Note 98 — Chapter XXXII

During all of Don Diego Salcedo’s term of office, which lasted for five years, there was little satisfaction for the community of Manila, for the commerce of China which is the most necessary thing was very slight, because of the wars which Sipuán, the son of Kuesing, waged with the Tartars; and consequently the champan that came from China was very rare indeed. The inhabitants of Manila were very greatly dissatisfied with his government, for they thought that he was hindering their interests by preferring his own—the ordinary complaint against the governors. Since the merchandise was but little in that time, all could not be satisfied—a matter almost impossible for those who govern, and especially in these islands, where he who has the supreme command is regarded as guilty of all the disasters. Added to this, he had had disputes with the municipal corporation of the city; for he tried to give his captain of the guard, Don Juan de Ezquerra, a public seat with the cabildo, and he had arrested the alcalde-in-ordinary, General Don Sebastián Rayo Doria, over that matter. But what the citizens regretted most keenly was the loss of their wealth—for the governor bought at wholesale most of the merchandise, by the hand of his factor Gaspar Ruiz de Aguayo—and the repeated voyages which Juan de Ezquerra made to Batavia at his account, in which they had no part or profit. It is certain that a fine intelligence was wasted in that gentleman; but his mind swelling with pride on account of his great authority made the citizens despise him, and from that he finally became hated.98 Consequently he had a fatal end, namely, arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition through the father commissary, Fray José de Paternina.99 And inasmuch as I am in duty bound to mention that imprisonment, I shall only relate what belongs to the matter, as my obligation includes nothing else.