Note 26 — ROJO’S NARRATIVE

33. Thus was it done for the most part, but it was not that which was advisable and sufficient to meet other casualties, which the superiors of the Society satisfied. He was the only provincial prelate who remained living [in the city], together with that of St. John of God, whose superiors and subjects complied perfectly with their respective ministries. On account of this defect, or non-existence of the superior, it appears that the persecution by the English of the Augustinian fathers or their opposition to them had no reparation; and although their provincial was indeed near Manila, his passage to the city was prevented.26 The other superiors, although not provincials, met respectively what arose in their orders, but their powers did not reach to the subjects outside [the city] nor did they gain the respect of the English within. And the English qualifying as having committed excesses those Augustinian religious and others, who appeared before them, who were commanding the natives outside, proceeded to imprisonments, exiles, and confiscations of property, especially in the above-mentioned, taking possession of their church, money, valuables, and everything else that they had.27 It is enough to have touched this point, for it would be most tedious to set forth all its particulars in detail; and it does not belong to the archbishop to qualify the facts, since each superior must give account of them to the king, our sovereign, with the religious sincerity which he professes, and to show their complaints with the same truth. But he cannot restrain his wonder as to how the father visitor and the father of this province of San Juan de Dios, the reverend Father Puga,28 a priest, with his community attended and attends to his institute, sheltering and assisting so great a number of sick and poor amid so great calamity and so many necessities, and who not having the slight regular alms, does not fail at all to his sick, the religious aiding them. This is properly a miracle of charity. The persecution which this superior and community has suffered, from the one who has taken command of the government is as painful as their patience is praiseworthy and exemplary.