The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 10 of 55: 1597-1599; 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, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 10 of 55: 1597-1599; 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, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
As I have at various times written to your Majesty, you ordered me
to come here and serve in this country, without giving me the royal
instructions of despatches to that end. Accordingly many things of
importance which your Majesty commanded me to attend to were left
undone at the time I came. When I arrived in these islands I wrote
to your Majesty at length of those things which could be managed in
spite of the short time I had spent here. These despatches were lost
in the ship "San Phelipe" which Don Luis Perez Dasmarinas despatched
in the year 1596, and which was lost in Xapon. The next year, 1597,
I awaited the royal instruction of your Majesty in order to govern my
action by it; but neither did that come, until the past year, 1598. I
govern my action according to that of Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, my
predecessor, and with that I have stumbled through various matters. In
the past year, 1597, I wrote at length to your Majesty describing
the condition of the country and that of Japon, together with the
state of the expedition to Mindanao, and all other things which seemed
expedient. I also wrote that I had married Doña Tomasina, my relative,
and the daughter of Doctor Horosco, president of your royal Audiencia
of Guadalaxara--humbly beseeching your Majesty to approve of this,
since Doña Tomasina was not a native of this country; and I had not
gone beyond your Majesty's intentions, for you gave me permission
to bring my wife to this land. As she died on the way I married
Doña Tomasina, whom I brought from Mexico. In the past year, 1598,
I received the royal instruction of your Majesty and other royal
decrees which were mentioned therein, at the time when the ships
were being despatched. Those things which could be done at that time,
considering the short time before they left, I attended to then. I have
in everything worked for the service of our Lord and your Majesty,
conformably to the pious zeal and spirit with which I am serving you
here; and I have carried out those things entrusted in your royal
service to my predecessor.
2. _That it is expedient, in order to realize the results of the great
expense in these islands, that religious should be sent each year to
gather the harvest which should be taken from it; and that an account
should be sent of the Indians here, both Christians and infidels,
and a memorandum of the religious._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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