Volume 41 — Chapter VIII

Our missionaries illumine the islands of Masbàte with the preaching. The fourteenth general chapter is held. Two excellent religious die in the province of Aragon.

The year 1688

§ I

Our province of Philipinas takes charge of the spiritual administration of three islands, namely, Masbàte, Ticào, and Burìas, with no little luster to the Catholic religion.

1110. Things were in this condition, then, when the most illustrious master, Don Fray Andrès Gonzales, who deservedly ascended to the bishopric of Nueva Càceres from the ranks of the Order of Preachers, represented to the king on May 28, 1682 that in order that the villages of his diocese might be rightly administered spiritually, it would be indispensable to assign its curacies in another manner and give some of them into the charge of religious. In consideration of that he petitioned his Majesty to commit the approbation of the new plan considered to his governor of those islands, so that as vice-patron, he might proceed in it. The king conceded what that prelate asked by his decree dated Madrid, August 13, 1685, and his Excellency presented the new formation of districts to the governor with all its changes. By it he applied to our province all the mission of Masbàte, and its adjacent islands, as well as the villages of Ingòzo, Catanavan, Vigo, and the rancherias contiguous, all located in the island of Luzòn, which hitherto had belonged to the curacy of Pìriz, so that another new mission might be formed under charge of our discalced order. The governor was the admiral of galleons, Don Gabriel de Cruceleygui, knight of the habit of Santiago. By an act of November 26, 1686, he approved in toto the idea of the bishop, and, as a consequence, the assignation made to us of the above-mentioned villages, so that we might administer them as curas. However, because of several troubles that resulted, our province accepted only the mission of Masbàte, and renounced the right that they might have had to the other villages of the island of Luzòn, for they could be administered by the fathers of St. Francis with less trouble.

1111. The constant reasons for the acts by which the bishop assigned to us the above-mentioned district were reduced to the fact that there was but one secular priest in it, and he was insufficient for its administration. For it was proved that only four persons had died with the sacraments within the long space of four years, while those who had passed to the other life without that benediction numbered one hundred and eighteen. Add to this that the baptism of small children had been delayed many months as the parish priest did not go but very seldom to visit the distant villages. This ought not to induce inferences against the well-proved zeal of those venerable priests, that they had neglected their duties in attending to the obligations of the ministry. For since there was but one ecclesiastic in all three islands, and those islands occupy so great an extent, and the villages are so distant from one another, how could he attend to so many parishioners with the pastoral food? It is a fact that even after our religious had entered there and three or four were kept busy continually, scarce could they fully attend to all their duties as spiritual directors, without some inculpable lack being evident; and that notwithstanding that each one labored as many, for not few of them have lost their health because of the work, as we shall see hereafter. Consequently, one ought not to be surprised if those Indians were poorly administered before, for it is undeniable that one person cannot attend to so many laborious cares, as can many, although he may equal them in zeal.

1112. The bishop and governor convinced, then, in this matter, despatched the fitting provisions in November 1686 in order that our reformed branch might take charge of those souls. This plan was of great moment to the province, for the said islands, besides being the necessary passage way and very suitable station for those who voyage from Manìla to Carhaga and Zebù, are the stopping place of the ships which sail from Cavìte to Acapulco and return from Nueva España to Philipinas. It is very common for the ships to stop in their ports to get fresh supplies, and await suitable winds. On that account there originated the greatest convenience in possessing them in our custody, because of what makes for the spiritual: for the provincials, when they sail out upon their visits; for the commissioners when they come to España for missions; for the missions themselves when they arrive at the islands; and for the multitude of our religious who journey from one part to another, employed in the holy commerce of souls. Without doubt those reasons somewhat aided the zeal with which our tireless workers in those countries have always procured the good teaching of the faithful, and the conversion of the faithless, at the cost of their own very great fatigue and of great penalties. On that account it was determined in the intermediary chapter of 1687 to accept the charge of that reasonable territory to whose labor God called them by the mouth of the bishop. And more when it was learned that, although the number of the Christians was greatly diminished, the interiors of the islands of Masbàte and Burìas were densely inhabited with innumerable Indians, apostates from the faith and assembled there not only from their villages, but also from other parts, in whose reduction a great service would be done to God and the king, and with this fruit the sweatings of the spiritual administration would be eased, which by themselves alone gave much to grieve over.

