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

was one of which he had made no resignation. Now
came the time for the chapter which was to be held
in Guadalupe, according to the decision made. In
this chapter the number of votes was very much less,
in obedience to the acts of the intermediary chapter,
and the father visitor was to be the president as was
necessary in that chapter also, for thus was it ordered
in his letters-patent. Some must have been sorry for
it. Finally, the matter arranged itself in such a way
that our father master Fray Diego de Guevara resigned any right that he might have to that presidency and to the visitation of those islands, and for
greater assurance broke the seal of it when he entered
the chapter. As the only received master in that
province, it was understood that he would be provincial; but I think that the fathers were very far
from thinking of it, for they inclined to our father
Fray Miguel Garcia, who was most keen and very
accurate in matters of government. Being, moreover, a prince of the Church, the latter was more
conspicuous, as all thought; and I have even heard
very influential persons and even governors say of
the archbishop, "He is very wise I He is very wise!"
Upon the arrival, then, of the nineteenth of the
month of May, I614, the date upon which our chapter fell, our father Fray Vicente de Sepulveda, a
person who, one would think, had entered these
islands for eminence in everything, was elected. For
coming in the company of the bishop Solier (I mean
the company which he himself brought to this land),
in the year I606, as soon as the said Solier was elected
provincial, he made him [i.e., Sepulveda] prior of
the convent of Macabebe in Pampanga, one of the
best of all the convents. Later, while our father