Note 21 — The Conquest of Mindanao

Two or three hours after leaving Mindanao, we met Captain Juan Nicolas and Father Gutierrez,21 father rector of Dapitan, who with forty ships and order for Sargento-mayor Palomino, in which he commanded that officer that, notwithstanding his previous instructions, he should make use of all the troops sent him to capture Moncay, or at least disarm him. After this we continued our course, and on Passion Sunday we reached Samboanga. The fleet and the army received their captain-general, returning victorious, with a royal salute; and Father Gregorio Belin, in his cope, with the Te Deum laudamus. I, after accompanying them as far as the official buildings, went to arrange the hospital for the sick; for although I had attended them at Mindanao and on the journey, and assisted them with all that his Lordship provided, yet, on account of the discomforts of the ships in which they had had to be shut up, and because of the lack of fowls, they arrived in a very weak condition. I set out at once in search of beds—even taking those in the [Jesuit] house. I collected in one room as many dainties as I could find, for the refreshment of the sick; and I shut up in our corral all the fowls which had come to Samboanga from Othon, which private persons had given his Lordship, and he had turned over to me for the use of the wounded. With these provisions I remained in the hospital, to minister by night and by day to the bodies and souls of the sick, encouraged by his Lordship’s visits. By means of all this care, and by the confession and general communion in which all took part on Palm Sunday, the majority of the men, thanks to God, were quite well by Saturday in Holy Week, at which time we left Samboanga.