Volume 27 — The Conquest of Mindanao

Gratia, et pax Christi, etc.

I would by no means have expected, Father, your Reverence’s command to inform you of our expedition to Mindanao, had you known that the letters which I wrote to Father Juan de Bueras from Lamitan had remained at Sanboanga; because, since I recounted in them, with much detail, all the events of the conquest of Mindanao, I asked him to read them to your Reverence, so that, without fatiguing yourself with my separate letter, you might know what had happened. And now, having in obedience to your command, departed for Taytay, I will here relate to you faithfully as much as I can remember.

Your Reverence of course knows how Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, governor of these islands, having determined on the expedition to Mindanao, called a general council of war, in which all were of adverse opinion, saving only his nephew, Sargento-mayor Don Pedro Hurtado de Corcuera. In spite of this, constrained by desire for his own glory, and for the honor of the two Majesties, the human and the divine, he resolved, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of the entire council, to persevere in his pious intentions. On the day, therefore, of the Purification of our Lady, February second of this year 1637, having with all the soldiers attended confession and communion in the chapels of the palace, he ordered them to embark in eleven champans, which were already provided for this purpose. Father Juan de Barrios and I embarked in the flagship with his Lordship, and Sargento-mayor Don Marcos Zapata, whom he brought for a companion, and to sit at his table. The priest Don Juan, chaplain of the fleet, sailed on the almiranta, with Sargento-mayor Don Pedro Hurtado de Corcuera; and an Augustinian friar came, as confessor for the Pampangos, in Lorenço Ugalde’s champan.

So great, in fact, was the rage and pain which the evil one suffered on account of our expedition, and what he already feared [from it] that, as I afterward knew with certainty, he often complained to a certain person, speaking in an audible voice in the woods, saying: “Why come ye? What do ye seek? Who brought you here? Curses on you; I will deprive you of life, and we will have done with this!” I did not believe this at the time, as coming from the father of lies; but he taught us later, by experience, how much he did to make his word good.

In the gulf of La Silanga we met with a very severe and dangerous tempest, of which we rid ourselves by exorcisms and sacred relics, as is our way in dealing with things evidently planned by the evil one. Here Nicolas Gonçalez waited with eight caracoas to tow the champans through La Silanga, which is a strait of the sea two leguas long, between the great island of Mindanao and another and small island. His Lordship, with four of the caracoas, went to Punta de Flechas, so called from the ceremony and superstition of the Moros in shooting arrows at one of its rocks when they are returning to their own country, to show their thankfulness to Mahomet. Here we remained for two days, awaiting the vessels of the fleet; during this time I said mass on shore, having beforehand uttered tremendous conjurations against the evil one, as holy Mother Church is wont to do, with her exorcisms, holy water, etc. Then our people burned all the arrows, of infinite number, that were fixed on that headland, with a thousand other things—articles of food, such as fish, eggs, etc.—which, as a sign of their devotion, they are wont to leave fastened to the rock with black pegs. We set up a number of crosses in different places, and then the name of the place was solemnly changed to Punta de San Sebastian, in order that that saint, with his holy arrows, might complete the destruction of those infernal and accursed ones which for so many years have vexed us. The name was given also in commemoration of the fact that Don Sebastian [i.e., Corcuera] has been the first governor to cast anchor here and to round this cape; besides this, the marvelous fall of this rock in the night when Nicolas Gonçalez fought within sight of it, we all attribute to this saint, who desired to give to Don Sebastian pledges for the glorious campaign of Mindanao, since only that part of the rock fell which faced toward Mindanao—as we all saw with wonder. While we were here, a light vessel came from the enemy to reconnoiter our fleet; our falua gave chase, but, being very far away, could not overtake it. We, however, encountered a small boat containing four of our Indian captives who had fled from the enemy; they informed us that several Javanese ships were on the point of departure from Mindanao, laden with Christian slaves. I confess to your Reverence that this was not news to his Lordship, but he was cut to the heart by the misery of so many souls, and he at once decided to sail night and day in order to overtake the ships. This holy zeal was the sole and true reason for his pushing on without halt till he came up with them, instead of waiting for his fleet; and he was well rewarded by Heaven with so fortunate a victory, as your Reverence will see.

