Note 112 — Chapter XXIV
Reading edition
A candid and conclusive answer to Sotelo, or the false Sotelo, as the Jesuits persisted in calling him, was published at Madrid immediately after the appearance of his letter, by Don Jean Cevicos, a commissary of the holy office, who was able to speak from personal observation. Cevicos had been captain of the galleon “St. Francis,” the ship in which Don Rodrigo de Vivero had been wrecked on the coast of Japan, as related in a former chapter. After a six months’ stay in Japan, and an acquaintance there with Sotelo, Cevicos sailed for Manila, was captured on the passage by the Dutch, but recaptured by a Spanish fleet. Arrived at Manila, he renounced the seas, commenced the study of theology, was ordained priest, and became provisor of the archbishopric of the Philippines. The business of this office brought him to Spain, and being at Madrid when the letter ascribed to Sotelo appeared, he thought it his duty to reply to it. A full abstract of this answer, as well as of Sotelo’s charges, may be found at the end of Charlevoix’s “Histoire du Japon.” It appears, from documents quoted in it, that the missionaries of the other orders agreed with the Jesuits in ascribing the persecution mainly to the idea, which the Dutch made themselves very busy in insinuating, that the independence of Japan was in danger from the Spaniards and the Pope, who were on the watch to gain, by means of the missionaries, the mastery of Japan, as they had of Portugal and so many other countries.
The charges made in the name of Sotelo against the Jesuits are of more interest from the fact that, at the time of the Jansenist quarrel, they were revived and reurged with a bitterness of hatred little short of that which had prompted their original concoction.
A Spanish history of the Franciscan mission, full of bitter hatred against the Jesuits, was published at Madrid in 1632, written down to 1620, by Father Fray Jacinto Orfanel, who was arrested that year, and burnt two years after, and continued by Collado, who was also the author of a Japanese grammar and dictionary.