Volume 39 — Official Visitation by Valdivia

An account of the occurrences in Manila on the occasion of the arrival of the [royal] visitor, Don Francisco Campos de Valdivia.

The archbishop, seeing that God was on his side, concluded to give a public atonement to the church. In the courtyard of our church was erected a stage, on which sat his illustrious Lordship and his cabildo; one day at twelve o’clock he laid an interdict throughout the city, and on the following day were present all the culprits who had concurred in violating the sacred persons and places—in a body, without swords. They were absolved, with scourges [varillas] and miserere, and afterward his illustrious Lordship restored them to the church. Then the next day a procession was formed, accompanied by our Lady of the Rosary. For the morrow there was a sermon, at which the governor and the city were present; and in the afternoon, for the procession, all the Audiencia, and the archbishop, etc.

The visitor sent Don Juan de Vargas to Pangasinan, as excommunicated, since he had refused to submit to the sentence of his illustrious Lordship; he is still there, and will remain there. He is not going to España, as he has not paid the amount to which he was sentenced, which the visitor imposed upon him on account of the residencia, in either silver or jewels; nor has he provided securities for it. As for what concerns the residencia, the sum will be about one hundred thousand pesos; in this decision the judge has, in the opinion of all, proceeded most mercifully. The king’s fiscal has been banished to the island of Mariveles until the ship sails. The dean, Don Miguel Ortiz de Cobarrubias, was involved in the libels that were current last year, and in other matters against the archbishop, in contravention of what he had decreed—as he said under oath when they absolved him; accordingly he was arrested, and came out of prison deprived of all ecclesiastical benefice. Our Fray Raimundo Bertist [i.e., Berart] also is going to España. The schoolmaster, Don Francisco Briçeno, was also deprived of all benefice on account of his talk, and sentenced to perpetual seclusion in a convent, from which he will not emerge unless he takes the vows; they say that he is going into [the convent of] San Agustin. Very recently occurred the fall of another member of the usurping cabildo, who in my opinion was the worst of them; but he has escaped, through his crafty devices. This is Don José de Nava y Albiz, a racionero. They discovered that some sessions of the cabildo had been held without informing the new dean and canons, in opposition to his illustrious Lordship; also they found a libel against the archbishop and our religious order. The treasurer Valencia is also entangled in this matter. I do not know how the affair will end; they will find themselves in bad health if God preserves the archbishop.

Of the four dignitaries who came with the visitor, the two auditors and the fiscal ranged themselves on the side of the governor, Don Juan de Vargas; and when excommunication was laid on those who should have intercourse with him, these persons went in and out, entirely disregarding this, and causing great scandal. On this account the visitor challenged them in a suit which the party of Vargas carried to the Audiencia; and for the same reason the archbishop kept challenging them in regard to ecclesiastical affairs. The fiscal married the widow of the auditor Grimaldos. The other of those auditors—who is the senior, and who is now governing—has much fear of God; and he is all the more discreet and experienced for having been judge in Burgos.

Among other calamities which this community has suffered, not the least is the death of the governor, Don Gabriel de Curuzalegui, who died April 27; for the political government depends on so many heads that, as there is little concord among them and they are young men, much trouble is feared.

In this year, toward the end of January, God sent us an epidemic of influenza, very malignant, from which many children and old persons died throughout the islands. The prominent persons who have died in this city are: Don Francisco Beza, archdeacon of the cathedral; Gallardo, who died suddenly in prison; Master Don Pablo de Aduna, Don Francisco de Ocampo, and others. The governor died poor, and with many debts—a proof of his upright conduct. All feel that these islands have not had [in that post] a man who was more disinterested, or who took better care of the royal exchequer and the credit of the church. God repaid him for this, since our king sent him several letters of thanks for what he had accomplished—especially for having brought back the archbishop to his see, and secured the removal of that monster, the usurping government of the cabildo. The supreme pontiff wrote letters to the archbishop, thanking him for what he had done and suffered, and encouraging him for what was before him—saying that he himself is imitating him, and using very affectionate terms.

Relation of events in Filipinas arising from the coming of a visitor

The said visitor began his investigation, and for it demanded that the court notaries should immediately surrender to him the original documents of all the past disputes between the Audiencia and archbishop, appeals [on the ground] of fuerza, and other causes; of these he furnished a list. Then, in a few days, taking the declaration of the said fiscal of the king, the visitor brought charges against him, and commanded that he should go into banishment on the island of Mariveles, and from that place should answer the charges. In the intervening time while his cause was being prepared, a chaplain said mass in his house; and the archbishop despatched a letter threatening to place him on the public list of the excommunicated, unless he first drew up and signed the same expressions of detestation that Don Pedro de Bolivar had made, commanding that no priest should be allowed to say mass for him; and thus was repaid his good services to his illustrious Lordship during the entire term of the governor Don Gabriel. At the beginning, Don Esteban resisted; but seeing that he had no human recourse, and that, when he demanded counsel from the visitor, that person gave him to understand that he must do it, he had to yield under compulsion, and do what was commanded him. Another strong reason why he consented to do it was, that he might not go to his destination as an excommunicate; he went thither absolved, leaving the said act of detestation dated and signed, to the pleasure and satisfaction of the archbishop.

