Note 66 — Chapter LX

On September 13, 1637, fathers Fray Guillermo Cortet, Fray Miguel Oçaraça and Fray Vicente de la Cruz, dressed in secular clothes, were brought from Satzuma to Nangasaqui, to be tried for their crime. Father Fray Antonio Gonçalez was not with them, having sailed in another vessel, and not having yet arrived. They answered boldly, declaring that they had had no assistance from any government; and that their very pilot had been a religious who had known something of seamanship before entering the order. They were subjected to terrible torture, especially the torture of water, which they bore bravely. Their tortures were prolonged, and the text describes them with fulness. On the twenty-first of the same month, father Fray Antonio Gonçalez, the superior of the religious, arrived in Nangasaqui in another funea. He was accompanied by two lay companions—one a mestizo, the son of a Chinese man and an Indian woman; the other a Japanese, who had been exiled for the faith.66 As soon as father Fray Antonio set foot on the soil, he made the sign of the cross, in sight of all the Portuguese trading there and of a great multitude of people. The holy father, being of noble stature, towered above the company about him like another Saul. He was taken directly before the judges, confessed who he was, was cruelly tortured, and subjected to insult. The mestizo at first feared the torments, but afterward plucked up his courage to endure them. The Japanese wretchedly fell away from fear. Father Fray Antonio suffered the torture of water, to which he was subjected when he was very sick of a fever; and he died in the prison, his body being burnt and the ashes cast into the sea. On the twenty-seventh of the month the prisoners were taken out to be martyred, being gagged to prevent their preaching. They were all suspended by the feet, and while they hung in their pits they chanted praises to God; and the ministers of justice, in admiration of their courage, caused them to be taken out from the holes still alive and to be beheaded, that they might no longer suffer torture. The ashes of the five holy martyrs were cast into the sea, three leguas from the port of Nangasaqui, on the same day, September 29, 1637.]