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]

PREFACE

The present volume, covering the years 1649-66,
is mainly ecclesiastical in scope. An appendix, showing the judicial state of the islands in 1842, is added.
A number of the documents are from Jesuit sources,
or treat of the affairs of that order. Among these are
an account of the Jesuit missions in the islands, and
their protest against the erection of the Dominican
college at Manila into a university. The archdiocese
of Manila strives to gain more authority, both in the
outlying islands of the Eastern Archipelago and over
the administration of parishes by the regular orders;
and effort is made to strengthen the power of the
tribunal of the Inquisition at Manila. The question
of episcopal visitation of the regular curas is already
vital, and the later conflicts over this question are
plainly foreshadowed, and even begun. The history of the Recollect missions for the above period
shows their prosperous condition until the time when
so many of their laborers die that the work is partially crippled. As for secular affairs, the most important is the Chinese revolt, of 1662; this and other
disturbances greatly hinder and injure the prosperity
of the islands.
Reverting to the separate documents: a curious
pamphlet (Manila, I649) describes the funeral cere