[15] Ferrando says (iv, pp. 538, 539) that Arrechedera sent the sultan to Binalatongan (in Pangasinan) for baptism; but that Alimudin was taken ill at Paniqui, on his journey, and it was therefore decided to baptize him there. [↑]
[16] This catastrophe, one of the most ruinous of its kind ever known, occurred on October 28, 1746; Lima was wrecked by the earthquake, and Callao destroyed by a tidal wave—in Lima, over 1,100 persons perished, and in Callao 4,600. A detailed account of this event was published at Lima by order of the viceroy, Marqués de Villa Garcia, an English translation of which appeared in London (the second edition in 1748); and other accounts were published in Lima and Mexico. [↑]
[17] See account of this controversy, the wretched condition in which the royal ships and galleys were found to be, and the loss of the “Pilar,” in Concepción’s Historia, xii, pp. 183–211; cf. Montero y Vidal, Hist. de piratería, i, p. 291, note. The vessel known by the names of “Rosarito” and “Philipino,” which “had cost the royal treasury 60,666 pesos, had remained more than four years abandoned to the sun and rain, without any care;” and it was now valued at 18,000 pesos, a sum which, after more thorough examination of the rotting timbers, was reduced to 7,500. The Spanish government had ordered that six ships be at once constructed to proceed against the Moro pirates; and it was therefore necessary to hasten this work, without waiting for “red tape,” hence Nebra’s informal appointment. The “Pilar” was not a fragata, but a large ship; it sailed in June or July, 1750; its repairing and cleaning was so hastily done that the vessel began to leak before it left the Luzón coast. The commander, Ignacio Martinez de Faura, was notified of this, and that it was unsafe for the vessel to proceed into the open sea; he answered, “To Purgatory, or to Acapulco!” In the following October, pieces of wreckage were picked up on the eastern coasts of Luzón, which were identified as belonging to the “Pilar.” [↑]
[18] “The secretary of the government, who, protected in that quarter by the person who ought to have condemned his acts, pushed forward his designs and finally effected his purpose” (Ferrando, iv, p. 548). [↑]
[19] “This [Dominican] province had already (in 1745) reported to his Majesty that the beaterio of Santa Cathalina was maintained in the form of observance provided by the royal decrees of February 17, 1716 and September 10, 1732; that it contained the fifteen religious which it ought to have according to the arrangements of its founder; that they observed the three vows of religious, according to the enactment of St. Pius V, issued on 28 [sic] in 1566; and that, although there had never been the slightest question raised on this point, some uncertainties were beginning to present themselves regarding the nature of their vows, and even whether dispensation from these could be granted by the archbishop of Manila.” Accordingly, the Dominicans requested the royal decision on these matters; the king therefore decreed (June 20, 1747) that a committee formed of the governor, the archbishop, and the Dominican provincial, should carefully examine into the best method of carrying out the previous decrees. They did so, and, when their deliberations were laid before the royal fiscal, he demanded that the vows taken by these beatas be declared opposed to his Majesty’s will. Sister Cecilia, as soon as she was placed in Santa Potenciana, divested herself of the religious habit, claiming that her profession was null—a claim which was irregular, “because the five years had already passed which the laws and justice allow for proceedings of this sort.” When the papal delegate disallowed the appeal of the Dominicans from the archbishop’s attempted control of this case, they appealed to the Audiencia for protection from the fuerza exerted by the latter; but that court declined to interfere, saying that there was no fuerza committed. The archbishop then pronounced a definitive sentence in favor of Cecilia, and set her at liberty; she then married Figueroa, and they went to Nueva España. The Spanish government took no further notice of her case, save to refuse to the Dominicans permission to lay it before the Holy See. (Ferrando, iv, pp. 548–551) [↑]
[20] This was Don Protasio Cavezas. [↑]
[21] A minute account of this episode is found in Concepción’s Historia, xii, pp. 212–230. The lady’s name was Cecilia Ita y Salazar. She had been educated in the beaterio from childhood, and had been a professed religious for sixteen years. [↑]
[22] “The royal decree issued in 1762 in consequence of the notorious litigation of Mother Cecilia did not decide that the beaterio should be extinguished, but only that new religious should not be admitted until those then living, who numbered nearly thirty, should be reduced to fifteen religious of the choir, in conformity with the provisions of its foundation,” “and that the number of the fifteen beatas should be kept up, according to vacancies that might occur.” (Ferrando, v, p. 151). [↑]
[23] “The seizure of these champans was afterward the cause of a clamorous lawsuit incited by various officers against the master-of-camp Abad, accusing him of having kept for himself the best part [of the goods seized]. It was also proved that he employed the vessels of the royal navy in his mercantile speculations; this evil was very general in that period, and to it must be attributed, in large part, the scanty results of most of the expeditions against the Mahometan Malays of southern Filipinas.” (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de piratería, i, p. 294.)
Another Chinese champan was seized by the Spaniards, apparently not long afterward, near Malandi; it was laden with goods for trade in Mindanao, which included a number of guns and other weapons, with ammunition. These were confiscated by the Spaniards, an act which was greatly resented by Jampsa, the sultan of Tamontaca, who therefore abandoned the Spanish alliance and sided with the hostile Moros. (Concepción, xiii, pp. 1–5.) [↑]