Now the evil spirit, who for so many years had dwelt at this Punta de Flechas, undertook to oppose us and hinder our advance. For three times, by the violence of the wind and sea, we were turned back; and the fourth time, without any contrary wind, we remained motionless for more than an hour, although our caracoa had ninety barrigas (as they call rowers on the Pintados Islands). Thus the work of the evil one was plainly to be seen; but, by casting a few holy relics into the sea and pronouncing exorcisms, as before, we soon passed on.

Seeing now our flags on the enemy’s stockade, we soon, with his Lordship, crossed the river for the second time; and climbing up on the other side, I also raised my standard, that of Christ and St. Francis Xavier. We all sang the Te Deum laudamus; and, after his Lordship had given the name of St. Francis Xavier to the fort and had left Alférez Amesquita as its governor, with a garrison of soldiers, we advanced to the rear of a stockade which Corralat defended with its one cannon, and to the mosque. Here the Moros had rallied for the last time, trusting in what their captain-general [condestable] had told them, that they were not to retreat until they saw him fall. He believed, by some witchcraft or other, that our bullets could not injure him; and he had had proof of this, for once a ball had broken the bone of his leg, crippling him, but without breaking the skin or drawing blood. In this confidence, he came out with his men to defy us, but Captain Zubire at once leveled his musket at him, and sent two balls through his forehead; this was the only portion of his body uncovered, the rest of it being protected by an English shield. The wretched man fell dead on the spot, and instantly all the rest in the stockade and the mosque lost courage, left their arms, and fled with all possible speed to the woods. At this same time Don Rodrigo, marching with his detachment between the slope of the hill and the river, charged the enemy so valiantly that by force he compelled them to abandon all their ships—which, for fear of us, they had hidden two days before in a broad inlet to this same river. Here they thought the ships would be safe, because they had brought them in so quietly, and because the place was so far away from the mouth of the river.

Thus in a little more than half an hour we gained possession of all below [the hill], and we would have captured the heights above on the same day, had we had all our forces, for the Moros fled in so great fright that Corralat himself had covered his face with mud so as not to be recognized by our men. This was told us by one of his servants, a Christian, who came to us the following morning, reporting a great number of Moros wounded—especially the king of the Lake, who was suffering with a bullet-wound in the breast; he had come to celebrate some marriage, that of a cousin of his with a daughter of Corralat. From this captive, and others, we learned that Corralat had desired, in any event, to surrender to the governor, but that the Christians had not consented to this, and had persuaded him to make a defense, promising that they would fight in the front rank. This promise they fulfilled, especially the day of the assault upon the hill, for it was they who did us the most injury; but they paid the penalty of this advice, not only with the property which we took from their ships, but with their lives, which the Moros themselves took in anger at their bad advice.

After the fight, the soldiers commenced to sack the houses; and the governor, having seen all the ships as far as the river above, retired with those who had accompanied him, to the mosque. Here the first thing that was done was to take the great chair of Mahomet, with his books and other paraphernalia, and burn them. What we saw when we came to take out this throne certainly surprised us; for, before we reached the fire, two most venomous serpents came out from the feet of the chair, terrifying the soldiers greatly. And truly, nothing other than serpents and poison ought to guard the chair of the great devil of Mindanao. When the chair was burned, together with all else that savored of superstition, we consecrated the mosque to our Lady with the Salve; and early the next morning (which was Saturday, the fourteenth of March), having dedicated the church to God with the title of “Our Lady of Good Fortune,” we commenced to say masses in it, at a very beautiful altar, which served us during the twelve days while we were there.

