[12] When Archbishop Camacho attempted to enforce the episcopal right of visitation of the regular curas, the superiors of the orders replied to him “first verbally and afterward in a written statement, which was composed by the Jesuit Father Avina, who had been an auditor of the royal Audiencia of Manila.” (Zúñiga’s Historia, p. 398.) [↑]
[13] Spanish, economica potestad; but the word economica is here applied in an unusual sense, which is not made apparent by the definitions in the lexicons. It is possible that, as used here, it is derived from ecónomo, “he who is appointed to administer and collect the incomes of ecclesiastical posts that are vacant, or are held in trust” (Barcia)—the governor, as possessing this power, endeavoring to force a vacancy in the offices of archbishop and others, that he might use that power. Or, economica may mean “reserve,” applied to powers placed in the governor’s hands in reserve, only to be used in emergencies. [↑]
[14] “Never has there been seen a tumult [of the people] in which ambition was less dominant; all were content with their own offices, and at seeing themselves free from unjust and violent imprisonments. Only the archbishop, who had risen to the post of governor, was disturbed and uneasy; but his mind was somewhat calmed when he received a royal decree in which his Majesty commissioned the archbishop to restore the royal Audiencia to the same footing which it had before, and to set free Señor Velasco; and, in case he should be hindered by the governor, to suspend the latter from his office and himself assume the government in person—which was almost the same as what had just been accomplished, so far as this uprising concerned him.” (Zúñiga, Hist. de Philipinas, p. 463.) [↑]
LETTER BY A SPANISH OFFICER
Cousin, friend, and sir:
At the coming of the galleon which arrived here from Nueva España at the end of July in last year, 1729, I received two letters from your Grace of the same tenor, dated April 19, 1728. While they gave me most special pleasure, on account of the consolation which is afforded me by all the letters from your Grace which I am so fortunate as to see, I have not been and am not able to express my feelings at the news contained in them of the grievous illness, the inflammation in the chest, from which your Grace has suffered for so long a time; and I am very anxious that you should continue to improve, so that your Grace may be entirely free from it (as I hope you now are), and restored to the excellent health which I earnestly hope you may experience for many years. In the midst of so much vexation as has surrounded me, God has been pleased to grant me the favor of good health, so liberally that it seems as if He had cast me in bronze; for He has preserved me in the midst of so much trouble without the slightest headache, contrary to my usual condition, for which I give thanks without number to His great goodness—remaining, as I always shall, so devoted to your Grace as you must well know.
The governor of these islands, Don Fernando Baldes Tamon, arrived here safely in the above-mentioned galleon, and accordingly took possession of this office, in which he continues to show the earnest zeal which, with a desire for what is most conformable to right, actuates him. From the place from which the mails which came in the same galleon were despatched to this city he wrote to me—on account of the news which they gave him there of my troubles—with very cordial expressions of affection; and as soon as he arrived here he began to confirm this impression, not only by his confidences on various matters, and by having cared for the comfort of some of my dependents—about whom unfortunately, doubtless on account of my lack of means, I am nevertheless being undeceived, by experiencing [from them], in return, that ingratitude which always more than abounds here—but by manifesting to the public that he valued above others [even] my uselessness. [He did so] in such a manner that, recognizing this, envy and prejudice were aroused, especially that of the licentiates and auditors, to see how they could deprive me of this gentleman’s protection. Not only to show my gratitude for his kind intentions above mentioned, but in order to carry out the prudent counsel which your Grace is pleased to give me, I endeavored to follow from those beginnings the line of returning his kindness, as is proper, manifesting my feeling of obligation as well as I was able, and even in the midst of the many pecuniary losses that I have experienced—which have been caused not by extravagance, since I have tried to live as plainly as a religious, but by the unfortunate result of fairs in which everything has been lost, besides the unlooked-for destruction of property[1] when the galleon was wrecked in the year 726. The day before he took possession of the government, I waited on him with a batôn [of office] made of gold, with a diamond which I caused to be set in its tip, which was valued at more than six hundred pesos. Don Fernando still continues in his kind regard for me, although these knaves have not relaxed in their perverse designs. Your Grace may rest assured that, on my part, not only will not the slightest cause be given to him for growing cool toward me, but I shall, on the other hand, endeavor to secure the opposite result, in whatever concerns the behavior that is due him. Your Grace will please say the same to all your honored friends, who, influenced by the [same] affectionate loyalty [fina ley] which I acknowledge toward your Grace, have always favored us, pledging themselves to advance my interests with him—especially Señors Legarra and Maturana.