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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as captives those who were really Trojan horses; for,
concealing their arms, they showed only many
obsequious acts of submission. The captain ordered
them to be taken to the fort where the father prior,
Fray Agustin de Santa Maria, was already waiting;
and when the order was given that the feigned captives should be set in the stocks, at that juncture
Dabao drew a weapon which he had concealed, and
broke the captain's head. The Indians untied their
bonds, the rebels came with lances from the village,
and a hotly-contested battle took place in which almost all our men lost their lives. Only the religious
and four Spanish soldiers and a corporal were left
alive. It did not occur to them, in the midst of so
great confusion, to take other counsel than to drop
down from the wall. We shall leave the father prior,
Fray Agustin, for the present, and speak only of the
soldiers who opened up a road with their invincible
valor by means of their arms, in order to take refuge
in the convent. But finding it already occupied by
the insurgents, who had gone ahead to despoil it,
they fought there like Spaniards, hurling themselves
sword in hand on the mass of the rebels. However,
they were unable to save the post, for the convent
and the church were blazing in all parts. Thereupon it was necessary for them to hurl themselves
upon a new danger in order to return to the redoubt,
where they arrived safely at the cost of many wounds,
although they found the fort dismantled. Thence
they sent the Indians in flight to the mountains by
firing their arquebuses at them.
263. Only the family of one pious woman remained in the village, who (although sparingly)
gave them food every day. But that charity could