[25] Pedro Bolaños was master of novices in the convent of Peña de Francia when he decided to enter the Filipinas mission, and was then sixty years of age. He labored among the natives of Bataan for a little while; but the responsibilities of this work, the hardships of missionary life, and his advanced years, were too much for him, and he died before he had spent a year in Filipinas. (Reseña biográfica, i, pp. 95-97.) [26] Juan de la Cruz, labored first among the natives of Pangasinan, and was afterward sent among those of Bataan, where he became very proficient in the Tagál language. He was provisor of the archdiocese under Benavides, until the latter's death; then he returned to Bataan, where he died, probably near the end of 1605. (Reseña biográfica, i, pp. 100, 101.) [27] Apparently meaning the Jesuit Alonso Sanchéz, who was then in Nueva España, on his way to Spain. [28] At that time, the marqués de Villamanrique (VOL. VI, p. 282). [29] The younger Juan de Castro was a priest in the Dominican convent at Barcelona when the Filipinas mission enterprise was begun. Arrived in the islands, he was sent to Pangasinan; and, at the end of 1593, accompanied Fray Luis Gandullo on an embassy to China. On their return, they were shipwrecked off the coast of Pangasinan; and the exposure and suffering incident to this misfortune brought on a serious illness, from which Castro died early in 1594. Marcos Soria de San Antonio was also assigned to the Pangasinan field, where his life was at first in danger from the fierce heathen; but afterward he won their affection by his gentleness and kindness to them. The sufferings and hardships of missionary life broke down his health, and he was compelled to seek medical care in Manila; but it was too late, and he died there in 1591. Gregorio Ochoa de San Vicente, then a Dominican friar in Valladolid, joined the Filipinas mission; and, like his associates in Pangasinan, was broken down by hardships--but even earlier than they, since his death occurred on November 25, 1588. The lay brother Pedro Rodriguez spent twenty years in the hospital maintained by the Dominicans for the Chinese, which was later removed to Binondo. He died in that place, in 1609.