So frequent were now the visits of the reverend Verart, and so close was his intimacy with the visitor, that he did not leave the latter’s house by day or even by night—so that it was soon rumored that the said Father Verart was the one who acted and took the management in the inquiries, investigations, and charges which were made in regard to those who were included therein by the worthy visitor. This has been made more certain by time, not only by information and occurrences which have come to our knowledge, but by seeing how ignorant and unlearned the said visitor was; and if Verart did not draw up the allegations and other documents, many will doubt that the visitor could succeed in doing anything to advantage. We shall see how the whole affair will turn out, and how thoroughly investigated the truth as to affairs in these islands will go to the Council. The governor, the archbishop, the visitor, and the Dominicans [will figure] tied together by pairs, and Fray Raimundo Verart as the leader [corifeo] of the dance.

When the patache reached the port, and the auditors this city, various mails from his Majesty were opened, and it was found that the remedy was worse than the disease itself; since the Dominicans and the archbishop, like headlong furies, began a fierce tempest of vengeance against all those who were not of their faction and at their disposal, without heeding or fearing any one who might restrain them in whatever they might attempt. Accordingly, they made the first attack, or rather continued the old persecution, against the fathers of the Society (using a pretext, in order to close our church for a long time), the archbishop declaring that it had been profaned, meaning that in it was interred [the body of] Don Cristobal Grimaldos—who, he said, had died an excommunicate by having incurred that penalty in the archbishop’s banishment—although it was five years since he had died, and only now for the first time did his illustrious Lordship begin to have scruples, which he could not lay aside. In order to conceal better his revengeful spirit against the Society, he waited until the day of most publicity and greatest attendance [at our church], which was the day of our great patriarch St. Ignatius; choosing this day, he waited until the hour of nine, when the church was full of people, including all the religious communities of this city, and only the arrival of the royal Audiencia was awaited to begin high mass for the saint. For that time and hour, then, his illustrious Lordship reserved his scruples; and, sending two notaries, they published and posted on the church door his edict, declaring the church of the Society of Jesus to be polluted—declaring under penalty of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, that no faithful Christian should attend divine worship in the said church. All the people, therefore, were obliged to go out, and the doors were locked for two months and two days, from July 31 to October 2; and, although Doña Manuela Barrientos, formerly the wife of the said Señor Grimaldos, came out in our defense—proving not only by the confessors who assisted him, but by the testimony of other witnesses, that he had died with all the sacraments and with great contrition—nothing of this was sufficient to prevent the archbishop from pronouncing notices that he had died impenitent and excommunicate. He therefore commanded that the bones should be exhumed, for which purpose the provisor, Juan Gonzalez, went one afternoon, October 2, with other officials and some negroes with spades, and opened the tomb; but, finding many bones, and among them three skulls, they had to leave these in their place, as they could not distinguish which were those of the auditor Grimaldos. On the following day the said provisor came to bless our church, and the gates were again opened, to the great joy and consolation of the people.

At this time, when the archbishop was engaged in disinterring the bones of the said auditor Grimaldos, the visitor—who had been declared investigating judge for special suits and commissions only—was going about in another direction, making his secret inquiries about past affairs. In everything he proceeded greatly in favor of the archbishop, governor, and Dominicans, but with general complaints from all the witnesses, who said that the examiner had come not to ascertain the truth, but to confirm the fraudulent and malicious reports of the archbishop and the friars—for, as soon as they said anything against the latter, they were immediately checked, and what was set down in the document was moderated; but if it was anything in favor of them, the examiner heard it at much length, and employed his rhetoric to dilate upon it very extensively. He very soon gave orders that Captain Lerma (who took the place of Armenta, the secretary of the Audiencia, who was banished to Pangasinan) and Sargento-mayor Juan Sanchez (who was secretary of that court in the time of the controversies between the Audiencia and the archbishop) should enter the fort as prisoners. Every day his friendship and intercourse with the governor grew more and more intimate, so much so that not a night passed when he did not inform the governor of all that he had accomplished that day, praising himself for having gained control of everything [de hechar todo a su barda]. This was seen by what occurred in the country; and he took away life from whomever he chose, as easily as if he had been a governor. It being necessary for his investigation that Auditor Bolivar should come to this city, the examiner demanded that he be brought from Cagayan, where he was at the time; and the latter while coming, in good health, upon entering the province of Pangasinan from that of Ylocos fell dead, from [drinking] one cup of chocolate, without obtaining the sacraments. This rumor of poisoning was so widely spread in all this region that the governor, notwithstanding all his efforts, could not stop the mouths of all; accordingly the worthy examiner was full of fear and dread lest they should do as much more to him, and did all that the governor, archbishop, and Dominicans desired—if before with some concealment, from that day with entire publicity—calling the archbishop a saintly old man.