1113. Finally matters having been arranged, fathers Fray Juan de San Phelipe, the outgoing provincial, and Fray Juan de la Encarnacion, with another associate, of whose name we are ignorant, left Manila in May 1678 [i.e., 1688] to take charge of the above-mentioned district. They went to the village of Ticào, where they met the cura, then Bachelor Don Christoval Carvallo, who had been notified by the suitable acts in the month of August. The latter agreed without the least repugnance to surrender the churches and his administration. He did it gracefully on September 2 of the same year in the village of Mobo, a site in the island of Masbàte, which was, and is, the chief village of all the others, and that mission remained from that time on subject to our discalced order. The Indians received the religious with signs of the greatest rejoicing. It is a fact that they knew our holy habit some years before, because some of our gospel missionaries had stopped in their port on account of storms, when they were passing by Masbàte on their way to their destinations, and had attended to instructing them and even administering them the sacraments. From that came the almost general joy with which the discalced Augustinians were received there; and from that reception originated the great fruit which they obtained with their preaching. The fathers endeavored to have the love shown them by the Indians increase, not being unaware that the good-will of the hearers is a very plausible disposition so that the work of the preachers may be useful. Knowing also that the good opinion of the evangelical minister gives great force to his words, in order that theirs might be increased they aimed to confirm them with works. They bore themselves as saints in private and public in order to give a good example in all things. With that method, one can believe the great number of Christians that were gathered to Catholicism in the said islands, as we shall relate later.

1114. But since it was necessary for this attainment to found some convent, they erected it that same year in the village of Mobo, which had the most inhabitants. It has Nuestra Señora de los Remedios [i.e., our Lady of Remedies] as titular, and a very costly church is being built which abounds in reredoses and other adornments with a sacristy provided with vestments [? jocalias] and ornaments. The house is very capacious and has all the necessary rooms and has moreover cells for the religious who generally live in it. That convent was the refuge of the gospel ministers who lived in it in suitable number to look after the Christians in spiritual matters and to allure the apostates to the bosom of the Christian religion which they had abandoned. Thence, as swift moving clouds, they went out to fertilize the other villages with the water of their doctrine and having become hunters of souls, to overrun the deserts and mountains. Although there were not more than six villages in the three islands when our discalced religious entered to administer them, in a few years they established three more where they could shelter those who were being reduced to our holy faith. And hence the workers of that mission with inexplicable toil cared for a great number of souls who dwelt in the capital of Mobo, and in its annexed villages or visitas of Ticào, Burìas, Balino, Palànog, Habuyoàn, Tagmasùso, Buracàn, and Limbojan. In that extensive territory not few times did God explain His mercies with repeated miracles in confirmation of the faith which Ours were preaching. Some received with baptism the health of the body, and others found themselves freed from their pains by the prayers of the ministers, accompanied by the laying on of hands. However, inasmuch as the manuscripts give us these notices without specification, we cannot name the individual miracles.

1115. A very lamentable event for the islands which happened in the year 1726, was the reason for the founding of another convent in Ticào. It happened as follows. The galleon “Santo Christo de Burgos,” while making its voyage to Nueva España, anchored at the port of Ticào in order to await good weather before taking to the open sea. But it was shipwrecked there by a storm which came upon it. On board that vessel was Don Julian de Velasco, a minister assigned to the Audiencia of Mexico. He managed to obtain his spiritual improvement from that disaster so transcendental to all classes of Philipinas by the practice of good works. He did not care to return to Manìla, although he could have done so, but remained with all his family in the said port until he could get passage the next year. Among what he was able to save of his lost possessions, he placed his first attention in seeing that the holy image of the holy Christ of Burgos which was on the ship as its titular, should not be lost; for it was his intention to place it at his own expense in some church, so that it might have public veneration for the benefit of souls. Scarcely, then, did he have that celestial treasure in his hands, when he exposed it to worship on the high altar of the church of Ticào with ornaments suitable to his devout affection. Thereafter followed the assignment of some income so that there might be a resident evangelical minister there, both so that a chaplain might not at least be wanting to the holy image, and so that the Indians might not lack more continual teaching. For that reason, the province afterward determined to found a convent in Ticào. To it were assigned the villages situated in the islands of Ticào and Burìas, and to the convent of Mobo those of the island of Masbate. The ministers were thus able to obtain more relief because their number had increased, although they still had much to do in order to attend to everything.

§ II

Relation of the progress made by Catholicism in those islands by the preaching of our laborers; and the great hardships that they suffered for that end.

