Volume 34 — LETTER FROM FRANCISCO DE ORTEGA TO THE VICEROY

Your Excellency: May the grace and consolation of the Holy Ghost dwell forever in the soul of your Excellency. Last year I wrote a report and an account to your Excellency of the affairs of this region, in fulfilment of the directions given me by your Excellency when I came to this country. Since in the previous report I wrote at length, I shall be brief in this one, referring to the other one and to the statements in it for the explanation of some things which I say here. I ratify anew everything that I have said, and purpose now to give information to your Excellency of what has happened in this country since my last writing. I have accordingly to inform you that on August 13, of last year, there set sail two vessels named “Santiago” and “San Juan.” One week later, namely, the twenty-first of the said month, our Lord took from this life by sudden death the adelantado and governor, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (may he be in glory). His death was greatly deplored and is so even at the present day, for doubtless his valor and wisdom have been greatly needed. Those who regarded him as wicked in his life will now canonize him as a saint. I believe that he is in glory or on the way to it, for he was a good Christian and if he erred in some things, I believe that he desired to do right, while in some other things he did the best he could. He died poor, which is a great evidence of his goodness. That was a cause for great confusion to those who regarded him as very rich, and who were murmuring about him saying that he had a chest of gold and more than 25,000 pesos in tostons. All that he was found to have on the day of his death was 460 pesos in two little sacks. These he had asked as a loan a few days before. He had also in gold about 120 pesos not counting one large chain and one small one which he brought from his own land. He had also the wrought silver of his table service. All the rest of this was not worth 500 pesos. This is the whole of the wealth and treasure which he had. Of this fact I am practically an eyewitness, for I was present at his death and at the inventory of his property. Three days after he had died his grandson, Captain Joan de Salzedo, came from the opposite coast of the island, where he had been three months, having gone by the direction of the governor to explore that country and to pacify the people who lived in it. He brought back very good news from there, though he could not give it to him who had sent him out, and hence great sorrow was caused to him who brought the news and even to the rest. They reported that the population there was large and that there were many good settlements close to one another and that they were better ordered and governed than in the other parts. They said that there were villages with 300 or 400 houses together, some more and some less, and that there was among them one village that seemed to contain more than three thousand houses, and another with 800, where he left his alférez with thirty-five soldiers while he came to tell the news and to make an extended report. He accomplished one thing which astonished everybody, because without doubt it was a very daring and courageous exploit. This was to attempt to circumnavigate the island, which he accomplished in two tiny boats with 15 soldiers. These boats did not draw one palmo of water. They are called barangays in this country and are rowed with very short oars by Indians seated in the boat. Though these vessels are of this character, and the sea of that coast is so rough that not one of the natives, as they say, has ventured to navigate it, still he dared to do it in order to know and see what there is on the opposite coast. He suffered great hardships but God delivered him from all of them. His boat was ofttimes almost swamped, and he and the others with him on the point of drowning. Finally he sailed one hundred leguas, coasting along the island to the point of his settlement, and he has explored and circumnavigated it. In all the length of that coast there was not a single village nor one Indian, for the whole country is desolate where they supposed there would be a great many people.

They also said in the beginning that in the province of Ylocos and in the other three provinces which were explored on the opposite coast and which they declare that they have pacified, there were more than four hundred thousand Indians, and that there were enough to afford repartimientos for all those who are in these regions. Now they declare that there are not enough for forty soldiers, according to the account which they bring back from there, for according to them there are not as many as 40,000 Indians. I say this so that your Excellency may see how closely this report conforms to the others which I wrote in my former letter, and that your Excellency may be informed and may know the truth if it should not be written [by others] from here.

It seems to me also desirable to inform your Excellency how and in what manner they send the present of gold to his Majesty, that you may understand the wealth of this country and the service rendered him in it by them, and how that gold was got. In accordance with what has been related and declared above, the quantity would be at most about 30,000 pesos; and how little appropriate it is to send this quantity of pesos as a present, and to send as many more debts to the royal treasury of this country is very clear. It is also very clear and plain that this present is a trifling one after the royal treasury has spent more than two millions or but little less as I am informed, within the fifteen years since the expense of this expedition [i.e., Legazpi’s] began. How far from the royal magnanimous, Caesarean, and more than Alexandrine heart of our king, Don Ffelipe, this present is, is so plain that the blind could see it and the most ignorant judge it; hence on this point I do not ask your Excellency to form a judgment, but I do ask you to decide what reward it deserves from a king so Catholic as ours to make him a present and a payment into his treasury of what has been robbed and wrung [from the natives] contrary to what God and the king himself have commanded. In conformity with what your Excellency with your delicate and most Christian conscience may feel and judge in this matter, will you send thanks in the royal name. How much more would God our Lord and his Majesty be served if the gold which is sent to him as a present were worn on the arms of the Indians of the Ylucos to whom it belonged, than that the ladies of our lady the queen should wear it about their necks in the court.

This has been said partly that your Excellency might know what takes place here and might understand the way in which this present was sent to his Majesty, and partly to state again that, in spite of the wealth which they will say and write to your Excellency as existing in Ylucos and the other provinces, when his Majesty shall have paid the expenses of this region, he will receive no lawful and Christian profit from these islands, except perhaps the cinnamon which is taken from the island of Bindanao as it is now taken, unless the gold mines in these regions are worked. I believe that they will not be worked except with the great oppression and loss of the natives, and that will mean their total destruction, for experience has undeceived us in this matter by what has happened in the island of Española and in other regions.

If your Excellency should not send and provide another governor for these islands, it would be just for your Excellency to have our present governor ordered to take care to protect the affairs of the adelantado, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (may he be in glory), since he governed this country with so great quietness and prudence, spent upon it his own property, and died poor in the service of his Majesty. That is very just, as is also that particular care be taken to show kindness and favor to Captain Joan de Salzedo, inasmuch as he is one of those who have labored most in this country and have shown the greatest zeal in the service of his Majesty. He is very spirited and energetic, and for a man so young, very cautious and prudent, and he has good desires and purposes to serve God and his Majesty. Hence some office might be assigned and entrusted to him. Therefore, any favor that your Excellency may extend or may command to be shown him will be very well conceded; although the governor has given him but scant reward, since he has given as much or more to a private soldier, as has already been said, by which he has given rise to comment and occasion to murmuring.