[50] Carajay is, according to Vidal y Soler (Viajes de Jagor, p. 138), an earthenware jar, used for cooking by the Bicol natives in Camarines. [↑]
[51] According to an official report sent to the king in July, 1752, the Dominican province of Santisimo Rosario had then only 83 religious, who were in charge of 219,459 souls. Besides the missions of China and Tun-kin, the province conducted in the Filipinas Islands seven missions in Cagayan, two in Pangasinan, six in Ituy, one in Cauayan, and eight in Paniqui; and one in the mountains of Oriong, in Bataan. “In all these missions, or villages of new converts, there were reckoned 8,917 Christians, with many catechumens who were being prepared to receive the holy sacrament of baptism. This number is not included in the general administration of the province previously mentioned. Some of these villages or missions were committed to religious appointed as vicars in other and older villages, to which the former were added, and considered as visitas or annexes—especially in Cagayan, where there has not been any religious with only the title of missionary. The number of souls who are today in charge of the province in the islands of Luzon and Batanes, according to the general report of 1870, is 560,911.” (Ferrando, Hist. PP. dominicos, iv, pp. 560, 561.) [↑]
EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1739–1762
[A brief summary of events during the above period is here presented; it is taken, like similar abstracts in previous volumes, mainly from the histories of Zúñiga, Concepción, and Montero y Vidal.]
[The government of the islands by Valdés y Tamón ended in the summer of 1739, when he was succeeded by Gaspar de la Torre. Just before this time, the former ordered the royal fiscal, Christoval Perez de Arroyo,[1] to be sent to prison for refusing to give up certain documents in his possession; the fiscal then took refuge in the Recollect convent, and his property was seized. After Torre’s coming, the archbishop (Fray Juan Angel Rodriguez), at the instance of the Recollects, made arrangements with him for Arroyo’s restitution to office; but the governor, instead, imprisoned the fiscal. The suit against him could not be decided at Manila, and was therefore referred to the court at Madrid, Arroyo meanwhile remaining a prisoner, and harshly treated. The archbishop was so grieved at this, and at his having been the cause (although innocent) of Arroyo’s imprisonment, by inducing him to leave his asylum in the convent, that he became seriously ill; and the heroic remedies prescribed by the physicians so reduced his strength that he soon died. Among the accusations made against Arroyo was that he had married (in 1738) Doña Maria Luisa Josepha de Morales y Santistevan without the knowledge and consent of her guardian; but this was apparently settled by the proof afterward adduced that the marriage took place on August 12, 1742, and was performed by the guardian himself, Juan de la Fuente y Yepes, dean of the cathedral. In the following December Arroyo died; his widow was summoned to take his place in the legal proceedings then pending against him, but asked the authorities to release her from this requirement; nevertheless, her property was seized, and the case was referred to Madrid for settlement. The court censured both Valdés y Tamón and Torre for their proceedings in the matter, and ordered that Arroyo be restored to his office, with pay for the time which he had spent in prison; but this decision reached Manila (April, 1743) only after his death. (Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, xi, pp. 89–121.)]
[In January of 1743 the bishop-elect of Nueva Caceres, the master Don Isidoro de Arevalo, asked from the Manila government permission to go to Macao to receive his consecration, there being no bishop in the islands to confer it. But the governor had received letters from China which told of the expedition of the English commander Anson (see VOL. XLVII, p. 231, note 48), his depredations on the South American coast, and his presence in the harbor of Canton for the purpose of repairing his vessel; and he therefore asked the bishop to defer his voyage for a time, in order to avert the danger of his capture by the English “pirate.” In the following May, news came to Manila that Anson had sailed from Canton, and gone toward the Embocadero to lie in wait for the Acapulco galleon “Cobadonga;” the ship “Pilar,” which Anson had been previously foiled in capturing, was despatched (June 3) to aid the galleon, but its commander seems to have been timorous, and took refuge in the port of Ticao at the news of a strange warship being seen (June 22) in those waters. Finally, his ship began to leak, and he returned to Manila without accomplishing anything. On June 30 the “Cobadonga” was captured by Anson, after a brave resistance by the Spaniards. The residencia of the officers of the “Pilar” was delayed for two years, and, although the charges of delay and negligence brought against them were serious, they were finally exonerated from blame; those of the expedition which endeavored, but unsuccessfully, to find and punish Anson after his capture of the “Cobadonga” were also justified. As for the commander (Don Geronimo Montero) and officers of the latter vessel, severe charges were brought against them by the royal fiscal for surrendering the ship; they were arrested, and a special investigation of the matter was made by the royal Audiencia. The fiscal demanded that they be punished; but after examination of the testimony, the governor decided that they were not to blame for the surrender; but they were condemned to pay the costs of their trial. In this voyage the “Cobadonga” had not brought from Mexico the returns on the investments made for that year by the Misericordia[2] and other administrators of obras pías; these returns, amounting to 1,200,000 pesos, were left behind at Acapulco, either through fear of the English cruisers or for more profitable investment in Mexico. Hence arose a controversy as to the restitution of these funds, and the Misericordia brought suit for their recovery from the agents who had withheld them; but it was decided by the Council of Indias that the latter were not bound and could not be compelled to repay the money. “In the outer court of justice this went very well, but in the inner court it was quite otherwise; for we have knowledge of actual restitutions of the property thus withheld being made to the obras pías, by those persons who had more healthy consciences.” (Concepción, Hist. de Philipinas, xi, pp. 121–237.)]
