Note 6 — Affairs in the Franciscan Province

Agustin de Tordesillas was born in Tordesillas in 1528, [123n] and in his childhood served as acolyte in the parochial church, where he learned to play the organ. In 1558 he took the Franciscan habit as a lay brother, and made profession in the Observantine province of La Concepcion in 1559. He was finally ordained a priest, and became a confessor. He afterward joined the province of San José, and arrived with the first Franciscans at Manila in 1577, and was appointed first president of the convent there. On May 20, 1579, he went to China, returning thence at the beginning of 1580. That year he was appointed first master of novitiates, first chaplain of the royal hospital of Manila, and vicar-general of all the archipelago, which last office he held until the arrival of Bishop Salazar in 1581. In 1582 he went to China again, whence he went to Siam in 1583, via Macao. Returning to Macao he was appointed guardian of the convent there, but returned to Manila in 1586. There he labored in the hospital until he was elected definitor at the chapter of September 15, 1594, after that being guardian one or more times of the convents at Manila, San Francisco del Monte, and Cavite, besides having charge of Sampaloc. He lived to the age of one hundred and one years, dying in the Manila convent, having been the last one of the first mission to die. He wrote a relation of the expedition of the Franciscans to China. See ut supra, and Vol. VI, p. 131. note 31.