This same mosque, being very large and conveniently situated, served for headquarters; his Lordship and the other captains lodged there, the other houses round about being used for the soldiers—although our being on the bank of the river, very near the woods, and somewhat distant from the fort, brought it about that every night the Moros attacked us. Because of the continual showers of rain that fall at night, they might have given us a great deal of trouble (since we cannot use firearms when it is wet), if his Lordship’s wise arrangements and planning had not provided for everything; for after having fortified the road to the hill with a very strong ravelin guarded by soldiers, etc., great fires burned every night around the camp. The sentinels continually called out the watchword; and all the sargentos-mayor and captains, and often his Lordship himself, made the rounds. The Moros, therefore, seeing us always vigilant, dared not attack us openly, but a few of the bravest tried their fortune in attacking us, and these were often at the mouth of the river, when our men were going to or from the fleet. One night, returning from visiting the sick, I was there in a small champan, with only Captain Rodrigo and four Sangleys—who, in their fear, not seeing the way ran the boat on a shoal. It certainly was a miracle of God that the Moros did not notice this; for, if they had, they would surely have killed us. I escaped at that place another great danger, for, not knowing that by day the Moros lay continually in ambuscade in some little huts quite a distance from the fort, I went each day among them; and it pleased God that they never saw me. When his Lordship learned of these ambuscades, he ordered the huts burned.

The next day the rest of the champans and caracoas of our fleet began to arrive, and the governor at once appointed Captain Mena as head of the fleet for all the time while we should be at Mindanao. For governor of Fort St. Francis Xavier, he chose Sargento-mayor Palomino, who fortified it and put it in order, fencing it in on all sides, with its port-holes and defenses, and adding around it a hidden rampart with embrasures, so that it could contain two ranks of artillery and musketry. On this enterprise Don Pedro Hurtado de Corcuera worked very hard, for he is especially skilled in the Flemish mode of fortification; and the governor himself gave the plan for the building and his hands for the work, turning the first earth with the spade.

On this Sunday morning, his Lordship sent also to Samboanga a Moro caracoa full of our Christian prisoners and Sangleys, who had been coming in great numbers to the camp since the first day, especially on Saturday morning. At the same time, a boat came by way of the river with the Indian who had been our prisoner for many years, accompanied by twelve others of his household—his wife, his son, his father-in-law, etc., most of them Moros. At the stern of the boat was a large cross with a white flag suspended from it. This sight, you may be sure, drew tears of joy from us all, at seeing the spoils so valiantly snatched away from the great devil of Mindanao. I was caused some anxiety by the coming that Saturday morning of a certain Moro, who appeared, his whole body covered with mud, and came up the river in a small boat with two fowls, asking to be taken to the señor Aria (for thus they call the governor of these islands, this word meaning “king” in their language), for he wished to present the fowls to him with his own hand. Questioned as to the cause and motive for his coming, he said he was driven by hunger and necessity, because they had nothing to eat up on the hill; so would all have to come [to us] in a few days. Events showed this to be false, for a great quantity of provisions was found there later, confirming my suspicions and those of others. It must have been a trick contrived by the devil and his ministers against our captain-general, who, conducting himself on this occasion (as on others) with great prudence and diplomacy, commanded without seeing the man, that he should be handed over to Sosozan—a Moro who was friendly to us, and had come with us from Samboanga—who was to hand him over to the governor of the fort. This was done, and thus, without knowing it, we were saved from a great danger.

When matters at the fort and the port below were settled, and all the ships burned except three or four, which were kept to take back to Samboanga, Nicolas Gonçalez arrived, on Monday evening, the sixteenth, with the rest of our fleet. A great tempest had detained them after they passed La Silanga, in which one caracoa was lost, under Captain Sisneros, but only a boy was killed.

At once his Lordship arranged affairs for marching upon the hill the next day. He ordered that biscuit and cheese for four days be given to the soldiers; and Sargento-mayor Don Pedro, with Adjutant Don Francisco Olazaran, spent the whole night in making them confess—which confessions I received—not being content with their confessions at Samboanga.

At three o’clock in the morning masses began to be said, and at the end of the first his Lordship made an address to the soldiers, in which he manifested his great zeal for the honor of God and his military experience. We had agreed that afterward I was to display [the images of] the blessed Christ and St. Francis Xavier; but, to confess the truth to your Reverence, I had no heart for it; and therefore I decided not to do so—as it were, a presage of what was to happen to us that day.