1116. In the year 1724, the province of Philipinas begged the king to confirm, by special decree, the possession that had been given them in his royal name of the islands of Masbàte. His Majesty ordered the governor of Philipinas and the bishop of Nueva Cáceres, on the eleventh of February, 1725, to make no innovation in regard to the spiritual administration of the said district until he should provide what was needful in his royal Council. He ordered them also to inform him of the progress that had been made by the faith in that territory since it had been in our charge. On that account some juridical investigations were made in Manìla in order to inform the king with acts. By them it appeared that, although there had been only one single parish priest in all the district of Masbàte before, since it had been placed in charge of the Recollect fathers, three religious at least had always lived there; and that, as was proved by the books of the royal treasury, in the year 1687, anterior to our possession, there were only one hundred and eighty-seven families in the whole mission, while in the year 1722, there were five hundred and eighty-five: so that in the space of thirty-four years they had increased by three hundred and ninety-eight. For that reason the governor, Marquès de Torrecampo, gave his king June 30, 1727, a very favorable report of our discalced order in the terms of this honorable clause. “The district of Masbàte, in charge of the discalced Augustinians, has had an increase of 398 whole tributes through the apostolic zeal of those ministers. They, not only in that district, but also in the rest of these islands, dedicate themselves to the propagation of our holy Catholic faith with the greatest toil and with the most visible fruit.”

1119. That progress of the faith was preceded by many hardships that were suffered by the religious, some of which I shall state, noting that innumerable others are omitted, in order not to bore our readers by their relation, and because they resemble those that we shall relate. It has already been stated, then, that for the space of more than thirty years there was but one convent in the three islands, which was established in the village of Mobo, whence the gospel laborers went out to administer all the settlements of the district. For that purpose, it was absolutely necessary for them to sail many leguas by boisterous seas, or to travel by land in some parts by rough mountains, threatened in the one place with shipwreck and in the other by continual dangers. Since the new convent was established in the island of Ticào, the administration is more tolerable, although it is always accompanied by indescribable fatigues. For the religious of Mobo have to sail completely about the island of Masbàte in order to fulfil their obligations, or if they prefer to journey by land, as they are able, to one or two villages, they have to do it afoot with the greatest discomfort, through inaccessible mountains, and exposed to dangers wellnigh insupportable. The missionaries of Ticào, besides having to coast a great part of that island have to go many times during each year to that of Burìas, crossing the very stout currents of the sea from the rapidity of which some of the missionaries have found themselves in the utmost consternation. On the other hand, all the time that the Indians remained Zimarrones, they allowed no passage to the zealous laborers without them risking their lives to innumerable dangers; and even after they had been reduced, the Moros were a substitute for them on the outside, and inside many sorcerers, who tried, some by violence, and others by their diabolical arts, to drive thence, and even from the world, the ministers of souls. And who can tell all that they suffered from all these causes? It was so great that some religious, never more alive than when they were dead, came to die in the campaign like good soldiers.

1120. Father Fray Ildephonso de la Concepcion was one of those who sweated most in that ministry, and one of those who entered to cultivate it in its early beginnings. By the ardor of his zeal, by the example of his life, and by his apostolic preaching, he reduced many apostates to the Catholic faith. Some of them were gathered into the villages already established, and others, up to the number of eighty families, founded through his influence, another new village on the opposite coast from Mobo. Going then, from one to another part of the islands, the solicitous fisher of souls had the boat in which he journeyed swamped twice, one-half legua from shore, while another time his boat was driven by storms on some reefs and dashed to pieces; dangers in which many of those who accompanied him were lost, while the father escaped miraculously with his life after having endured a thousand anxieties. The Zimarrones, infidels, and bad Christians, given up to doing ill to whomever procured their total welfare, now as declared enemies, and again as wily friends, placed him almost continually in monstrous danger of exhaling his last breath. In order that he might visit promptly the new village which he had erected, he opened a road from Mobo to it through the interior of the island. He crossed it many times on foot, it being necessary for him to traverse very lofty mountains exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather. He suffered indescribable things for the faith, with the great hardship that his vast zeal occasioned him, and which those Indians caused him with their obstinacy. Finally he fell grievously ill, his pains originating from the penalties of the said road which he frequented several times in the course of a single month, as well as from the heat and showers which he endured when going through the mountains in search of those rational wild beasts. He died through the apostolic zeal, in the manner in which all gospel laborers ought to depart this life.

