He wrote in terms apparently so Christian to the provincials of the Franciscan and Recollect orders, and recognizing himself as the greatest sinner, confesses that he alone is the cause of all these misfortunes and that God is punishing his flock for his sins.
Anyone would believe, in view of this so simple understanding of himself, and a so clear confession of his defects, that it was a true repentance and grief at seeing the miseries and havoc from which this city and its environs were suffering, in spiritual and temporal matters. But it is not so, Sire, for at the same time, he sends pastoral letters to said provincials, for the Indians of their provinces, in which, with the greatest simulated virtue, and pretending the greatest advantages to your royal rights, he persuades them to become subject to the English. For that purpose he sings a thousand praises of this nation but for the purpose of surprising the incautious simplicity of these silly Indians, for whom he had said letters translated into their languages in order that the poison which they held might work effects more favorable to his ideas.
Neither the threats of the enemy, nor the ostentation which this one made of his power, nor the alliance of the apostate Sangleys, declared in his favor and against your Majesty, nor the abandonment in which I remained because of the absence of the few Spaniards, who were in the provinces, nor the endurance of which I made use to dissimulate many things which I heard and saw among these poor miserable Indians for want of instruction, education, and communication with civilized people, nor the schisms and rebellion of some provinces: none of these things, Sire, was so keenly felt by me as the acts of the reverend archbishop, which were so irregular and far from the truth; of a prelate, who instead of furnishing an example, served as a stimulus to the traitors who leaning on the authority which is represented among such lofty subjects, were confident of the virtue and zeal of this prelate, only to become inflamed against me and avail themselves of his destructive ideas of this your state and religion.
It is left for the supreme intelligence of your Majesty to consider the great grief caused this royal Audiencia which was governing, to see an ecclesiastical prelate who had just been military and political head, who spared no means in order to sacrifice these your domains, which he ought to have conserved for so many reasons, or at least have maintained an indifferent attitude in the condition of prisoner.
What Catholic and loyal vassal of your Majesty could see without great grief a pastor persuading his sheep in said letters that they should submit to Gran Bretaña? Further on, he says: “If you do as I exhort and advise you, you will receive the reward from God, and for the contrary, the punishment; and if you observe, this, you will be good vassals of my king and my faithful children.”
In truth, Sire, such propositions in writing from an ecclesiastical prelate are of the greatest scandal for the community and very suspicious for the faith due to both Majesties.
What doctrine, what religion is this, in which one sees that a pastor, so repentant and full of grief for the troubles of his flock in the power of the heretical enemy, at the same time, with so efficacious and mild words induces those who are free to surrender to the same enemy! That is the same as to deliver them to the wolf so that that animal may tear them to pieces, and destroy them with the same hardships which he bewails in the others. To recognize a sin, to confess it with show of repentance and to commit a greater of the same kind: what doctrine, I repeat, is this?
A rare thing, the eagerness with which this reverend prelate undertook and prosecuted a matter so extraordinary and harmful! A good proof of this truth is what results from the above-cited letters written to the subjects abovesaid, and which are expressed in the said testimony which I enclose. The archbishop signs some as governor of Manila, although a prisoner; in others as governor and captain-general; and in others, he adds, “of these islands.” But if these islands had been already ceded to the enemy, and that surrender had been made, who could commit a greater incongruity than to call himself governor of what he had already lost, since he surrendered and ceded it to the English?
The letter which he writes to the Marquis of Monte Castro begins thus: “Yesterday afternoon, the present governor of Manila and his council imprisoned, etc., Manuel Antonio, archbishop-governor.” Consequently, at one and the same time we have three governors—the Englishman, recognized by the archbishop; the latter, for thus he signed; and myself, because your Majesty gave me that post by your laws.
Whether the honors of such post ought or ought not to be kept for him does not serve as an excuse to the reverend archbishop; or that he had hopes of again holding such office by the right of postliminy: for this at most does not go beyond honors, and hopes are kept without in any way becoming real, for this office was confirmed in me already by virtue of laws lvii and lviii, book ii, título xv of the Recopilación;[7] and even according to the first, by the right of postliminy, the reverend archbishop had no right to administer that office, again, since it orders expressly that when your royal Audiencia assumes the office, it hold it until your Majesty appoints to it.[8]