[2] The latter himself has told me that Don Fernando is under obligations of great friendship to them, and that they will take especial pains to talk with him in my behalf. While on my part I give them grateful thanks, suited to the extraordinary obligation to them under which I shall always remain, I am meantime fulfilling that obligation without [unnecessary] delay, for the next galleon (since the [brief] time does not give me leisure for this one), in attending to the affairs of the above-mentioned gentlemen, Señors Legarra and Maturana—and in regard to the others. In virtue of the knowledge that your Grace can do me the pleasure of facilitating those which are, I trust that you will be pleased to continue to me the much that I owe to you, and for which I shall always remain under great obligation to you, by asking them that on the first occasion, or in reply to this, they will deign to confer on us the new favor of returning thanks to this knight; for that will be a circumstance which will gratify him, and will certainly be very apropos. And in case they consent to bestow on us this new honor, I trust that your Grace will please arrange that the letters come through my hand, in order that I may deliver them to him.
By the letters which I wrote to your Grace, in the aforesaid last year, you will be fully informed of the extraordinary quarrel in which I was involved by the bad counsel and selfish designs of the father of my wife Doña Maria Josepha, encouraged by the mischief-making partisans that he has. On this topic I ought to add that, soon after the galleon which carried the aforesaid letters had sailed from this place, the said Doña Maria Josepha with great eagerness made known her desire to return home with me, urgently entreating that I would enable her to do so as soon as possible. Such being the relations between us, and the lawsuit being then near its final limit [estar en terminos de concluirse] (since all the evidence [necessary] for deciding it had already been furnished), and since, to judge by what was coming out in the suit, much annoyance could be occasioned by my side to her father, in order that it might serve as a warning and correction to the malice and evil design with which he undertook this quarrel, I resolved, responding to the good-will of the said Doña Maria Josepha, to give her the satisfaction of [granting] her petition. By way of correlative [to this], I performed the feat of overlooking, in regard to that same father of hers, the injury that in every way he has tried to do me; so that, although I could, while awaiting the decision [of the lawsuit] which, as the saying goes, was already in my hands—inflict on him most grievous injury, notwithstanding all this, from that time I formed the steadfast resolve that in case Doña Maria Josepha and I were reunited, as we were expecting, not only would I do my share to secure that from it not the slightest [harm] should result therefrom to him, but that we should maintain such harmony that this matter should no longer be remembered. In pursuance of this resolve, and because it seemed to me that this was the best way in order to live in conformity to the commands of God, I spoke upon this subject to the former governor, and to the archbishop[3]—who, on account of their earnest desire, as heads of the commonwealth, that this result might be secured, were unspeakably delighted that Doña Maria Josepha and I should come to so good a resolution. Immediately they held a conference in regard to the measures that should be taken in order that this reunion might be accomplished as soon as possible; and as it seemed best to them that it should be done through a conference with her father, since she had asked me that the matter might be thus arranged, they agreed to talk with him about it; this business was attended to by the archbishop, in his own name and in that of the governor. Although that gentleman [i.e., Doña Maria’s father] answered the archbishop with plausible arguments, to the effect that our union did not depend upon himself, but upon the aforesaid Doña Maria Josepha, but that he would, nevertheless, speak to her with the aim of promoting it, he acted so deceitfully that, in place of devoting himself to carrying out that promise, what he did was to go, a short time after he had left the presence of the archbishop, to the place where (as I told your Grace in my previous letters) Doña Maria Josepha was staying. [There], like a lion unchained—goaded by the idea of what the archbishop had given him to understand, to the effect that Doña Maria Josepha and I would certainly come together in a very short time, and by his own notion that we had been communicating with each other with that object—he began to threaten her in the most extravagant terms, in order not only to break up her purpose of reconciliation, but to prevent her from having the slightest communication with me. Not halting at this alone, his preposterous behavior went so far that he visited the provincial of St. Dominic; and the latter, being a good friend of his, and a man of so excellent judgment as he has shown in this affair, complied with his demand—which was, that the provincial should carry into effect whatever orders he [i.e., my wife’s father] should give to the prioress of the house where Doña Maria Josepha was.