When his talk was finished, his Lordship sent Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gonçalez with Father Melchor de Vera (who had come with him from Samboanga), with a hundred and twenty Spaniards, thirty Pampangos, and eighty Indians to carry the packs, to cut off the enemy’s retreat from the hill, and to descend by the same path to attack them. He assigned Captain Castelo to the advance-guard, and Captain Bererra with two famous spies (one a Moro, the other a Christian) to the rear-guard—ordering them to sound their trumpets beforehand, so that his Lordship might attack at the same time from the other direction, and thus they could surround the Moros. After Nicolas Gonçalez had gone, the governor drew up his troops, putting Captain Rodrigo at the head of the rest, and giving to each of the half-pay captains a troop of soldiers. The flags, a piece of artillery, the ammunition, and the provisions were with the body of the troops, and in the rear-guard were the Pampangos; Sargento-mayor Don Pedro was in the advance-guard, with Captain Don Rodrigo; Sargento-mayor Palomino remained in the camp with a goodly number of soldiers, and with the father rector of Othon as chaplain.

We all felt sure that there was no other stockade besides these two which we saw, when, at the third turn of the hill, the advance-guard came upon another, which we had not been able to see. They commenced to fight bravely from below it, but because the position of the stockade was very strong, and that of our men very cramped—hemmed in by formidable precipices, and exposed to all the guns and other weapons of the enemy (especially sompites, bacacayes, and stones)—no sooner would some of our men gain the little open place before the stockade than they would fall dead or wounded. For this reason, after having fought a good two hours, the fort could not be taken.

During this time the four priests who went up the hill—Father Juan de Barrios, the Augustinian friar, the chaplain of the fleet, and I—remained at this place, confessing the wounded and encouraging the others. On the whole march, so far, I had not chosen to unfurl the standard of the holy Christ and St. Francis Xavier; but at the time of the battle, my fervor and zeal being aroused, I did what the Holy Ghost bade me, and was thus constrained to give the banner to a soldier—who at my order went on ahead, further up the hill, to guard the person of his Lordship, who had left me in order to reconnoiter the stockade from a nearer point. A ball came, which pierced the canvas of both the sacred pictures, but without touching the figures; at that time the saint was facing the stockade, and it has been positively learned (how, I know not) that that ball was intended by the evil one to kill a great personage, and the saint who stood before him saved him from it.

Among the first wounded was Captain Ugalde, who had two bullet-wounds in his arms, and Sargento-mayor Don Pedro Hurtado de Corcuera, with a musket ball which went through his right leg; so that this valiant cavalier, being no longer able to be upon his feet, remained for a long time upon his knees, encouraging the soldiers, although he was in great danger of being killed. He was in the very spot where they had wounded Don Rodrigo de Guillestigui, who was a most distinguished soldier; for he fought continually, and remained all the time in the ditch of the stockade without coming out, even when he had a considerable wound. Alférez Amesquita succeeded in hoisting our flag over the fort, but with the utmost danger; for they nearly hurled him down, with a spear-wound in his head and several sompites in his throat. Our men were fasting, and, besides that, laden with provisions and arms, and wearied by the march (which had been more difficult than long); but, like lions, they caused the Moros much more fear in their death than if the port had been taken without bloodshed. The Moros were terrified, too, by seeing our soldiers thus obstinately keep up the battle in a slaughter-house—for this place deserves no other name. And your Reverence may be well assured that a million of Spaniards could never have gained the height; for I believe that no one can possibly picture or imagine the strength of that place unless he were present at the attack. The truth is, that they passed from courage to rashness; for, by not ceasing to fight, they changed his Lordship’s orders (or else they heard them backwards) [as if he were] commanding the leaders to rally instead of ordering a retreat. Then they counted on gaining the victory through the soldiers who were coming up behind (though most of them paid for this over-confidence with their lives), and were for a long time deceived with this hope. However, the real reason why the governor did not sooner order the retreat was that he was waiting for the instant when Nicolas Gonçalez should attack from above on the other side, for the latter had no more than three leguas to go; but, having found the road very bad, and being himself far from well, he could not get there till night. With these hopes, and with very many false tidings of victory, which were very often given, his Lordship waited, and urged on the soldiers for full two hours in a very dangerous place, exposed to all the weapons of the enemy; but, seeing many dead and wounded, he pushed his way forward, and, with great danger to himself (and to all of us, if any mishap had befallen him), reached the little open space in full sight of the stockade. There he stood, in a furious storm of bullets, stones, bacacayes, and sompites, which killed and wounded many at his side—especially his armor-bearer, through whose helmet and skull they sent a bullet. Now, having reconnoitered the place for more than half an hour, and seeing that it could not be taken by storm from this road (as a half-pay officer had told him a little while before), he expressed his annoyance at those who sought with lies to detain him and involve him more deeply, and ordered the retreat to be sounded.

