Note 5 — Bañuelos y Carrillo’s Relation
Reading edition
The following letter from the Sevilla archives (“Cartas y espedientes del gobernador de Filipinas vistos en el Consejo; años 1629 á [1640]; est. 67, caj. 6, leg. 8”), contains an interesting reference to Bañuelos’s relation, and also suggests the well-known deficiencies in Thevenot’s “translations.” It is to be feared that he has omitted much valuable matter from Bañuelos’s account; but no other source is available:
“I return the paper which your Lordship sent me, concerning the military exploit in Mindanao, which was written and sent, as appears, by Father Marcelo Mastrili. Although its contents must be true, and it is well written, yet as your Lordship knows, the Council thought it advisable not to have it printed until they could compare it with the letters that the governor had written about the same exploit, and with others written by various persons, which make it out to have been of little value and importance. They even attempt to say that we have lost rather than gained in that campaign—particularly in a discourse or treatise printed in Mexico by Don Geronimo de Bañuelos y Carrillo, and addressed to your Lordship. In it he declares that those who were conquered were not Moros, but certain poor Indians; I do not know whether [he says this] from zeal for the truth, or because he has little affection for the governor. He wounds him quite to the quick in this and in other things. I was making an abstract of them in order to report to the Council, as I was ordered; but today, on going out, Don Juan Grao Monfalcon told me that he is at present printing another report, to oppose that of Bañuelos. I do not know who has given permission for it, nor that, in the care of the relation of Father Mastrili, there is anything that is not well understood. What the Council discussed was (as I have said), only whether it is exact and faithful to what happened; and of this I have not yet been able to form a sufficient judgment or idea. I am getting new documents hourly from the secretary’s office, and I shall detain them until the one that I am now enclosing is returned, if convenient. May God preserve your Lordship, as we your servants desire. Today, Tuesday, February eight, one thousand six hundred and thirty-nine.
Don Juan de Solorzano Pereira”
“The count, my master, has ordered me to send again to your Lordship the enclosed relation of his success from the governor of Filipinas, in order that there may be progress in the deliberations of the Council on this question. May God preserve your Lordship, as I desire. Buen Retiro, February 16, 639.
Antonio Carnero”
“I return these papers to your Grace, so that you may continue what you were doing. May God preserve your Grace. My house, February 16, 1639.”