anniversary of birth and the saint's day of the king and prince
of Asturias.
He prohibited by edict the Pangasinans from living with their herds
on the lands of San Ysidro in order to avoid disorders with the
inhabitants of the village over the pastures.
He prohibited games of dice, cockfighting, and cards, in order to avoid
the excessive thefts and robberies that were committed. He ordered
whoever committed a theft of the sum of one peso to be punished with
the capital penalty.
He published a judicial defense in reply to the considerations of
father Fray Antonio de las Huertas, of the Order of the Preachers,
to a memorial which was presented in the royal Council of the Yndias
by Father Luis de Morales, of the Society of Jesus, provincial of
his order for the province of Filipinas.
Father Pedro de Espinar of the Society of Jesus, provincial general
of his order for the provinces of Yndias in Madrid, is the author of
the memorial. [170]
It is the defense of the Society of Jesus against the writings of the
archbishop of Manila, Pardo, and his partisans, published in Madrid,
and the Roman court, which attributed to the Jesuits complicity in the
questions aroused by the governor of Filipinas and the Audiencia. [171]
LETTER FROM ANDA TO CARLOS III
Sire:
This capital having been taken by assault, October 5, 62; your
archbishop-governor, auditors, troops, and citizens having been
made prisoners; the fort of Santiago and port of Cavite having
been surrendered; all the islands having been ceded afterwards,
and four millions of pesos; and the city having been sacked with
the greatest severity for the space of forty-eight hours: I having
declared myself that same day, in the province of Bulacan, where I was,
as royal Audiencia, governor, and captain-general of said islands, in
accordance with the law, very great was the effort of your archbishop
to efface this image of your Majesty which had remained in these
islands, represented, although unworthily, in my person. In order to
show that more conclusively, I enclose his own manifest letters with
the testimony. Those letters gave motive to this your royal governing
Audiencia to form an informatory process from them of pure and naked
fact, in order to instruct your royal mind. I shall not refer to
them in extenso in this my representation which is directed to your
Majesty. Upon examining them, will you please state which of the two
proceeded more in accordance with right, law, and religion, to the
love and fidelity which each one owes his sovereign as a good vassal:
the reverend archbishop, who tried by so many methods, to cast to
the earth this legitimate image which represented and defended your
royal rights, even to the point of declaring him a traitor, rebel,
and disobedient to his own sovereign, and to that of Gran Bretaña;
or I, who suffering and enduring all these things, made use of your
royal power, insulted and abased by so many enemies and traitors,
by making you truly recognized again in these vacillating fields of
Christianity, until you became the terror of all the many enemies who
had declared against you, reducing the greatest and most principal
from a victorious conqueror to a truly starving prisoner. For the
latter did not even have more than nor even as much as the balance
of the cannon of the fort which he occupied, a limit set for his
soldiers under pain of losing life if they went beyond it. [172] Thus
did I redeem not only the relief and liberty of this most afflicted
community and its environs, but what is more yet, its wealth and the
most principal thing, the religion and the honor due your Majesty,
which being so exposed seemed about to be entirely lost.
I protest, Sire, that whatever I say in this my representation and
advance in my treatise, is not for the purpose of injuring that
venerable prelate whom I have ever regarded with the respect due
the prince of the Church; and if I transgress in any way, and do
not express myself with that moderation suitable, I protest that my
words may not serve as an offense to his dignity, and that I have been
actuated in this by only a real affection, with the desire that your
Majesty may be informed of the acts of turbulence which have occurred
in these domains, in order that you may better provide for the best
government and relief of them.
So far as I am concerned, I claim or desire no other satisfaction than
what I have in this as I have desired to serve your Majesty, since the
greatest satisfaction is for your royal piety to consider itself as
well served by me if you find it consistent. [173] But if it should
appear to your supreme comprehension that the so public excesses of
your reverend archbishop, as appear from the said testimony, of which
I shall enclose some here, merit satisfaction, this alone concerns
your Majesty.
I am unaware as to the motives of said prelate, that made him, although
it had no bearing on the end, for which he despatched me from the fort,
and so to the injury of your Majesty's interests, when finding himself
a prisoner of war with my associates, order me in a letter of October
10, 62, among other things: "to observe faithfully the treaties which
were being arranged with the British chiefs in Manila." Although I
answered him from the province of Bulacan in the most courteous and
fitting terms, this was not sufficient to restrain his pen, and on
the twenty-sixth of the same month he wrote me pouring out instead
of ink, blood and rage against my loyal procedure.