Very early the next morning, I was saying mass, when cannon-shots and volleys of musketry commenced to be heard from the hill—a sign that our men were fighting. The whole camp was in a tumult, and his Lordship ordered Don Pedro to march with all the able-bodied men by the same road that they had followed the previous day, in order to divide the enemy’s forces, assuming that Nicolas Gonçalez was already engaged. I kept on with the mass, although with much difficulty, because of the many tears which the noise of the cannon called forth; and since the mass that I was saying was for our dead soldiers, I implored their blessed souls to obtain from God for us the victory for which they had spent their blood the day before. After mass, we said the full litany, and all engaged in prayer; it was an impressive thing to see the governor on his knees with tears in his eyes, his hands raised to heaven like Moses of old, praying for aid, and that the victory might come to his troops. Less than an hour had passed when two soldiers came with the news of the victory, and soon Father Melchor arrived with the enemy’s flags. I will not write of the embraces, the merrymaking, and the joy in our camp, for your Reverence can imagine it better than I can describe it. His Lordship at once gave a banner to the soldiers who had brought the news, and by him he sent [the promise of] an encomienda to Nicolas Gonçalez.

None of our men died, thanks be to God; only seven or eight were wounded, and they are now well. Don Rodrigo—who had set out that morning, as I have said, with the other troops—learning en route of the victory, sent the soldiers to Nicolas Gonçalez as reënforcements, and himself returned to the camp.

Now your Reverence will see whether we could ever have taken the camp by starvation, as they said we could; it contained grain-fields, banana patches, a brook of very pure water, and six or seven thousand baskets of rice—which for them was very extensive provision. Nicolas Gonçalez fortified himself with his troops in two places: Captain Bezerra, with fifty soldiers, occupied the king’s house which had been set aside for his Majesty [the king of Spain], and Nicolas Gonçalez remained with the rest of the forces in the principal stockade where the artillery was; while they burned all the other stockades, and the houses, rice, and grain-fields, and brought down the four pieces of artillery. This they did in two days, to the admiration of all—even of the gunners, who held it to be impossible. Those men would have abandoned them, if his Lordship had not remained firm in his intention of not going until the cannon came down—not wishing Corralat to say that the Spaniards could not bring down what he had taken up, although he did it with two thousand Indians, in six months, and our men did it in two days with four rowers [barrigas].

When, they brought him down to the camp, I was with the sick on the fleet; they told me (but not till evening, when I returned) that his Lordship had performed acts of kindness for the father, in keeping with his devotion—helping to bring him in and place him in the bed, giving him food with his own hands, washing the blood from his wounds, and comforting him with tender and loving words, especially when the surgeon commenced to treat him. Inasmuch as his clothing adhered to his wounds by reason of his having passed a day and a half without attention, the pain of pulling the garments away was very great; and, when he winced a little, his Lordship was at once at hand with the story of the passion of our Lord, and found it so efficacious that, as he afterward declared to me, the father did not utter another word, nor offer any other resistance, but exhibited the patience of a glorious martyr. I confess that I washed his wounds after his death more with tears from my eyes than with water from the river, in holy envy of the glorious way in which he had ended his pilgrimage. Before he died, I begged him to beseech God for a like death for me, or even a more painful one, in defense of His holy law. The holy man promised it, and I hope by his intercession to obtain it—although not because I deserve it, unless in return for the relief I gave his glorious wounds in the last four absolutions which I gave him with my special consolation. Surely those are fortunate fathers who have been able to show to the world, by their blood, the zeal and divine love which they bear in their bosoms.

