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. 13]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 13

language, until these infidel Chinese made this sin
known to them. These native Indian men and
women are very greedy, and as they are but lately
made Christians, and are not thoroughly instructed,
a great many of them find it very easy to leave not
only Christian morals, but even the Catholic faith
as well, and embrace the superstitions and rites which
the idolatrous infidels desire to teach them. Likewise- and this is very important, considering the
state of the faith here, and upon what depends the
peace and preservation of these islands (namely, the
faith in God and obedience to the king our lord),
and the extreme danger and peril in which these infidel Sangleys placed us in the previous year of one
thousand six hundred and three, in the month of October, from which we were delivered only by the
mercy and infinite power of God, by which alone we
could be freed - their desire to slaughter all of us
Spaniards, and to make themselves masters of this
kingdom, is much-inflamed now at seeing so many
thousands as were here of their fathers, sons, brothers,
and kinsmen, and of their friends and countrymen,
slain; and how so great an amount of their property
here was destroyed. With this so open enmity,
hatred, and thirst for vengeance so aroused, they will
seek, great in cunning and craft as they are, to sow
discord between us Spaniards and the Indian natives
of these islands, and separate us, mind and heart.
For this purpose they promise and give them articles
of value; for of all known people they best understand how to bribe, and they will contrive to know
all secrets. And all this they can easily accomplish,
if they succeed in maintaining dishonorable carnal
intercourse with the Indian men and women. To