[The remainder of this summary is taken from Zúñiga’s Historia de Philipinas, pp. 546–601.]
Señor Don Gaspar de la Torre made a bad beginning of his government; the violent proceedings which he instituted against the fiscal Arroyo began to make him odious to the community, the misfortunes which occurred during his term of office exasperated the minds of the citizens, and all his conduct was directed more toward pacifying this hatred than to gaining the esteem of the subjects whom he ruled. Seeing that he was disliked in the city, he began to be affected with melancholy, from which resulted a dysentery, a disease from which one seldom recovers in Philipinas. His illness was aggravated by the news which reached him that the village of Balayan in the province of Batangas had revolted;[3] and finally a supposed revolt of the Sangleys ended his life. There was a rumor that the Chinese were going to come into the city, and, notwithstanding his illness, he tried to go out against them; his friends would not permit this, and soon ascertained that it was all a fabrication;[4] but he became so feverish from the shock that he died a few days afterward, September 21, 1745 …. In his place began to rule, conformably to the directions given by his Majesty, Señor Arrechedera of the Order of St. Dominic, the bishop-elect of Ylocos. He made investigations in regard to the uprising of the Chinese, and found that they had no such intention, nor had they given any cause for suspecting them of rebellion; it was therefore believed that this report had been circulated in order to vex the governor. No long time was spent in quelling the uprising in Balayan; for the sargento-mayor went out with a hundred men of the regular troops and many Indians, encountered the insurgents, and, although he could not conquer them, because the Indians who accompanied him all fled immediately, checked the onset of the enemy, without his having suffered any mishap, save that he received a musket-shot from one of his own men, a raw recruit. He asked for aid from Manila, and they sent him two hundred men, with whom he conquered the enemies and punished them as they deserved—shooting some, and banishing others, according to the influence that they had exercised in the sedition, which vanished like smoke. He left behind a small detachment in that province, in order to inspire some respect [for the Spanish power] in the seditious who might remain in hiding; and the rest of the troops were sent to Cavite, because, besides the information which he received that the English were at Batavia with a squadron, the alcalde of Ilocos gave warning that two ships had been seen from that coast, with two smaller vessels, which were believed to be enemies. The most illustrious governor put the town in a condition for defense, erected various works, purchased arms through the agency of foreigners, and cast some cannons. All these preparations were not necessary, for the English did not come, although they resented our having taken from them a brigantine and a balandra …. In Philipinas, Manila found some consolation in the arrival of two ships,[5] which had returned from Acapulco and brought some funds to relieve the necessities of the commonwealth. In one of them came Don Fray Pedro de la Santisima Trinidad,[6] who, while a member of the Council of Indias, had taken the Franciscan habit in the Recollect convent of Pomasque; and his Majesty presented him for the archbishopric of Manila, asking the pope to compel him to accept that dignity. Fray Pedro, not being able to oppose the mandate of his Holiness, was consecrated in España; he came to Philipinas, and took possession of his office [mitra] on August 27, 1747. It appeared that he ought to have begun at the same time to rule as governor [of the islands]; for the king’s decree appointed for the vacancies [in that office] the archbishop of Manila, and in default of him the nearest bishop—through which arrangement the office had been assumed by Señor Arrechedera, who ought to have surrendered the authority to the archbishop as soon as the latter took possession of his see. His most illustrious Lordship did not choose to stir up this question, and contented himself with reporting the matter to the court; answer was made to him that orders had already been previously despatched that he should take charge of the government ad interim, but this royal order did not arrive [at Manila] until after the arrival of the proprietary governor. [His most illustrious Lordship] also brought a decree in which his Majesty committed to him the expulsion of the Chinese—which had not yet been effected, on account of the personal interests of the governors, although it had been repeatedly commanded; but he thought it well not to make the decree known until a better opportunity, because he found Señor Arrechedera greatly devoted to the Chinese.”[7] This was the only defect that was observed in this most illustrious prelate and governor; in other matters his most illustrious Lordship carried himself with much honor in his government. He quelled the revolt in the island of Bohol, sending Commander Lechuga with a suitable force; this officer punished some of the rebels, and reduced all the fishermen’s villages of that island to obedience to the king of España; but in the hill-country the insurgents remain until this day.[8]