[4] The prioress obliged that lady to leave the rooms in which she was living, which had a view of the street, and placed her in others where I could not possibly speak to her on any side of them. They placed such constraint upon her that she experienced inexpressible affliction, through this and other most improper measures which they took—even going so far that [they would not admit] the daughter whom I had by Doña Rafaela (whom may God keep), when they learned that this girl had on previous occasions gone to that house on account of the request that the said Doña Maria Josepha had made to me, that I would send my daughter to her; for they made arrangements to deprive her of the pleasure of having the girl with her, availing themselves of the same means which Herod used when he published the edict for the slaughter of the Innocents, so that the death of Christ our blessing might be included therein. For, not shooting openly at the window they aimed at, in order to attain their object orders were given by the provincial that in no case should any young girl be allowed to enter the house—notwithstanding the fact that until then not the slightest objection had been raised to the admission of any of the girls who were of my daughter’s age, and even when they had been going to that house for a longer time than she. When I learned of all these and other wrongful acts, I brought them to the notice of the archbishop, who was amazed—modifying the idea that he had formed of my wife’s father from his previous actions, and being equally surprised at the provincial for his actions in contributing to proceedings in which he ought [rather] to feel so great scruples at following the lead of this man. The archbishop administered to him an exceedingly severe rebuke, nor was the provincial left without others, which to a person less carried away by passions would have served for his entire correction. At last, when the father of Doña Maria Josepha saw that these and other malicious and unusual measures—of which he secretly availed himself in order to attain the purpose which guided him to actions, in regard to the lawsuit, which were improper and unjust—were continually failing him, and that consequently the affair of our reconciliation was steadily taking such shape that it would very soon be accomplished, he yielded in outward appearance, through his fear that this would occur without his having the least intervention in the matter. Through the agency of that same provincial, the affair was discussed with the archbishop and the governor; and thus the conclusion of it was arranged, so that, a few days after the middle of July, Doña Maria Josepha and I were reunited, the former governor having brought about a reconciliation, two or three days before, between her father and myself.
Auditor Martinez—who, as I informed your Grace, had charge of the lawsuit, in virtue of the commission which the aforesaid former governor, Marqués de Torre Campo, gave him for that function—as soon as the news reached this city that the present governor was coming in the galleon, made on his part incredible efforts to have this affair settled. He eagerly endeavored, with especial activity, not only that this settlement should be effected, but that all the official acts should be burned—a proceeding which every one here [dis]approved;[5] for without doubt the purpose that more than any other directed him was, that, knowing his own guilt in the mad acts which in his passion he had committed, he desired to repair it, or [rather] cover it up, by this means—fearing that if this business were not completed before the governor arrived here, the latter would do with it what was right; moreover, almost the same idea had been entertained on account of what concerns the preceding governor, by means of its having been known or found out in the same manner. The auditor exerted remarkable activity in the settlement [of the lawsuit] from the time when the said galleon usually met very little delay in reaching these islands, and did so with far more briskness as soon as he learned that the galleon, with the present governor, was already within them; and in fact, if the latter had arrived in this city before this affair had been settled, it is not to be doubted that he would have given them much trouble, by means of it and the knowledge which with great precision he obtained, from the time when he entered the islands, of the outrages and wrongs which had been practiced against me to judge by the great pain which he felt at these, and hinted to me on the first occasion when I went to see him. This was immediately after he arrived outside the walls of this city, where he was obliged to remain until he took possession of the government, in consequence of the custom which prevails here in this regard.