Note 38 — Chapter XXXII

[There were three of our religious in Japon at this time, who comforted the Christians and kept in hiding from the ministers of the law. It was with great difficulty that they could be assisted. In the year 1628 the four religious orders in these islands, the Franciscans, the calced Augustinians, the Recollect Augustinians, and our order, put forth all their energies to send religious to Japon as secretly as possible. The expense was enormous, amounting to more than ten thousand pesos from the common purse of these four orders. They embarked twenty-four religious; among these were six of our holy order, one of whom died after two days of sailing—father Fray Antonio Corbera, a native of La Mancha, who had come within a short time to the Philippinas from the college of San Gregorio at Valladolid. The ship was wrecked by the carelessness of the pilot. Though the fathers escaped from drowning, two of ours died from injuries received in the wreck, and from sunstroke after reaching land. One was father Fray Antonio Cañizares, a native of Almagro and a son of the convent of our order there, who had labored nobly among the Indians of these regions for some years.38 The other was father Fray Juan de Vera, a native of the city of Sancta Fee in the kingdom of Granada. He studied in España at the convent of San Pablo at Valladolid. He came to this province, learned the Chinese language, and was occupied in the ministry to the Chinese when he was assigned to this duty. The Franciscan fathers, not dismayed by the failure of this enterprise, strove to make the journey to Japon by themselves. During two years, no news reached us from Japon, except that the persecution had attained such a point that not even a letter could get in or out.