Note 18 — EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1668

The usurper made strenuous efforts to learn who had consented to his having, by securing the command and authority, trampled on the obedience that was due and which he ought to give to the commands of the royal court; and, as he succeeded in learning that I was one of those who most keenly resented his acts—with some other gentlemen, although not many—and that I had rendered obedience to the royal decree which the auditors had sent me and had very carefully observed it while they were in power, he conceived a special hatred against those who were of my opinion. This was particularly directed against me on account of my not having displayed and showed to him the royal decree, which, as I say, I hold; another reason was, because I had said as I now say, that the commissary of the Holy Office could not carry out the arrest of Don Diego without consulting the supreme authority—except in a case where he feared the flight [of the accused]. And even if any governor intended to act thus, the [interference of the] Holy Office was not necessary, since the royal Audiencia was more than sufficient to secure his person. But I do not say that the father commissary may not have sufficient authority to make, as he did, the said arrest. For this reason, and because I am a loyal vassal of his Majesty, with a few other gentlemen toward whom the usurper felt no good-will, he [treated us as he did] without further cause than the deposition of a captain named Don Juan Manuel de Corcuera. This man declared that his comrade, Captain Don Luis de Matienzo, had told him that Don Diego had sent to a lady a list containing the names of those who were loyal, in order that they might release him from the rigorous imprisonment in which he was and is,18 and replace him in his command and government. He said that the said Captain Luis disclosed it to him, and showed the said list to General Don Fernando de Bobadilla, charging him to make me acquainted with it, in order to make arrangements for setting his Lordship at liberty. The usurper found [in this a] means for his vengeance, and accordingly gave immediate information to the father commissary, his intimate friend—who on December 13 of the past year 68, about eight o’clock at night, ordered that all of us concerned therein or on the [above] list should be arrested.19 This order was executed during the day-break watch, and we were placed in this fortress of Santiago—General Fernando de Bobadilla, a well-known gentleman of Sevilla; Sargento-mayor Don Nicolas Sarmiento y Paredes; and myself. In other dungeons, in the guard-house, they confined Admiral Juan de Ytamarrin; the captain of cuirassiers, Don Antonio Lopez de Quirós (who was in Flandes); and Captain Don Luis de Matienzo, a dependant of his Lordship. The strictest orders were given [to our guards] on penalty of death, that no one could see us or speak to us, and besides, to keep us all in strongly-riveted fetters, and in dark and close dungeons.