencia, without stating whether it was by a consultory or a decisive vote; and the papers were considered in the royal Audiencia, which was composed of only one official, who had for associate judge the counselor [asesor] of the government. This auditor was commanded to despatch officially a royal decree for the surrender of those notarial records; and I was notified of this on the twenty-sixth of September, and the papers offered to me with a view of the decree of August 11, in which the said auditor was qualified for [transacting] the business of the Audiencia—a copy of which decree I send with this. There were various difficulties in regard to the fulfilment and observance of this decree[9] on account of the serious injuries which might result to the administration of justice in the ecclesiastical estate, and to the sheep of my flock. Obliged as I am in conscience to attend to their relief, I conferred regarding these doubts with persons in whom I had confidence, and with the [heads of the] two universities of this city—in whose opinions I tried to find ground for the decree which enabled this single auditor to have his abode in the royal hall [of justice]; because for this he had exchanged the imprisonment in which he had remained in the fort and castle of Santiago. Their uniform reply to me was, that I ought not to consider the Audiencia which was formed in this manner as a royal Audiencia, or the decree which was issued [by it], with the royal name and the seal of his Majesty, as a royal decree. I did not [at once] come to a decision in a matter so important, and on which so many things depended; and moreover, in order to show my profound veneration for the royal prerogatives of his Majesty and my earnest desire for the public tranquillity—to which I have given attention from my first entrance into this archbishopric, as also to the amicable relations which I have maintained with the royal officials of his Majesty (especially with the governor of these islands), since this contributes much to the service of God and of his Majesty—I presented my doubts, with a copy of the replies given by the universities, to the said deceased governor, at a conference which was held on the seventh of October. I charged him as his friend that, considering these questions with the careful reflection which is demanded by the strict account of our deeds which we must render to God, he should do what was most safe for the discharge of our consciences in the service of God and his Majesty. To this advice he gave me no answer, either written or verbal; and when I was waiting for one, in order to choose the safest [course] and avoid consequences which always are injurious to the public welfare, on October 8 (which was Sunday), a little before twelve o’clock, I was annoyed by a second royal decree—in which, professing not to understand the reasons which I had for doubts, he insisted on the surrender of the said records. Having answered that in order to make my decision I was waiting for his reply, I pressed him for it [on the next day,] the ninth, with another [written] communication of substantially the same tenor as the first one, exhorting him to make the best decision, that is, the one which he would at the hour of death wish to have made; but he declined to receive it for that morning, on the pretext that he was ill—although it was plain to me that he was well [enough] to hold conferences with the single auditor of whom the Audiencia was composed. In the afternoon, he gave orders to receive my communication, at the repeated insistence of the chief notary of my archbishopric, who carried it; but he would not allow the notary to enter the palace or to see him.