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. 36]

1649-1666] RECOLLECT MISSIONS, 1646-60

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forts that they suffer, to carry on their work, steadily
converting new souls to the service of our Lord and
to the obedience of your Majesty. [We have also
reported] the great peace and quiet which they
preserve among themselves so that they have always
been and are, one of the most acceptable and wellreceived orders in these islands - although they are
the poorest, as all their missions are in districts very
distant from this city, and among the most warlike
people that are in all the provinces of these islands,
as they are recently conquered; and the danger in
which, for that reason, the lives of those fathers
are. Indeed, some have already risked life, at times,
when those people who appeared to be peaceful have
rebelled; and others have gloriously [met death] at
the hands of those who were not pacified, when the
holy gospel was preached to them - besides many
others who have suffered martyrdom in the kingdom
of Japon, enriching with noble acts the church of
God and the crown of your Majesty. [We have
reported] that no fleet has gone out in which those
fathers do not sail for the consolation of the infantry,
and that, in the emergencies that have arisen, they
have fought like valiant soldiers; and that they accommodate themselves to everything with the
angelic spirit that is theirs, when it is to the service
of our Lord and that of your Majesty. At the present
we inform you of the extreme poverty that the convent of San Nicolas of this city is suffering; for with
the earthquake which happened on November 30 of
the former year 1645, their entire church fell, so that
today they are living in great discomfort in cells of
straw which have been built in the garden. The
sick are the ones who suffer the greatest inconven