The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 12]

160I-1604]

CHIRINO'S RELATION

I97

to this end with offerings, some giving them pieces of
land, on which was a wooden house of moderate size;
others offerings of money, with which they bought
more land. Here we dwelt until Captain Juan
Pacheco Maldonado, a regidor of Manila, and Dofia
Faustina de Palacios y Villa Gomez, his wife, our
excellent benefactress, erected for us a beautiful stone
edifice. This work was begun, with great piety and
devotion, on the same day when this Christian captain received the news that the English had robbed
a vessel in which he had a great quantity of goods.
The mariscal Gabriel de Ribera, another notable
benefactor of ours, erected temporarily a very neat
wooden church, which was used until the stone
church, which we now have, was finished. The
greater part of this was done at the expense of this
captain, Juan Pacheco. The rest was accomplished
with the aid of large gifts contributed by the devout
people. In short, this post at Manila began to assume permanent form; our very reverend Fathergeneral Claudio Aquaviva, accepted it as a college,
and appointed, as its first rector, in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-nine, Father Antonio
Sedefio.
Of the employments of the fathers of the Society in
the Filipinas. Chapter V.
In the residence at Manila (which was the only
one that our Society then had in the Filipinas), of the
five priests who had gone thither only three remained. For, as we have said, Father Hernan
Suarez urged himself on to work until he died of
sheer exhaustion - but certainly with most abundant
harvest, and having brought great consolation to that