Note 30 — Chapter X

In a private meeting of the definitors which was held in the convent of Tondo, December 22, father Fray Francisco de Victoria,30 prior of that convent, was appointed procurator to España with the same commissions and authority which had been borne by father Fray Juan Lozano, who died the preceding year on the voyage to Acapulco. But father Fray Francisco de Victoria had the same fortune, for he embarked the next year and died on the high sea, en route to Nueva España. That voyage is very dangerous to those who are accustomed to the climate of the Philippines, because of the great change which is experienced as the galleon ascends to a high northern latitude (sometimes as high as forty degrees), and then again descends to sixteen, in which lies the port of Acapulco. Therefore, that so sudden change is the cause of many dying on that voyage, which is the longest, most tedious, and most dangerous in all the seas. It is undertaken in the most stormy season, when navigation is denied to the rest of the world; and, in that time, the months of October and November are the season when our galleons are battling with the greatest tempests. If it were not for the great strength of the galleons and the quality of their timbers, that so dangerous navigation could not be performed; and above all is their safety due to divine Providence, in whose charge is the conservation of these islands, where there is so numerous and excellent a Christian people. They apparently serve as a counterpoise to the ingratitude of the European nations of the north, who, at the same time when these islands were discovered, had been seduced by various heresies, and denied obedience to the Roman Catholic Church and their legitimate kings.