Volume 37 — CHAPTER IX
Reading edition
Events of the years 1651 and 1652.
[Manila had been in distress for some years because of the loss of various galleons, and because of the unfortunate temperament of the governor, Diego Fajardo, and his consequent governing through his favorite.]
Those who suffered most from his harsh and violent acts were the [fathers of the] order of our father, St. Augustine, the cause of his wrath being that they had refused to elect as provincial one of their members who was acceptable and dear to him. Although the abilities of that father made him merit the office, yet it was not allowable that it be conferred by that method, so strictly forbidden by the sacred counsels and canons. Consequently, his wrath was aroused against the order of our father St. Augustine, and he sent malicious reports against it to his Majesty in the royal and supreme Council of the Indias, in letters apparently signed by Governor Don Diego Fajardo—who, when he waked from that lethargy, declared under oath that they were not his. At our petition, the following governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, made a full investigation before Auditor Don Álvaro García de Ocampo, the commissioned judge, in January, 1654—which proved that all that was charged by the said favorite against the order was false. He sent that report to the said royal and supreme Council, and a copy of it is kept in our archives.
The divine clemency did not choose that the troubles of afflicted Manila should go further. Therefore He encouraged and strengthened our father Fray Jerónimo de Medrano—who had been provincial of this province of ours for three terms, and was its true father—to penetrate the deep retirement of the deluded governor (in whom the father’s virtue and age had inspired some affection and considerable veneration). He informed the governor of the truth with efficacious arguments, showing him the deceit in which the cunning of the favorite had kept him buried, while he yielded to the violent operations of the ambition and cruelty of that man, injuring his own reputation. Divine Providence permitted him to open the eyes of the deceived governor, because of the favorable idea that the latter had formed of the accuser; and, seeing that his honor and his conscience were being endangered, he made the investigations on his part that were necessary, in order not to discredit his determination as being precipitate. He found all that father Fray Jerónimo de Medrano had said, and much more, to be true. Thereupon, he resolved to come to himself, for the sake of the community of Manila, and had his favorite arrested, September 16, 1651. Formulating legal proceedings against him for the crimes that he had committed, he questioned him under torture, in which the prisoner answered nothing—either because of his great courage, or because he had taken some confection of opium, which they purposely gave him to drink, and which has so narcotic a virtue that it renders those who drink it insensible to pain.
Among many other injuries that the said favorite had done to the citizens of Manila was this, that he caused the governor to hold back the reward that his Majesty granted to General Don Pedro de Almonte, [in appointing him] master-of-camp, with the bestowal of the habit of Santiago, for his great services in Ternate, Mindanao, and Joló (some of which we have mentioned before in this history). [Don Diego did so] because that favorite had risen to the said post (the second after the governor of Filipinas), as the regularly-appointed master-of-camp, Don Fernando de Ayala—a brave soldier of Flandes in the time of the count of Fuentes, who added so great luster to the Spanish arms—had died in the beginning [of his term].
The governor surrendered the appointment to Don Pedro de Almonte, and put him in possession of the government of the army as its master-of-camp. Also, as a professed knight of the Order of Santiago, he gave him his habit in the convent of Santa Clara for the consolation of a daughter who was a nun there. The prior of our convent of Manila, Fray Dionisio Suárez, was present at the ceremonies that were celebrated at the said function.