The two galleons which had sailed for Nueva España in the preceding
year arrived safely at Filipinas [1684], although they did not make
port at Cavite, but at Solsogon, within the Embocadero. The flagship
"Santa Rosa," which had gone out in charge of Antonio Nieto (who had
remained as warden of the castle at Capulco), brought back as its
commander Don Juan de Zalaeta, a native of Vizcaya, and a knight of
the Order of Santiago. He had spent many years in these islands, and
had been a soldier in Ternate; and, having returned to [Nueva?] España,
had held several honorable offices--as, being alcalde-mayor of Hicayán
and Puebla de los Angeles, and warden of Acapulco. In this galleon
came the governor who was to succeed Don Juan de Vargas; this was
the admiral of galleons, Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui y Arriola, a
knight of the Order of Santiago, and a member of the "twenty-four"
of Sevilla and of the supreme Council of War. He had been commander
of the Windward fleet, [98] and had held other responsible positions
on sea and land; and he was a Vizcayan, a native of Elgoibar. Don
Juan de Zalaeta carried the commission for taking the residencia of
Don Juan de Vargas, and other warrants; but the most important person
among those whose residencias he must take was the master-of-camp Don
Francisco Guerrero de Ardila, uncle of Don Juan de Vargas's wife. It
was this man who had enjoyed the profits of the office of government,
and this year he was returning to España as commander of the galleon
"Santo Niño." That vessel met within the Embocadero the galleon
"Santa Rosa," and, learning that in the latter had come a successor
to Don Juan de Vargas, he hoisted the anchors without waiting for
further information, whether opportune or not [con tiempo ó sin
él], and sailed into the sea outside; and he was not ill-advised
in this step, since in the residencia he would have been the chief
personage. When Don Juan de Zalaeta learned that the best of the hunt
had escaped from him, he was much grieved that he could not catch him;
although it would have grieved Don Francisco Guerrero more if they
had seized him. That gentleman knew how to enjoy the advantages of
Filipinas quite alone, and to go away laughing at the citizens and
every one else; but Don Juan de Vargas remained behind, in custody,
to make amends for his own faults and those of others.
In company with the above-mentioned governor came very distinguished
officers, all Vizcayans; there were Don José de Escorta, Don Pedro
Uriósolo, Don Francisco Alvarez, Don Bernardo de Endaya (who carried
the despatches from his Majesty), Don Pedro de Avendaño, Don Matías
de Mugórtegui, Don Francisco de León y Leal, Don Juan Bautista
Curucelaegui, Don Andrés de Mirafuentes, Don José de Herrera, Don
Manuel González, Don Lorenzo Mesala, Don Francisco Carsiga (who
died a priest), Don José Arriola, Don Martín Martínez de Tejada,
and Don Lucas Vais; all of them were generals and sargentos-mayor,
whom we know as captains, and rendered much service and honor to
these islands. In this galleon came Don Mateo Lucas de Urquiza;
also Captain Lorenzo Lázaro, a noted pilot; Captain Don Francisco
Cortés, boatswain; and for ship's storekeeper Juan de Aramburu,
a brave Vizcayan who served in many important exploits.
In the almiranta "San Telmo," in which returned the admiral Don
Francisco Manuel de Fabra, came a numerous and excellent mission of
religious of our father St. Augustine; it was sent by father Fray
Manuel de la Cruz, who left these islands in the year 1680; he himself
had been left in our hospice of Santo Tomás de Villanueva, outside
the city of Méjico. This galleon "San Telmo" was in great danger of
not being able to return hither, for, having set sail several days
after the flagship, on leaving the port the rudder-irons broke, and
the ship was almost unmanageable--a defect very difficult to repair in
that place, on account of the scarcity of artisans at Acapulco. If it
had not been for the diligence and energy of the warden Antonio Nieto,
who sent to a great distance to get workmen, and made the repairs at
his own cost and with his personal attention, this loss would have
been irremediable; but his zeal and good judgment enabled the ship to
pursue its voyage with but a few days' loss of time, and to succeed
in making port at these islands.
On the eve of St. Bartholomew's day, August 23, in the afternoon,
the distinguished mission of our religious entered Manila; in numbers
it was the largest that had entered this province, [99] and in quality
unequaled. This province received them with great tokens of rejoicing;
and the land welcomed them with an earthquake, and not a slight one,
which occurred that night. On August 29 the private session of the
definitory was held, to draw up the formal statement of receiving
and incorporating them [into the province].
On the day following the entry of our religious into Manila, that
is, the day of St. Bartholomew, the new governor, Don Miguel de
Curucelaegui y Arriola, made his entry into the city; this was done
with great pomp, and two triumphal arches were erected for him, by the
college of the Society of Jesus and our convent, with very ingenious
emblematic allusions in Latin and Castilian verse, and very expressive
laudations. At this entry occurred a disaster which might have served
to the heathen as a bad omen. Hardly had the governor entered through
the Puerta Real, which they call Puerta de Bagumbayan, when a balcony
that was on the side within the city wall above the said gate gave
way, and fell, with great injury to those who were within it; so that
many were left cripples, and among these a Recollect religious named
Fray Luis. The fiscal of the royal Audiencia, Doctor Don Estebán de
la Fuente Alanis, escaped the danger, the falling balcony striking
his horse's tail; and Captain Don Francisco de Arcocha, the equerry
of the new governor, was hurt. But, although many were injured,
the life of no person was endangered.