After burying the father the next morning, Friday, March twentieth, two days after the victory, we went up the hill with his Lordship; but so great was the stench from the dead Moros in the ravines (although many still lived, judging by the cries and groans of many persons which were heard) that, almost as soon as we had reached the top and had looked at the king’s house, we returned to the camp. His Lordship then commanded that with the exception of the church ornaments, and the arms kept for his Majesty, everything should be divided among the soldiers. His Lordship did not reserve for himself or his friends even one blanca’s worth—surely an action very justly applauded, certainly, and admired because it is not now practiced among the captains-general, and because it was, I believe, the first [of its kind] in these Filipinas Islands; and it confirmed the opinion that all held of the governor, as a wholly disinterested gentleman. An enormous amount was found and divided; they say that there were many cabinets full, and very heavy; what is certain is, that the whole of Corralat’s treasure was here, and whatever he had plundered during so many years. Your Reverence does not need to be told that the soldiers came back well satisfied, and many very rich. The campaign brought them great profit; and truly they deserved it all, for they all fought most valiantly. A great chest was filled with the ornaments of the churches—sacred vessels, such as chalices, patens, monstrances, censers, chrismatories, etc.—which we have now most carefully returned to their owners; so that your Reverence was enabled to fill four floats with these ornaments, in the solemn procession which his Lordship held in Manila on Trinity Sunday, in thanksgiving to God for the victory. It troubled me, however, on the day when we climbed the hill, that I had not time to search for my beads, which I had lost on the day of the assault—when, to placate the wrath of God, I tore my cassock hastily down the middle. But the next day God chose to console me; for, on my return from visiting the sick at the camp, his Lordship gave me my beads. He had recognized them in the hand of a soldier who had found them on his way down the hill, and had given the man I know not how many pesos for them. They certainly were worth it, because they were made from the stake at which the martyrs in Japan were burned; and because they had touched the whole body of my most glorious patron saint Francis Xavier, at Goa; these are the reasons why I prize them so highly.

Truly anyone who saw the number and grievous nature of the wounds could not deny that it was a miraculous thing that out of eighty wounded only two died, aside from the three who succumbed on the night of the attack; for all the wounds contained poison, and many of them, moreover, were very deep and serious. Thus we saw the effects upon our sick of the sompites, bacacayes, and bullets—which, although they were all deadly weapons, we found on the hill [that we attacked], placed in a jar filled with poison. It is true that I availed myself of some very effective antidotes which they gave me at Manila; but the true remedy was to mix with them a little of a relic of St. Francis Xavier—which, in conjunction with the faith of those who were ill, worked wonders. Captain Maroto tested their virtues well, for he was already black in the face, and in his death-agony, when he called me to confess him and to administer the sacraments. Better still was Alférez Amesquita, who ejected through his mouth three sompites which had pierced his throat three days before, during the attack. But best of all was the case of a sargento in the same company, to whom I gave extreme unction in great haste, because he had a bullet-wound in his stomach and most of his food passed out through the wound. There are many others too, who, grievously injured at Mindanao, are now going about Manila. Only Alférez Romero and Menchaca died at Samboanga, and that was because they would not let themselves be cured.

During this time, the governor was awaiting the return of Sargento-mayor Palomino and of Captain Juan Nicolas from Bugayen. In place of resting on those days, he went in person among the soldiers, working in a ditch which he had ordered to be dug to bring to the fort a stream of fresh water, which it lacked; and now they send word from Samboanga that, by the grace of God, the water has reached them. Before putting his hand to any other work he desired, like the devout gentleman that he is, to thank God a second time for the victory, with a fiesta in honor of the blessed sacrament. And because he lacked neither the valor nor the piety of that great captain, Judas Macabeus, he ordered that the next day the funeral honors should be solemnized for his dead soldiers—although, unfortunately for these festivals, it devolved upon me to preach at both. He also published a long bulletin of gifts, offices, and rewards for those who were wounded in the campaign; and in this way so attached all the soldiery to himself that now they talk of and concern themselves with nothing else but their captain-general—even the very seamen declaring that they do not wish to avail themselves of the privilege of crossing to Nueva España, because they would miss next year’s campaign.