1121. Father Fray Benito de la Assumpcion, a religious who seemed born for the labors and successes of the spiritual administration, followed that laborer in the care of that vineyard. He believed that, without passing the limits of prudence, it would be very seasonable for the souls of his parishioners to reduce them to living closer together in a fewer number of villages, and he thus tried to bring it to pass. Especially did he propose to himself the plan that the Indians shortly before reduced to the new village which we have mentioned in the preceding number, should move to the capital or chief village of Mobo, for he formed the correct judgment that they would be better Christians if they had at all hours the good example of their ministers before their eyes. It is not so difficult to move a whole village in Philipinas as it would be in Europa; for the Indians build their houses without cost and easily. They also find in all parts lands suitable for their cultivation without any expense from their pockets. Yet notwithstanding that one cannot easily tell the vast labors, watches, and afflictions that come upon the religious when they attempt such reductions of the Indians. The latter desire with too great endeavor, to have their residence where they cannot be registered, in order to work with greater freedom, and excuse themselves if possible from all human subjection, and even from divine law, without caring greatly for their own spiritual interests, but each one going at will to his rancheria or field where it is not easy for the father minister to visit them or assist them with the holy sacraments during their sicknesses. For that reason all hell is conjured against the teacher of the doctrine, if he tries to place such reductions into effect, from which many spiritual interests would follow. That venerable father suffered so much with his undertaking that he caused universal wonder that it did not cost him his life, and the worst thing was that he could not see it accomplished.

1122. Not only in this, but also in other projects of known utility, did he have much to endure and much from which to gather merit. With the zeal of Elias did he relentlessly persecute divine offenses, while he at the same time loved the persons most especially. It was the same for him to discover any trace of superstition or the slightest vestige of the badly extinguished infidelity, and to fly to its destruction with all his power. Amid continual risks of losing his life, he exercised his gigantic charity for many years in directing the souls of those islands to God, without any fear of death whose scythe he saw upon him many times. The Moros with their stealthy attacks, the infidels or apostates with open malice, and the evil Christians with their subterfuges and deceits made him almost continually suffer for justice. But he worked on manfully as one who had the refuge of his life in God, and consoling his weakened heart with the divine grace he supported the persecutions from which the Lord wove him a crown. In the above-named village a chief Indian named Canamàn irritated by the attempted reduction, and because the father checked him publicly for a certain scandalous concubinage, raised his head in open mutiny. With many followers he sought the father and persecuted him in order to deprive him of life. At that revolution the venerable religious was sorely grieved, and it was considered as a special prodigy that he could escape from so sacrilegious hands. Finally, for the same reason another Indian of the village of Ticào (exasperated by the just reprehension and punishment which that famous minister had applied to him as an indispensable medicine for his faults) caused him to be the holocaust of his burning zeal for the good of souls, by the hidden method of poison, through the potency of which father Fray Benito lost his life, in order to obtain a better one in glory.

1123. After the above fathers, father Fray Diego de San Gabriel entered to take up the toil with the profit of increased fruit in the cultivation of that field. He was the amazement of charity in regard to God because of his care for self-perfection, and in regard to his neighbor, because of the way in which he desired his salvation. In order that he might attain that end he pardoned no toil, if it were fitting for the spiritual welfare of the Indians. He showered favors upon his parishioners by trying to take them to the kingdom of heaven. And although for this the latter loved him more, some were not wanting among so many who persecuted him, returning him evil for good. But like another David when they troubled him with their injuries, the venerable father clad himself in haircloth, humbled his soul in fasting, and occupied himself in prayer. By that means he delighted himself in God, taking pleasure in hardships as if they were the fountain of health. In order to induce his parishioners to the devotion of the most holy Mary he composed and published in the Visayan language a book of the miracles of our Lady of Carmen; and the most sweet Virgin repaid his good zeal by liberating him with circumstances that appeared miraculous from several shipwrecks, and from other innumerable multitudes of dangers. On the beach of the village of Balino a certain Indian gave him a cruel wound with a dagger, because he checked some faults in him. The father recognized as a favor of the Mother of Mercy, not only the fact that he was not quite killed, as might have happened, but also the cure of the wound, almost without medicine. But at last, as he was sailing as secretary, which post he had obtained later, to visit those villages and others of Visayas, a storm coming down upon him swamped the boat and he was drowned, together with the father provincial, then our father Fray Juan de San Andrès.