The residencia of the ex-governor was published, and in the course of it and of other investigations (all which were proceeding at the same time) the goods of most of the prominent citizens of Manila were seized and detained—some having incurred blame in certain charges of the residencia, and others because they had been commanded by the [former] royal Audiencia and its governor and captain-general, under grave penalties in the decrees, to find and seize the Dominican religious. Consequently the people were in great perplexity, not knowing what was to be done; for it went ill with them if they obeyed the king, and still worse if they did not obey. They showed the [former] orders and decrees, but nothing availed them; consequently all went out after several days of imprisonment (in which time died Sargento-mayor Don Juan Gallardo), mulcted in amounts of three hundred, four hundred, and even five hundred pesos [each].

In this condition are affairs at present. Father Fray Raimundo Verart, the instigator of so many disturbances, is going there [i.e., to España], summoned by his Majesty. May it please God that now the misfortunes of this unhappy land may cease.

Information from Filipinas and Nueva España

With the arrival of the galleon from Filipinas in this Nueva España has been unladen a raft [flota] of news, which other pens, less awkward than mine, will relate; I can only tell what I have known. In the year 1687 the examiner [pesquisidor]—as the Chinese say, the fisherman [pescador]—Don Francisco Campos y Valdivia arrived at Manila; according to the reports, it would seem that he went there to encourage anew and continue the malignant acts of the archbishop and the Dominicans, and to pillage the wealth of that community and finally squeeze out of it the little blood that it has. He immediately joined hands with Governor Curuzealegui, the archbishop, and the Dominicans; he selected as his adviser, director, and counselor the Dominican Fray Raimundo Verart, the source of so many disturbances; and—without heeding that his Majesty, on account of the latter’s turbulent disposition, had commanded that the said religious should proceed to the court [at Madrid]—he immediately took possession of the said religious, who was with him at all hours of day and night, in his house. [He did so] in order that the religious should prepare for him the documents, acts, and inquiries for which he was commissioned, on account of the illiterate manner in which the fisherman usually drew them up. From this may be interred what documents he will carry to the court, with a hand so malicious and bold—but with the safety of the father confessor’s broad shoulders, and the cunning tendencies of the chief, of vast piety.

There are more than three hundred thousand pesos, in jewels and commodities, that he has carried away, well guarded; and he is full of confidence of new rewards. I do not doubt that the chief distributor will enjoy a very pleasant time, knowing that the Jesuits remain humbled, trampled down, and without recourse—they, to whom on so many grounds he ought to show himself at least indifferent.

He discharged his fury against the governor, Don Juan de Vargas, and, without allowing him to defend himself—since hardly had Don Juan chosen a lawyer or notary when he awoke in exile—he banished him to a distant place, and among Dominicans. And, to soften this humiliation, the archbishop denied him the absolution that he sought (going up to the prelate’s house on his knees), without paying any attention to the strict injunction of his Majesty, or urging the visitor to secure its fulfilment; and demanding an order to carry Don Juan to Mexico, notwithstanding the securities [that he had given] for his residencia. He was left in the hands of the Dominicans and the archbishop, in order that the latter might satiate himself more at leisure with Don Juan’s sorrows.