In the so great consternation in which the loss of Manila placed your
vassals, and for this reason many of the criminal class having fled
from prison, and continuing their depraved morals, they threw into
disorder the environs of this city and its immediate villages. Your
reverend archbishop did not allow the perverse Orendain and Don Cesar
Fallet [174] the declared enemies of your Majesty, to stir from his
side. They, availing themselves of the disturbances caused by these
malevolent persons, painted those disturbances to his Excellency,
saying that there was sedition and unrest among all the Indians, who,
having conspired against the Spaniards, were persecuting them as
wild beasts; that already in one province one of them had elevated
himself as emperor and refused obedience to your Majesty; that the
province of Bulacan was in the same condition; that all the others
would follow their example; that one of these days they would have
Señor Anda tied up, if they did not first deprive him of life; that
consequently, as it was advisable to the services of both Majesties
and for the public quiet, and so that so much Christian blood might
not be shed, his Excellency ought to yield all the islands, and cause
Señor Anda to descend; that if he did not condescend to do so, nothing
else would result than the ruin of all these domains, the loss of
Christianity, and the execution by the English of the sentence that
had been pronounced of putting to the sword all the Spaniards; that
your Majesty would never be able to consider yourself as well served;
and that consequently he should have a regard to his conscience.
I understand well, Sire, how if he considered all those motives, and
that from them would follow the total ruin of these islands, he should
then on that account have condescended to redeem them [from ruin]
by ceding them, in regard to the fact that this could not be of any
service to the English, since it only concerns your Majesty. But to
give credit to these two traitors, who knowingly exaggerated these
disturbances to him, and not to proceed, with more knowledge, to
write me in place of the letters ordering the Spaniards to descend,
to inform him regarding the condition of the provinces, and advise me,
for my course, of what was happening in Manila, by directing prudently
so glorious an end after the twenty odd days that the fort had been
taken; and continuing the obligation to surrender these domains with
the tenacity which his above-cited letters show, (although the most
of the suggestions of the two traitors were now seen to be false,
as the provinces were quiet), he proceeded to sign the cession, and
even after seeing the Catholic arms so flourishing and powerful, whose
victories, patent to all the world, were incredible to his Excellency,
yet he prosecuted this undertaking even to the grave. [175] In truth,
Sire, I do not know what apology that venerable prelate can give your
Majesty for such actions.
In view of an anonymous letter which your royal Audiencia received in
Bulacan, in regard to the English having offered a reward to whomever
would take them my head, and other methods, in which apparently the
reverend archbishop was prudently walking, I despatched to this latter
a request and petition asking him to abstain from such procedures and
not to summon the alcaldes, natives, or Spaniards who had retired,
both because his powers had expired, and because although he did
possess such powers, they ought to be used to the benefit of your
Majesty, and not in opposition to you. But this did not even restrain
him in the idea that had taken possession of him, since already
from the twenty-third day, he had ordered me to descend to Manila,
and although he saw my resistance in my accommodating myself to his
ideas, which were so opposed to your royal rights, he wrote me lastly
on the fourth of November in the terms that his said letter shows,
[176] and which I myself am ashamed to mention, referring myself to
the enclosed testimony.
He ordered the alcalde-mayor of Bulacan, Don José Pasarin, who
recognized me from the first as your royal Audiencia, to cause all the
Spaniards and their families to descend to Manila, even threatening
him with censures if he did not obey. This order included among the
Spaniards my assembly secretary, my advocate, my fiscal, and Doctor Don
Domingo Arañaz, [177] one of the advocates of this city. But neither
they nor said alcalde-mayor, recognizing the very great service which
was being done for his Majesty and for religion in [not] consenting
to the ideas of the reverend archbishop to deprive me of those whom I
considered capable of some aid in sustaining the weak remnants of your
Majesty's adherents, would pay any attention [to the order]. On the
contrary, they were the ones, who with my attendants accompanied me in
all my labors, and formed my only consolation in the total abandonment
and persecution which I suffered during the first six months. For all
the other Spaniards who were in that province, carried away either
by these persuasions, or through their terror and the threats of the
enemy, or from seeing the many atrocities committed by the Indians
against them through some trouble that they had had with them, at
the most, I am sure, by their natural inclination to live according
to their own wishes, or for the reason of the party of your Majesty
being so few in numbers, went down, and some with their possessions,
to render obedience to the English.