In this way several days were spent, until our fleet from Bugayen arrived—on Wednesday in Holy Week; and the next day, with three caracoas came the brother of the king as ambassador, to treat with his Lordship and confirm the peace negotiated by Sargento-mayor Palomino. The latter had done so because he was not able to execute the second order, which Juan Nicolas carried, who had come too late, bringing it when Moncay had agreed to as many conditions as we could desire—even to stating publicly to his followers that he wished to be the friend and vassal of the king of España, and that whoever did not desire the same must quit his villages. In accordance with this, the ambassadors offered five things to the governor in the name of the king his brother: to surrender all Christian captives; to pay tribute to his Majesty; to receive the Jesuit fathers, so that they might publicly teach his subjects the law of Jesus Christ; that if the governor wished to maintain a fort with a garrison of Spaniards in Moncay’s country, he would treat them as brothers; and that he would be the friend of their friends, the enemy of their enemies. Consequently, he would do all in his power to put a stop to Corralat’s doings, dead or alive, and to deliver him into the governor’s hands. His Lordship received the envoy in great state, seated in a chair, surrounded by the most brilliant of the army, in elegant and splendid array. The ambassador sat on one end of the same carpet, astonished at the magnificence of our captain-general and his soldiers. The captain-general commanded the governor of the fort to entertain the envoy at his own house, and sent later, for his delectation, some cocoanuts and chickens. He gave him some very beautiful pieces of silk; but for a captured sargento whom the ambassador gave back in the name of the king his brother, he said that he would give nothing, because that soldier was a vassal of the king of España. The ambassador was importunate that he should send Moncay something, at least some of his own weapons. His Lordship replied that up to this time Moncay had been an enemy, and that, as such, nothing was due him; but that he must begin to give proofs of his friendship, by immediately sending us his captives, etc.; and then he would very soon experience the governor’s liberality. He offered him two thousand pesos if he delivered up Corralat dead, and four thousand if alive. This news was received by the Moro with great pleasure, on account of the greed for money which possesses those people; so that I am sure, considering this, that Corralat’s days are few. On Saturday in Holy Week, his Lordship being ready to embark, he came to dismiss the ambassador, and to receive the documents and articles of peace, signing them in the envoy’s presence. At the end, while his Lordship, to do honor to him at the final farewell, was embracing him, the Moro told him most gratefully that at the end of four moons (they designate months thus) he would come to see him at Manila—news which consoled me greatly, because of the facility that it will afford your Reverence to send workers to so abundant a harvest.

Then all the artillery was discharged, the fleet responding; and, when his Excellency the governor had embarked, we set sail for Manila, and the ambassador for Bugayen. At the same time Captain Juan Nicolas and Captain Juan de León departed with a company of a hundred Spaniards and a thousand Indians, with the command that, after having accompanied the ambassador of Bugaien to his own land, they should go on and make the circuit of the island of Mindanao, as far as Dapitan, destroying and burning all the villages that would not submit to our arms. The father rector of Dapitan, and the Augustinian friar who had come as confessor for the Pampangos, were chaplains for this fleet.

On the same day Father Gregory Belin with Captain Sisneros departed from Samboanga for the island of Basilan, for a reason which I will explain to your Reverence. This island—lying in front of our fort, and two leguas away from it—has three or four thousand tributarios who pay to the king of Jolo, although they have always desired to be tributary to his Majesty. The chiefs of the islands came lately to render their obedience to the governor; he thereupon commanded that the governor of the fort should protect the aforesaid tributarios, and defend them from Jolo, until the next year, when he would subject Jolo also by force of arms to the same tribute. When this was proclaimed, two hundred Joloan chiefs, with all their households, came to a near-by island, intending to cross over and live in Samboanga and be our vassals. But they wished to know his Lordship’s pleasure; so the aforesaid captain with Father Belin went to assure them of their safety and take them to the fort, where, he trusted in God, they would now be well instructed and become favorably inclined to holy baptism. Because his Lordship had no fathers to send to Basilan, he wrote to Father Francisco Angel that, by virtue of the very far-reaching grant which he has from your Reverence, he should at once cross from the island of Negros to Samboanga. Here the governor of the fort would give him soldiers for his body-guard, and all else necessary for the promulgation of the holy gospel in the aforesaid island—where, as I have said, he had already gone most joyfully, as the father rector of Othon informed me; for the principal motive of his coming from España to these Filipinas Islands was the mission to Mindanao. But that father could not minister alone to the whole island; besides, at Samboanga there are but two fathers—Father Melchor de Vera, who on account of his frequent attacks of illness can scarcely take care of everything at the fort which his Lordship entrusted to him, as a person well skilled in such matters; and Father Gregory Belin, [who is busy] in caring for the whole garrison, of which he is chaplain. So the many villages of Moros that are in the vicinity of the fort, such as La Caldera, etc., have no one to instruct them. The king also of Sibuguey (a river [whose valley is] much more fertile and abundant than La Panpanga) himself came, while we were in Mindanao, to the governor to ask for terms of peace and for priests. His son has come now, with the [Spanish] galleons from Terrenate, to be educated in Manila; and in like manner the other chiefs are coming every day, since the miserable downfall of the principal king of these islands, Corralat, who held almost all in tyrannical subjection, and as tributarios. Even the king of Jolo sent Dato Achen (his especial favorite, and the most gallant and valorous captain that we have seen among the Moros) with letters to his Lordship, to confirm the terms of peace which his wife herself had come with our captain, to negotiate the year before—excusing himself for not having come in person by saying that he was expecting a fleet with which the king of Burney was coming to make war on him, being an ally of his enemies the Camucones.