About this time began the fury of the archbishop and the Dominicans against the Society. [The remains of] Auditor Grimaldos having reposed five years in the sepulcher of the college at Manila, the archbishop was pricked by scruples on the day of St. Ignatius; and, when the church was full, and the governor and the Audiencia were expected for the fiesta, a notary came in, publishing the declaration that the church was polluted—that the auditor Grimaldos had died impenitent, and that everyone should go out of the church, under penalty of excommunication. The church remained closed until the second day of October. On that day the provisor went and opened the sepulcher, and, seeing therein three corpses, among which he could not distinguish the one that he sought, he proceeded to bless what he called the “contaminated” church. The examiner [i.e., Campos y Valdivia], playing the rôle of a reconciler, obliged the fathers of the Society to go to attend a feast-day of the Dominicans, and the latter to be present at another in the Society’s house. Afterward the archbishop arranged the cabildo to suit himself, without accepting or noticing the prebends who came appointed by his Majesty, and replaced all of them from his own college of Santo Tomas; and among these were men most unworthy [of such posts], mestizos who were half negro. His principal object is, that if he should die the cabildo may appoint the bishop of Troya as ruler [of the diocese], in order that the disturbances may not cease; and very strung recommendations are going for the court, to appoint in that church the said bishop of Troya, in order that he may more vigorously continue the disputes and lawsuits, which do not cease. Meanwhile, at court let not efforts cease to persuade that this religious order is not suited for sees [mitras] so remote—as the father confessor sets forth, and that boldly. In every Dominican there is a bishop, a governor, and an absolute monarch; nor will he acknowledge himself to be a vassal—as is shown by a fiscal reply that comes from Filipinas and will go to the court, in the terms of which is recognized the intention of that prelate [i.e., Barrientos].

In the course of the investigation the visitor did not spare the [belongings required by] decency for the governor’s wife, Doña Isabel de Ardila, taking away from her at public auction even the bed and the jewels that she used, and from her husband even the sword that he carried at his belt. The annoyances inflicted upon the citizens are innumerable; and in order that the jewels and other valuables which he obtained from the seizures of goods should not be sold at a low price, at auctions, he caused them to be knocked down to himself, but in the names of other persons, and he is becoming, therefore, enormously wealthy.

Nor was the archbishop idle at this time. He proceeded to give rules to the new Audiencia as to the manner in which it was to conduct itself, declaring that recourse to it in cases of fuerza and banishment was faulty; and a little later, when urged to absolve Governor Vargas, he replied that he challenged the new auditors for cause, since he considered them all to be in love with the governor’s wife. Consequently, it would be necessary that another Audiencia should come, or that, to check lawsuits, they delegate the authority to him—which they refused, since the ecclesiastics are vassals.

On December 19, 1689, the ship “Santo Niño” cast anchor in Acapulco, and in it came the dean of Manila, Don Miguel Ortiz de Cobarrubias; the fiscal, Don Lorenzo de Alanis; the Dominican father Fray Raimundo Verart; and the examiner, Don Francisco Campos y Valdivia. The last-named was detained in the said port, continuing some investigations with which he was charged—especially that concerning the registration [of the galleon’s cargo] for the year 1684; and in regard to the seizure in the same year of the property of Governor Don Juan de Vargas, in which he supposed there had been some formal act of the royal officials, with information from the viceroy, Marques de la Laguna—investigations all upon uncertain matters, little praised by his subordinates, or acceptable to them. On occasion of receiving a declaration, the examiner compelled General Antonio de Aztina to surrender his authority, at the same time appointing, de plenitudine potestatis [i.e., “in the fulness of his power”], as commander Captain Oriosola—who enjoyed this new favor no long time; for the viceroy, Conde de Galvez, being informed of this, immediately gave the appointment of commander to Don Juan de Garaicochea.

On the fifteenth of February, 1690, after various protests and threatening statements that the said boxes contained only his clothing, and especially that three contained only the private papers and documents of his visitation and commission, as he resisted surrendering the keys the locks were broken of the said three boxes; and in them was found not one paper. The contents of these, as in the boxes above mentioned, were as follows: three ornamental boxes and two writing-desks of lacquered wood, perfume-caskets, trays, combs, fans, porcelain cups, and curious articles of japanned ware. Besides these, there were forty cases of fans; item, eighty-six bundles of untwisted silk, and several libras more of spun silk; item, two hundred and seventy-five pieces of stuffs—satin, lampotes, ribbed silk, Chinese silk, velvets, and other wares from Canton; item, one hundred and fifty-eight onzas of musk; item, three hundred and forty-four pairs of silk hose.

They are sure that he is bringing many more packets in the names of Commander Aztina and Captain Oriosola, the source of these being the fines—which, they say, he regulated more by the wealth than by the faults of the citizens of Manila, levying the fines in merchandise at low prices, by a third hand, that of the said commander. It is currently reported that the bales which he is bringing on his own account, under the names of other persons, exceed one hundred and fifty in number. It is certain that in the custom-house were opened two lots of goods [shipped] in the name of the said commander—one of forty bales of various commodities, and another of thirty bales of Canton silk stuffs, both without invoices; also packets, which show little care and arrangement. This almost entirely confirms the suspicions entertained, all the more as it is well known that the said commander has no wealth, and even hardly enough to eat. But as the merchants of China are here—who have come, like many of the citizens of Mejico, frightened by the extortions imposed in Manila—it is difficult to declare the [contents of the] said packets while the examiner remains in these kingdoms.