Note 15 — EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1668

The tyrant remained in constant mistrust at seeing that although he held the auditor Don Francisco de Montemayor a prisoner in the castle at the port of Cavite, he was distant not more than three leguas from this city, and that he might make his escape some night and cross the bay in some little vessel and come to join Señor Coloma; then they could form a quorum of the Audiencia and punish the lawless acts that he had committed. In order to prevent such a suspected emergency, he determined to exile the auditor15 to the province of Oton, or to some other at a distance of more than 200 leguas from this city; and this was done, the blow being inflicted on December 30 of the past year 1668 (the tyrant adopting the nefarious scheme of his notary, Tomas de Palenzuela y Zurbaran) with a party of paid soldiers without the poor devil knowing where his voyage ended. For this purpose, the notary carried to the castellan of the said port of Cavite16 (a confidant of the usurper) an order that he should, as soon as he had received it, command his sargento-mayor, Captain Juan Gomez de Paiba, to go with a sufficient number of soldiers and the notary to take away from the fort the auditor Don Francisco de Mansilla and place him aboard the champan which was already prepared for this voyage. When they undertook to execute the said order against the person of the said auditor, the latter notified the sargento-mayor not only once but several times to be careful what he did, since a mere sargento-mayor was not the person to arrest a councilor of his Majesty; that this matter belonged to no inferior official, and that he would not go without an order from the royal court. He declared that if his person were treated with disrespect, he would regard the officer as a traitor to the king; and as the civil governor (which he is) he ordered him to summon the castellan, for he already imagined evil to himself. The sargento-mayor went out, and came back with the same order—adding that if the auditor refused to go on board willingly they would place him in the ship by force. They had stubborn controversies; then the father vicar of St. Dominic at the said port came up and advised the auditor what was best for him at the present time, regarding which they did not agree. Finally the sargento-mayor ordered, since his castellan had thus commanded, that four soldiers, the strongest in his detachment, should attack the auditor. The latter defended himself for a long time with a small staff that he had in his hand, declaring and protesting that any man who should dare to injure his person was a traitor to the king; but finally he gave up exhausted, and they carried him aboard the champan—which immediately set sail without giving him opportunity to take with him anything, whether clothing or comforts, for his personal use. All this occurred at nine o’clock at night on the said day, December 30—the poor gentleman leaving his house and his family of marriageable daughters unprotected, in unending affliction and tears, without knowing to what place their father had been banished.17