Note 4 — EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1764–1800

Ferrando (v, pp. 9–16) says that Puch was engaged, by order of his provincial, Father Bernardo Pazaengos (more correctly written Pazuengos), and at the urgent requests of other pious persons, in conducting a sort of mission in the city, “with the object of correcting the many vices which had been introduced into Manila during the invasion by the English;” and in one of those sermons he made the utterances which brought him into trouble. The Audiencia resolved to notify the provincials of all the orders and the dean of the cathedral that they must order their subordinates to conform to the laws in regard to their preaching; and the Jesuit provincial in particular, that he also take care that Puch should give satisfaction to the Audiencia and the public for his reflections on government officials. Pazuengos laid the case before the heads of Santo Tomás university, and, as their decision was in his support, he answered the Audiencia that he had ordered the priest hereafter to obey the law cited by the Audiencia; but that he declared Puch to be “immune and exempt from blame” in regard to the remarks made in the sermon before mentioned, and protested that he did not intend to censure in the least the acts of the Audiencia. He added that, if this were not enough, he would send Puch to the Mindanao missions. This aroused Viana’s anger, first “against the Jesuits, and afterward against all the other orders; and he finally issued an official opinion filled with calumnies and invectives, which might rather be called a defamatory libel.” At this all the orders took up the matter, especially resenting Viana’s attitude because they had supported the government so loyally during the English invasion: the superiors held a special conference in the convent at Tondo, and agreed to draw up a remonstrance to the king against the fiscal’s unjust attack on them, demanding that he investigate the whole affair and decide it according to justice. Ferrando condemns Puch’s imprudent remarks, but regrets that the matter had not been settled by his superior, instead of dragging the other orders into the quarrel and thus eventually causing trouble at court for all of them, especially for the Jesuits. Ferrando adds (p. 24): “We have also another key to explain the hostility which certain persons at that time manifested toward the religious orders in these provinces over seas, in the sinister Pleiad of ministers who then surrounded the Catholic king. Aranda, Roda, Campománes, Azpuru, and Floridablanca all had connections, more or less evident and close, with the French encyclopedists and philosophers of that time, and all emulated Tanucci in regard to regalist doctrines”—that is, maintaining the rights and prerogatives of the state as against the church (Gray’s Velázquez Dictionary).

In regard to this last statement, cf. Manuel Danvila y Collado, in his Reinado de Carlos III, ii, pp. 561–564: “Religious intolerance, still great in the reign of Felipe V, tended to extinction in succeeding reigns. In the almost half a century during which he occupied the throne, there were in España twelve inquisitors-general; and such was the hold which the Holy Office possessed in public opinion that, in order to entertain the new king, a solemn auto de fe was held in 1701, which he declined to attend. Nevertheless, he protected the Inquisition, because Louis XIV had advised him to support it as a means of maintaining tranquillity in the country; he availed himself of it to inspire respect for the oath of fidelity which was given to the new monarch; he repressed the Jewish worship which, again and secretly, had been propagated in España after the annexation of Portugal; but it was the general opinion that rigor against the heretics diminished after the advent of the house of Bourbon. The sect of Molinos was persecuted and punished with severity; even Macanaz, the enthusiastic defender of the royal prerogatives, was banished from España, for political rather than religious motives; and the third volume of the Historia civil de España, by Fray Nicolás de Jesús Belando, who dared to defend the regalist idea, was prohibited. These rigorous proceedings diminished during the reign of Fernando VI, who permitted Macanaz to return to España, and who established as a principle that the coming of the Bourbons to the throne of the Españas was to produce a complete modification of the system of the Holy Office … Even the Concordats of 1737 and 1753, by recognizing the royal prerogatives of the crown of España, authorizing the taxes on the estates of the clergy, and reforming various points of discipline, allowed the admission of some ideas which ignorance or superstition had until then deemed irreligious or favorable to impiety. The Diario de los literatos also enlightened many people in regard to knowledge of the books which were being published, and the judgment which ought to be formed of them; and the weekly sheets gave acquaintance with foreign works which no one knew of, and which were a preparation for the interesting literary transformation of the epoch of Fernando VI; while at the same time the rigors of the Inquisition were relaxed, in harmony with the change which had been produced in public opinion. Indeed, from that time the Holy Office occupied itself only with persecuting the Jesuits and the Free Masons (who had been excommunicated by the bull of Clement XII of April 28, 1738, renewed on May 18, 1751)…. There certainly is no room for doubt that, partly through the progress of public opinion and partly through the knowledge which was obtained here of the works of Diderot and D’Alambert—and especially of the Encyclopedia, begun in 1751, and concluded in 1772—it became the fashion and people were proud to have acquaintance with the tendency of the philosophy proclaimed by the French freethinkers—but they did not comprehend that this philosophy necessarily led to revolution, and with it to the loss of all property rights (which was the foundation of its influence in society), and the annihilation of all political influence within the state …. The Spanish nobility were seduced by the philosophic or Encyclopedistic propaganda of France.”

The official opinion by Viana regarding the Puch episode may be found in a MS. volume entitled, Respuestas dadas por el fiscal de S. M., fol. 22v–26; it is apparently Viana’s own original record of his official opinions delivered to the Audiencia during the year 1765, and is in the possession of Edward E. Ayer, Chicago. This book furnishes valuable information regarding conditions in the islands after the departure of the British forces. ↑