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. 24]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 24

taking therefrom the most devout of the province -
as at that time our father Fray Alonso de Mentrida
- for its credit and reputation. He was very zealous,
and obtained an increase of income for the house at
Manila, so that it was able to attend better to its
many obligations of choir, study, and infirmary, and
those of so important a community. Our father had
the good fortune also to receive a very distinguished
contingent of religious in the second year of his term.
They were brought by father Fray Juan de Tapia,
who, as we have said above, was sent by our father
Fray Juan Enriquez as procurator of the province.
The religious were received with open arms; for the
province was now in need of laborers, as the country
was but little suitable to sustain life - especially
among young men, who, as the blood boils in so warm
a land, fall sick easily and die.
The religious who came in that year of 1624 are
as follows:
I. Father Fray Juan de Tapia, their superior and
commissary.
2. Father Fray Francisco Villalon, a reader, a
Castilian.
3. Father Fray Sebastian del Rio, a preacher, a
Castilian.
4. Father Fray Diego de Ordas, a preacher, a
Castilian.
5. Father Fray Martin Claver, an Arragonese, a
preacher, and apostolic notary.
6. Father Fray Francisco Barela, a reader, a
Castilian.
7. Father Fray Juan de Guevara, a priest, from
Andalucia.