Note 53 — Chapter VIII

1117. These increases will be of greater moment if we consider that, if the families be reduced to the number of four persons each, as is customary there, the said district consisted, at the time it was given to us, of 748 souls, and in thirty-eight years it had increased to 2,340, the increase amounting to 1,592 persons. But sixteen years later (namely, the year 1738, when father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio printed the first volume of the history of his seraphic province of Philipinas), those increases were almost doubled.53 Then directing his pen to the end that leads to truth, he assures us that there are new villages in the island of Masbàte with three thousand three hundred and forty-five souls; in that of Ticào, two, with four hundred and seventy-five persons; and one in that of Burìas, with one hundred and eighty. Whence it is inferred that three more villages were newly established: namely, in Masbàte, those of Navangui and Baraga; and in Ticào, that of San Jacinto, at the port so named, where the ships now stop for fresh supplies, before taking to the open sea. Also the number of souls has increased to one thousand six hundred and sixty by the impulses of the preaching of our reformed branch, aided efficaciously by divine grace. All the increase of this district since it has been in our charge has been six newly-created villages, and three thousand two hundred and fifty-two souls brought to the Catholic bosom. And we even ought to infer that many more have been converted, for by the invasions of the Moros, which are told at length in the third volume,54 the number of the Christians could not but be lessened.