Note 5 — Chapter II

740. More force is given to this argument if one considers that, even in carrying on missions in infidel lands, our religious could not suffer greater hardships than those which they endure in the said ministries. That it may be seen that this is not imagination, I shall give a rough outline of what happened recently from the year 1720 until the present. I shall do it as briefly as possible, for those regrettable tragedies will occasion great extension to this history in due time. It is well known that our villages are the most exposed to the invasions of the Moros; consequently, they always serve as the theater of war and as the object of disasters. In the said year, then, they attacked the province of Calamiánes with a powerful fleet. Landing on the island of Linacapán they burned the village, convent, and church; outraged the sacred images; and killed with lance-thrusts the venerable father, Fray Manuel de Jesus Maria, a native of Lupiana in Alcarria—while another religious who was there was able to escape miraculously, at the cost of incredible hardships that he suffered, by hiding in the mountain. In the year 1721 they did the same thing in the village and island of La-Agutáya,5 and in Manàol, which is located in the island of Mindóro. The evangelical ministers fled thence in a small boat and thus saved their lives, although after very prolonged hardships; and from there they took refuge in the mountains, in order to endure, without other relief than that of God, the discomforts that one can imagine. In the year 1722 the Moros landed on the island of Cúyo, and although they could not take the redoubt, for the Indians (captained by our religious) defended it bravely, one can imagine what the latter suffered in a siege so immeasurably prolonged. In the year 23, the Moros bordering on the province of Carágha besieged the presidio of Catél. Father Fray Benito de San Joseph, son of Casál de Cáceres in Estremadura, who, as its minister, undertook to attend to its defense, was left so exhausted from the fatigues of war in which no relief came, that after the retreat of the Moros, he lived but little longer; for he gave up his soul to God amid the plaudits of victory. Almost at the same time, in the island of Camiguín, the religious were compelled to hide in the mountains, where they were besieged by many fears. In Parágua, they killed father Fray Juan de la Purificacion (a native of Atéa in the kingdom of Aragon) with an insidious poison. The invasions of the said Mahometans were continual until the year 30 through Calamiánes and other districts; for, although they were not seen in large fleets, a great number of pirates were never lacking, and they caused those persecuted ministers repeated troubles. But in the above-mentioned year they had the boldness to assault the presidio of Taytáy6 with such swiftness and fury that two of the three religious who were there succeeded by great good luck, and without any preparation, in retiring afoot to the mountains; while the other, only saving the chalices and ciborium, retired to the redoubt where he suffered the hardships of the siege.