Note 9 — LETTER FROM ANDA TO CARLOS III

I confess to being the least and most useless of your vassals, but in fidelity, zeal, and disinterestedness to your Majesty’s service, I do not yield to the highest. Consequently, so far as it concerns me, I would have kept quiet about the ugly stigma of traitor, simply in order not to reveal the omissions of a prelate, recognizing its nullity because of the defects of jurisdiction in this one and in the English; and that I cannot be a rebel to your Majesty when defending your states, nor to the English since I am not nor have any desire of being an English vassal. Hence said sentence well understood becomes a new proof of my nobility and loyalty. It is a shame to the truth of the nation that it has had a vassal of so extraordinary thought, and that he could take example from the very enemy. For although it is true that these followed the rules, because of their utility and convenience in this matter, of the reverend archbishop, notwithstanding that they gave me the title of general and commander-in-chief of the troops of your Majesty in the provinces, and finally recognized me as your Audiencia, governor, and captain-general. However, the reverend archbishop, although your vassal, and so honored, passed to the other life, without doing it. It is a fact that the English declared me a rebel and traitor; confiscated and sold my property as such; declared your troops in public edicts to be canaille and robbers; and your artillery captured in the foundry of Bulacan for more contempt, was placed under the gallows of this city. Barbarous and unheard of are these acts of disrespect against the supreme honor of your Majesty, to whom it alone belongs to ask for the fitting satisfaction, and to me to report it. But surely the English would not have incurred them, had the reverend archbishop borne himself as he ought to have done as a prisoner and had he not treated me as an insurgent. But since the reverend archbishop and his partisans and many traitors of both estates whom your Majesty has had, forced the title of rebel and insurgent against me; and although I was unworthy, I was the only one in whom your royal name was conserved which since it was becoming utterly despised in these islands, it appeared absolutely necessary to me, because of the vassalage which I owe to your Majesty, to defend your name, although opposed by so many dangers to my life, surrounded by traitors and assassins, who came from Manila to attack my person, which without a soldier or the slightest war equipment, during the first six months it was conserved, I believe, by divine Providence alone for defending a cause so just as the side of your Majesty.9 On the day when they captured the fort, the enemy had more friends in it than your Majesty, but much of it was in imitation of a prelate who had just been governor, whose persuasions and threats were alone directed to surrendering everything to the English.