He ordered the marquis of Monte Castro to return to Manila; and Don
Andres Blanco, who could not do so through his indisposition, to send
his son, availing himself, in order to oblige them the more, of the
expressions which may be seen in the letters of testimony which are
worth your Majesty's attention.
He wrote in terms apparently so Christian to the provincials of
the Franciscan and Recollect orders, and recognizing himself as the
greatest sinner, confesses that he alone is the cause of all these
misfortunes and that God is punishing his flock for his sins.
Anyone would believe, in view of this so simple understanding of
himself, and a so clear confession of his defects, that it was a
true repentance and grief at seeing the miseries and havoc from
which this city and its environs were suffering, in spiritual and
temporal matters. But it is not so, Sire, for at the same time,
he sends pastoral letters to said provincials, for the Indians of
their provinces, in which, with the greatest simulated virtue, and
pretending the greatest advantages to your royal rights, he persuades
them to become subject to the English. For that purpose he sings a
thousand praises of this nation but for the purpose of surprising
the incautious simplicity of these silly Indians, for whom he had
said letters translated into their languages in order that the poison
which they held might work effects more favorable to his ideas.
Neither the threats of the enemy, nor the ostentation which this one
made of his power, nor the alliance of the apostate Sangleys, declared
in his favor and against your Majesty, nor the abandonment in which
I remained because of the absence of the few Spaniards, who were in
the provinces, nor the endurance of which I made use to dissimulate
many things which I heard and saw among these poor miserable Indians
for want of instruction, education, and communication with civilized
people, nor the schisms and rebellion of some provinces: none of these
things, Sire, was so keenly felt by me as the acts of the reverend
archbishop, which were so irregular and far from the truth; of a
prelate, who instead of furnishing an example, served as a stimulus
to the traitors who leaning on the authority which is represented
among such lofty subjects, were confident of the virtue and zeal of
this prelate, only to become inflamed against me and avail themselves
of his destructive ideas of this your state and religion.
It is left for the supreme intelligence of your Majesty to consider
the great grief caused this royal Audiencia which was governing, to
see an ecclesiastical prelate who had just been military and political
head, who spared no means in order to sacrifice these your domains,
which he ought to have conserved for so many reasons, or at least
have maintained an indifferent attitude in the condition of prisoner.
What Catholic and loyal vassal of your Majesty could see without
great grief a pastor persuading his sheep in said letters that they
should submit to Gran Bretaña? Further on, he says: "If you do as I
exhort and advise you, you will receive the reward from God, and for
the contrary, the punishment; and if you observe, this, you will be
good vassals of my king and my faithful children."
In truth, Sire, such propositions in writing from an ecclesiastical
prelate are of the greatest scandal for the community and very
suspicious for the faith due to both Majesties.
What doctrine, what religion is this, in which one sees that a pastor,
so repentant and full of grief for the troubles of his flock in the
power of the heretical enemy, at the same time, with so efficacious
and mild words induces those who are free to surrender to the same
enemy! That is the same as to deliver them to the wolf so that that
animal may tear them to pieces, and destroy them with the same
hardships which he bewails in the others. To recognize a sin, to
confess it with show of repentance and to commit a greater of the
same kind: what doctrine, I repeat, is this?
A rare thing, the eagerness with which this reverend prelate undertook
and prosecuted a matter so extraordinary and harmful! A good proof of
this truth is what results from the above-cited letters written to the
subjects abovesaid, and which are expressed in the said testimony which
I enclose. The archbishop signs some as governor of Manila, although
a prisoner; in others as governor and captain-general; and in others,
he adds, "of these islands." But if these islands had been already
ceded to the enemy, and that surrender had been made, who could commit
a greater incongruity than to call himself governor of what he had
already lost, since he surrendered and ceded it to the English?
The letter which he writes to the Marquis of Monte Castro begins thus:
"Yesterday afternoon, the present governor of Manila and his council
imprisoned, etc., Manuel Antonio, archbishop-governor." Consequently,
at one and the same time we have three governors--the Englishman,
recognized by the archbishop; the latter, for thus he signed; and
myself, because your Majesty gave me that post by your laws.
Whether the honors of such post ought or ought not to be kept for him
does not serve as an excuse to the reverend archbishop; or that he
had hopes of again holding such office by the right of postliminy: for
this at most does not go beyond honors, and hopes are kept without in
any way becoming real, for this office was confirmed in me already by
virtue of laws lvii and lviii, book ii, título xv of the Recopilación;
[178] and even according to the first, by the right of postliminy,
the reverend archbishop had no right to administer that office, again,
since it orders expressly that when your royal Audiencia assumes the
office, it hold it until your Majesty appoints to it. [179]
The fact is that in the despatches sent by the English to the traitor
Diego Silang to Ylocos, and in the edicts which they published, when
they name the reverend archbishop, they say "ex-governor." How could
it be otherwise, as he was in the domains of the king of Ynglaterra,
and was not the one appointed by the latter, and their governor would
be opposed to your Majesty. That was the manner of procedure in regard
to the title, until his burial. He performed judicial acts by means of
the false secretary Monrroy and others in whatever he thought best,
with the most special circumstance that he was always in favor of
the English and opposed to the rights of your Majesty and your vassals.
And hence it is seen that although the English treated him with the
greatest contempt, and confessed that I was acting as a loyal vassal
of your Majesty, he would never relinquish the title of governor,
or recognize in me your royal Audiencia, in accordance with the laws;
and he died in the same conviction, as one may see by his last will,
when he left to the governor, who should come from España, a carriage
and its horses, so that he might make use of it, and ordered this
cabildo to deliver to the same a sealed box, containing the papers,
which were to be sent to your Majesty. Thus was it done without any
mention of me, except to persecute me, as if I were not governor in
your Majesty's name.
Of this fact and others, my successor, Don Francisco Javier de la
Torre, will give account. The latter brought to the royal assembly the
measure in regard to your royal seal which was melted by order of the
archbishop, who always refused to send it to your royal Audiencia. And
although I petitioned it from him in my first letter of October 20,
62, and there followed in regard to it a measure on which I report
separately in so far as it concerns me, the pretext that is inferred
because of such a demonstration with this so estimable jewel of your
Majesty is surprising; and it is surprising to say that he executed it
because of its difficulty in the gates of the city and the risk which
it ran of falling into the hands of the enemy. However, it is a fact
that there was no danger at all. For when I petitioned it of him, I
told him that he could deliver it to the person who carried my letter,
a man in whom I had complete confidence. Besides he could have sent
it safely by the religious whom the English used as their ambassadors
to me, or by the adjutant whom the reverend archbishop himself sent
to me to inform me of the suspension of hostilities. But since his
intention was no other than to deprive this your image of whatever
rights could represent it, legitimately and truly, on that account it
was more difficult for him to send the royal seal of so little bulk
than to me the withdrawal from the fort of the sum of more than one
hundred thousand pesos of property which your Majesty needed for your
troops, and which I placed in the royal storehouses of those provinces.
It appears that the disrespect committed toward so sacred a jewel
in which your Majesty is immediately represented, cannot be greater,
and it would surely have been treated with more honor if it had fallen
into the hands of the enemy. This fact is sufficient to confirm the
persecution that was declared, by which he aimed to erase your royal
name from these domains. For in truth, what other impulse could he
have had, when it is public and well known that the English meddled
with nothing that concerned his palace after the sack? Above all
he was immune and free from this for a long time after, and no one
would deny that if he delivered it safely to the cabildo when melted,
in the same way he could have delivered it entire.
By the letter written by the above-mentioned prelate, under date
of October 30, 62, to Don Andres Blanco, your Majesty may see that
he treats me as a rebel. The English condemned me as a rebel and
disobedient to both Majesties on the fourth of November. It resulting
from said sentence that I was condemned by both parties, it is proved
conclusively that I was condemned by the reverend archbishop before I
was condemned by the English, and that the archbishop concurred with
them when they sentenced me. And it is a fact, and all Manila knew
it and saw him present at the council of the English on the day on
which they pronounced so unheard-of a sentence.
With these facts cited, and signed by the hand of the reverend
archbishop, one can recognize clearly the faith that is merited by
a letter which it appears that he wrote in regard to his actions
and the protests of which I am told he made before dying. If all
those who died were St. Pauls and the reverend archbishop had shown
the actions of such an one and of a royal vassal of your Majesty,
it is certain that his sayings and expressions ought to be of great
appreciation. But since he was so opposed to the rights of your
Majesty, to those of religion, and that which is least to my honor,
it has been absolutely necessary to draw up this informatory process
purely and nakedly made, so that after examining it, your Majesty
may take the most advisable measures.