The religious of this mission brought with them an image for devotion,
a painting of the holy Christ of Burgos, touched up to accord with
the original. This was received in Manila with great solemnity,
in a procession, the new governor taking part therein on account of
being much given to that devotion, and with him the most distinguished
persons in the city. The image was deposited in the main chapel, with
an altar and retable which were very suitable for it, until the Conde
de Lizárraga, Don Martín de Ursua y Arismendi, provided that which the
image has at the present time. The governor went to mass every Friday,
and there was a large attendance of citizens of Manila--I know not
whether out of complaisance with him; for at the death of Don Gabriel
de Curucelaegui, who was buried at the foot of the aforesaid altar,
at the same time was buried with him the devotion of the citizens
of Manila. The same occurred in the government of the said Conde de
Lizárraga, who again revived this devotion; for it was likewise buried
with him, in the same place. So much influence has the example of the
governors in these islands, and so great is their power, that even
devotion seems to need their aid. The religious also brought a brief
from his Holiness Innocent XI for the erection of a confraternity of
the holy Christ of Burgos; this undertaking was carried out, and its
first director [100] was this devout governor. In his time it had a
large membership, but today it has very few confriers; but they are
most devout and sincere when they are least influenced by vain and
worldly considerations, and most please the Lord when they are anxious
to please not princes--men in whom there is no real prosperity--but
the King of kings, who always repays them in money of infinite value.
Much did the Catholic governor grieve over entering upon his office
without the benediction of the archbishop, and at finding the people of
the city as a flock without a shepherd, their consciences loaded with
scruples over matters of so much importance, and all of them perplexed
and entangled in these dissensions; and therefore he resolved, with
firm purpose and heroic determination, to cause the archbishop to
be restored to his church. The opposition which he encountered among
the auditors in his efforts to secure this cannot be expressed; but
he firmly maintained his resolution, even to the extent of saying
that he would restore the archbishop, even if it should cost him his
head. He consulted the religious orders, asking them to give him their
opinions, on the basis of law, both civil and canonical. I have not
seen what the other corporations replied, which I suppose must have
been what the governor desired; but I know well that the Order of
St. Augustine adduced many and very substantial arguments in favor
of the restitution of the archbishop to his church, and this with
many citations from the authors on whom the auditors had taken their
stand--who, as the royal Council of the Indias afterward declared,
were greatly at error in their method, according to what the royal
laws ordain in case it should be necessary to enforce the penalty of
banishment against any prelate. The same error was committed by the
capitulars of the ecclesiastical cabildo in declaring and proclaiming a
vacant see, through their misunderstanding of the chapter Si Episcopus,
"De supplenda negligentia prælatorum," in VI [101]--an error which
afterward cost them all so dear, especially the dean, Don Miguel
Ortiz de Cóbarrubias.
The governor, Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui, determined to restore
the archbishop to Manila, sent to Lingayén as his agent for
accomplishing this, General Don Tomás de Endaya; and the city of
Manila sent a regidor, Sargento-mayor Don Gonzalo de Samaniego, and
some citizens. With them went the past provincial of Santo Domingo,
Fray Baltasar de Santa Cruz, commissary of the Holy Office, and many
others, with an escort of soldiers. On November 16 the archbishop
came back from his exile, to the general rejoicing of the entire city,
which had been so long a time afflicted by the absence of its pastor
and prelate. The artillery was fired [as a salute], from the castle,
and from the wall adjoining the gate of Santo Domingo, by which the
archbishop made his entrance; and after he had visited the church he
went to the palace, to see his liberator, the Catholic governor--who
said that, in case his proceeding should displease his Majesty and
the royal and supreme Council of the Indias, he would regard it as a
great glory to have a punishment, even were it capital, imposed upon
him. This may be believed of him, as he was a man of a great soul,
although small in body; Major in exiguo regnavit corpore virtus. [102]
What we saw in him was, that he was one of the best governors that
these islands have had--affable, pious, magnanimous, and in the highest
degree disinterested, and with this very liberal. And therefore he
was wont to say that he had come to Filipinas to be poor, where other
governors had come to be rich. This he said with truth, because in
España and the Indias he had possessed much wealth, gained in the
many voyages that he had made in command of the fleet and galleons
to Perú and Nueva España, which had been consumed by his ostentation
and liberality. We may therefore regard it as a punishment of God
upon these islands that He removed him from us in the fifth year of
his term of government--in which time he was severe with those only
to whom he could not in justice be kind--unless it were that divine
justice chose him for the punishment of those who had deserved it
before his time. [103]
Don Gabriel de Curucelaegui began his government with great
acceptability and satisfaction to all, and taking the measures
necessary for the maintenance of these islands. The year of 1685 was
a hard one on account of the general epidemic of smallpox which raged,
not only in these islands but in all the kingdoms of China and Eastern
India--especially on the Coromandel coast, where many millions of
Malabàrs died. In Filipinas the ravages of the epidemic were great,
principally among the infants; but the place where, it is affirmed,
the pest caused incredible loss was in the mountains of Manila where
the insurgent blacks [i.e., Negritos] dwell, so many dying that those
mountain districts were left almost uninhabited. But it was not only
among them that the disease wrought such destruction, but also among
the deer and wild swine, of which there is an innumerable multitude
in these mountains, even after they have contributed with their flesh
to the support of so great a number of blacks. The reason why so many
die with this contagion is, first, their weak physique; and second,
the custom that they have of abandoning those who are attacked by the
disease, on account of which they die much sooner--and, what is worse,
in their heathen blindness. In China many millions of people died,
so that there was no one to cultivate the fields; from this resulted
great famine and mortality, after the epidemic of smallpox.