1124. And now in order to conclude in a few words, a matter that we can not even with many words consider adequately, we add that the venerable fathers Fray Antonio de Santa Monica and Fray Thomàs de San Lucas said many times without a trace of boasting that, although they had been many times in the doctrinas and missions, in none of them had they found so much to suffer as in that of Masbàte. Father Fray Francisco de Santa Engarcia was twice in imminent danger of death; first in shipwreck and later because an Indian tried to kill him, for the reason that he had tried to get him to give up a certain concubinage. But God having freed him from those dangers, allowed him to perish in another through His occult judgments. It was a fact that that father when attending to the fulfilment of his obligation gave motive that certain of the Zimarron Indians whom he was endeavoring to establish soundly in the Catholic faith gave him certain death-dealing powders in his food, which although they did not deprive him of life rendered him insensible and he became most pitiably insane. Many other religious, whom we shall not mention for various reasons, suffered so much while ministers of those islands, by shipwreck, bad weather, and persecution, that if they did not obtain the crown to which they aspired by death, they were left with their health totally lost, and lived amid continual aches and pains, until their last breath opened for them, after some years, a pathway to heaven in order that they might enjoy the reward of their well endured conflicts.

[The remaining sections of this chapter and the two final chapters of the book do not touch Philippine matters.]

II

Extracts from Juan de la Concepcion’s Historia

[It is thought advisable to append to the above extracts from the Historia of Pedro de San Francisco de Assis, the following extracts from Concepción’s Historia. The first extract is from vol. viii, pp. 3–16, and includes a portion of the first chapter. It treats of the transfer of the province of Zambal to the Dominicans, and the occupation of the island of Mindoro by the Recollects.]

2. Continuing with the events of this government, we must note that Don Diego de Villaroto represented in the supreme Council of the Indias that the island of Mindoro had a vast population who still retained the dense darkness of their heathen blindness; and that if the spiritual conquest of that island were given to some order, it would be easy to illumine its inhabitants with the true light. That representation was met by a royal decree, dated June 18, 1677, ordering the governor of these islands, together with the archbishop, to entrust the reduction of Mindoro to the order that should be most suitable and fitting for that ministry; and that the curas employed in that island should be appointed to chaplaincies or prebends. That royal decree was presented to the royal Audiencia of Manila by Sargento-mayor Don Sebastian de Villa-Real in October, 78. His Majesty’s fiscal offered no objection to its observance, and prompt obedience was rendered to it. It was directed to his Excellency the archbishop, then Don Fray Phelipe Pardo. That most illustrious gentleman, during the two times when he was provincial of his order or province, urged as a thing greatly to be desired and demanded by his brethren the Dominicans, that the Augustinian Recollects yield them the province of Zambales, as it was very fitting for communication with their province of Pangasinan, and of the latter with Manila, and of those religious among themselves, who could thus make their visits more comfortably, by always crossing through their own ministries, thus avoiding the voyage through the territory of others, which they regretted. Notwithstanding that those matters were discussed with great courtesy (as is the case at present) yet that was a demand that offended greatly the discalced Augustinians, who regarded the Zambals as the true sons of their spirit, and the land as watered with the blood and sweat of many of their members, and a land which, being their firstborn, was most tenderly loved. The Dominicans could never obtain their demand, although softened by exchanges, for ministries were offered in which there was even more than enough room for zeal.

3. By reason of the said royal despatch, his Excellency formed the idea of completely removing the Recollects from Zambales and giving them in exchange the island of Mindoro. He set about that with great zest. The Recollect provincial resisted, alleging that it was contrary to their constitutions to abandon thus the province of Zambales. That would mean treating it as their own possession. It would be better to recognize it as a territory distributed by the universal patron; and, admitting that it was impossible to surrender it without his royal consent, individual laws communicate no right, especially when such mission fields are ad interim. He also pleaded that the Indians of Mindoro, both infidels and Christians, had as soon as they heard that regular ministers were to be given them, urgently requested Jesuits. On the contrary, the Zambals, when they were notified that it was the intention to withdraw the Recollects from their midst in order to introduce Dominicans, almost declared their opinion in a terrible tumult. The Recollects preferred, therefore, that such a change should not take place. But the archbishop was firm in his resolution, and trampled all obstacles under foot. He united with the governor, and both of them together forced the Recollect provincial, Fray Joseph de San Nicolas, by threats, to agree to the change. The governor pacified the Indians of Mindoro by means of his corregidor, so that they should receive the Recollect fathers; and the Zambals by means of the alcalde-mayor of Pangasinan, so that they should allow the Dominicans to enter. Thereupon, the three seculars who had been in charge of Mindoro were accommodated by suitable chaplaincies, and an act was passed by the royal Audiencia, charging the Recollect fathers with the administration of that island, with absolute clauses based on the royal decree, without any provision or obligation to leave the missions of Zambales for it. That decree was accepted when it was announced, and was extended to the judicial cession of those missions, when signed by the provincial of the Recollects, although protest was made against it in the name of their province, by two influential religious. On that account a second act was enacted in which those missions were adjudged to the fathers of St. Dominic, for the archbishop was very much in earnest in those arrangements.

4. Those decrees having been announced and accepted, the Dominicans assumed possession of the cordillera of Zambales. That province had on its coast eleven villages with actual missions, which were increased in the neighboring mountains. The Recollects handed over that administration without making any public disturbance, although all the religious who had labored there protested vehemently, all of which appeared in the judicial reports. The Augustinian Recollects went to Mindoro with the fitting despatches for that corregidor ordering him to deliver the administration [of that island] to them. Father Fray Diego de la Madre de Dios, then definitor, was given charge of the district of Baco, after it had been resigned by Bachelor Don Joseph de Rojas, who held it; father Fray Diego de la Resurreccion of the curacy of Calavite, in place of Licentiate Don Juan Pedraza, its parish priest; while the curacy of Naohan was taken possession of by the father definitor, Fray Eugenio de los Santos, who was exchanged for Bachelor Don Martin Diaz. The whole transfer was completed before the end of the year 79. Three other religious remained with the above three religious as associates and coadjutors, and those six ministers began to scatter throughout the island. That island is in the center of this vast archipelago, and was formerly called Mainit; but the Spaniards gave it the name of Mindoro from a village called Minolo, located between Puerto de Galeras and the bay of Ylog. It is triangular in shape, its angles being three promontories: that of Calavite, facing west; that of Dumah or Pola, facing north; and that of Burruncan, facing south. In size it is the seventh of the more important islands, and is about one hundred leguas in circumference. Its temperature is naturally hot, but is tempered by the great dampness arising from frequent rains. The height of its mountains aids also in that. On account of such circumstances it is a very fertile land, and, although not very healthful for strangers, good and favorable to its inhabitants. The latter made themselves feared by their neighbors, especially on the sea, where they attacked the most powerful, carrying blood and fire everywhere. Notwithstanding, they were of great simplicity, for when they saw the Europeans wearing clothes and shoes—which they did not use—they imagined that that adornment was natural to them. They are but little given to the cultivation of the soil, and are content with wild fruits; sago, which they get from the palm and which is a good food for them; the flesh of wild animals; and fish, which the rivers and seacoast offer them in great plenty. They have little rice, on account of their sloth in sowing and tending it, for they make up that lack sufficiently in roots and fruits. If they are weak, although corpulent, it is because of their transcendent vice in being hostile to work.

6. Thus did those Recollect religious find that island, and, believing it to be important for the reductions, they continued to establish their regular administrations. The first was in Baco. There, inasmuch as it was the capital, lived the corregidor, but the capital was later moved to Calapan. In that district they formed the villages of Calapan, Baco, Suban, Ylog, Minolo, and Camoròn, with a number of annexed villages or visitas. The second was in Naohan, which was extended into six annexed villages, namely, Pola, Pinamalayan, Balete, Sumagui, Maliguo, and Bongabon. The third was in Calavite, which formed the visitas of Dongon, Santa Cruz, Manburaò, Tubili, and Santo Thomas. The fourth was in Mangarin, which was extended into its dependencies, Guasic, Manaol, Bulalacao, and Ililin. They also began an active mission in order to reduce the heathen Mangyans, which had no other work than to employ itself in those glorious reductions and conversions of grace. For one single man it was an immense work, but the superior government gave no more stipends. That mission was established on the bay of Ylog, and ministers and infidels were pledged not to allow [there] any of the former Christians, who might pervert the conversions. By that arrangement it grew to a very large village, and there were practiced some of the old customs that belonged to the primitive church. All that fine flower-garden has been trampled down and even ruined by the Moros, as will be related in due season.

[The following extract is from the same volume, and includes pp. 135–144.]