This is all that concerns our expedition to Mindanao, except the return journey to Manila—which, being long and dangerous, caused us much suffering. For if we came across any island, we had perforce to sail all the way around it; and if we wished to go in any given direction the wind instantly put itself dead ahead, with three or four baguios [i.e., hurricanes]—which are violent tempests. At the islands of Negros, Mindoro, and Marinduque it was a divine miracle, through the special protection of St. Francis Xavier, that we escaped all the dangers, especially the one that we encountered at Mindoro. Our mast broke, and a huge wave rushed over our stern so suddenly, so unexpectedly to the pilots and sailors that they, seeing it coming over the sea from a distance, hastily summoned me to exorcise it, which I did. It can assuredly have been of no other than diabolic origin, to declare as the author of so many attacks, hindrances, and contrary circumstances the great devil of Mindanao, whom his Lordship had just so valiantly wrested from his seat.

But if the work of the enemy was evident in our dangers, much more manifest and clear was the divine protection and that of our saint in these same perils—as when it saved us from some rocky shoals just off Manila, where we would inevitably have run aground; and from a champan which sprang a leak, from which, without knowing about the leak, we shifted our quarters a day before. There are many other instances which I will not mention, that your Reverence may not be wearied. Twice we stopped on the way for provisions to refresh the sick—once at Iloilo, where our fathers entertained us; the other time at Panay, at the invitation of Captain and Alcalde-mayor Don Francisco de Frias. At last, since the winds were wholly contrary and his Lordship had suffered so much on the way, he resolved to disembark in Tayabas, with Sargento-mayor Don Pedro, his nephew, and Captain Lorenço Ugalde, both being ill and in need of a surgeon’s services. From this place we traveled by land for two days, as far as the lake [i.e., Laguna de Bay]; going from there by the [Pásig] River, we reached Manila on May nineteenth. I halted at San Miguel, and the sick remained at Manila, while his Lordship went on the same night to Cavite, where the armada had orders to await him. The whole fleet, by God’s protection, arrived safely within four days; and so on Sunday the governor made his entry with the pomp and magnificence which your Reverence saw. I know not whether many remarked on the events of that day, but this is the fact, that of all the champans but one was lacking—that of Captain Gabriel Niño de Tabora, which was carrying some large cannon of the enemy’s; and when his Lordship reached Manila by one route, from Cavite, to make his entry, Don Gabriel Niño arrived, by another, from Mariveles. In this it seems that God chose to show His special providence by bringing all the fleet in without the loss of anything, small or great, from the spoils. Blessed and praised forever be His holy name, who through the valor, zeal, and Christian devotion of this gallant knight, has glorified Himself by granting at the same time relief to the islands, and punishment to the arrogance of these Moros. Events showed plainly the truth of the revelation which that holy servant of God received with regard to the coming of this governor, for the complete deliverance and salvation of this conquered land. May our Lord give him life and health, that he may finish what he had undertaken with so much spirit and courage for the glory of His Divine Majesty.

The humble servant and obedient son of your Reverence: