Note 15 — Letter Written by a Citizen of Manila to an Absent Friend

The fathers of the Society, seeing that the peace measures had been useless, and that the doors to any suitable settlement were tightly closed on them on the part of the archbishop and the religious who were their opponents; and that two days afterward they had notified the rector of the Society of the first act, they had notified the minister of Santa Cruz of another (that place being a mission of the Society), in order that he should not instruct certain Indians, a right which the preceding prelate had given to the Society.15 It was rumored that the archbishop was trying to deprive them of the confessional. Daily new troubles were feared, and the fathers of the Society were compelled to appoint a judge-conservator; and one was in fact appointed on the second of November, 1635. This was Don Fabian de Santillan y Cavilanes, schoolmaster of this holy metropolitan church. He was not serving ad interim, as the other relation declares, but held that office in regular appointment, and had held it for several years. He was the son of a treasurer of the royal exchequer. Alonso Baesa del Rio was assigned as his notary, a notary-public and a man of vast experience and skill in papers. The judge-conservator ordered the archbishop, under penalty of major excommunication and a fine of four thousand ducados for the Holy Crusade, to repeal the acts passed against the Society, as they were manifestly injurious. Before he was notified of this act, the secretary read to him his appointment as judge-conservator made on behalf of the Society. This is apparent by the identical acts, which I have seen. I advise your Grace of this so that you may have accurate information on this point; for it is stated and restated often, in the other relation, that the archbishop was not notified legally before they notified him of the act of the judge-conservator. He was notified, for it is certain that the first document read to him by the secretary was the appointment as judge-conservator, as above stated. Later, the same secretary read to him the bull for judge-conservators, and that of Gregory XIII, in which he concedes authority to the fathers of the Society to preach anywhere. The secretary entering the archbishop’s hall with the documents, the latter asked him what he had, and he answered that they were the bulls. “But why?” added the archbishop; and Fray Antonio Gonsalez, who was in his company, said: “He has been tired, for we have already seen them in the collection of bulls.” If this is so, I am surprised that the hostile relation states that the act of the judge-conservator was null and void, as he did not first exhibit the briefs (of which no notice was taken) to the archbishop. The latter’s procurators also were not bashful, and were so bold as to allege the same in public session of the Audiencia. But they were convinced by the secretary that he read the acts, whereupon an auditor declared: “We must pay heed to this, and not to the new falsehoods that they bring.”