Note 6 — Letter Written by a Citizen of Manila to an Absent Friend

But, before mentioning the letter, I wish to recount to your Grace certain actions of the governor, which, as the relation of the Dominicans asserts, obliged the archbishop to assemble the bishops and orders, and others; but which (as I suspected) happened after the meeting, so that your Grace may see how they are stirred up, and engaged on the side of evil. The first was, that the governor’s guard detained several priests by force one whole night, without allowing them to leave the palace. It has been seen above already that this happened by accident, and without the governor’s order. 2d, that he gave orders at the [city] gates for the soldiers not to allow any ecclesiastics to leave. The justification for that was, that it was rumored that several ecclesiastics were trying to take flight, and to carry with them a number of soldiers and sailors who were in the pay of his Majesty. That did in fact happen, for two religious, one secular, and more than thirty soldiers and seamen who had just been paid more than three thousand pesos from the royal treasury, deserted. [Third], that he did not allow the religious to enter or leave their convent. It has been already seen above that the occasion for the surrounding of the convent of St. Augustine was in order to prevent the escape of the treacherous fugitive. Consequently, all else that happened was the over-zeal of the soldiers, who take military orders very literally. [Fourth], that he tried to exile the provisor, Don Pedro de Monrroy, by virtue of an old royal decree, the execution of which had been repealed. It is outside of all truth to say that it was repealed; for it is certain and appears that it had full force and vigor, as I have said above. [Fifth], that he was persuaded that no one could excommunicate him but the supreme pontiff. This opinion is not so improbable, as I have heard discussed by men who know more than I. But Burguillos,6 a learned man of the Order of St. Francis, holds and supports it valiantly; and at the least the governor, by his membership in the habit of Alcantara, enjoys by a bull of Leo X the privileges and immunities of the Cistercian religious;7 and, by another bull of Alexander III, the privileges of the knights of Santiago, who can be excommunicated only by the supreme pontiff or by his legate a latere.8 As for saying that the governor can exile from these islands any of his Majesty’s vassals whom he wishes to, I do not know that it is said in so harsh terms. What I do know is that the royal patronage gives him authority, in punishing the seculars and ecclesiastics, to remove them when they undertake to meddle with what does not concern them. [In regard to the charge] that he prevents the soldiers from becoming religious, no such thing enters his mind. His order is that, before the soldiers embrace a religious life, they shall inform him of it, so that their accounts may first be examined, to ascertain whether they owe anything to the king, in order that it may be paid before they become religious9—as was ruled by Sixtus V in his bull. Here in Manila there is another thing which further justifies this action of the governor, namely, that many soldiers embrace a religious life with the sole intention of getting rid of their duties as soldiers; and then after a few months as novitiate, many vagabonds go out. In order to avoid that annoyance, it is well to have it appear and to have it noted in their accounts that they became religious, so that, if they leave that life, they may be compelled to serve the king. If this is not so, let the authors of the other relation tell [of any one] who has asked permission to become a religious who, if he is not indebted to the king, has not obtained his desires.