Wreck of the galleon "San Diego;" the mission that arrived from Nueva España; and the feast of the Conception of our Lady. This province of ours was very deficient in religious to fulfil its charge of the instruction and teaching of so many villages, which were commended to our care as the first spiritual conquistadors of these remote islands. Nine years had already passed since the last mission had reached this province (in the year 1645), during which sixty religious had died; and, besides, the procurators who had been sent to España to get new missions had suffered the same fate. Father Fray Cristobal Enriquez, although he reached Madrid, and presented himself before the royal and supreme Council of the Indias for that purpose, did not obtain a favorable despatch. For, permission having been given him to conduct thirty religious to these islands, and trusting to that and having assembled and conducted many from the provinces of España to Sevilla (in which he had spent the little that he had for that purpose), a new decree was issued in which he was ordered to suspend the transportation of the thirty religious who had been allowed to him, under pretext of inability to equip them because of the many war expenses of that time. The religious who were assembled in Andalucía returned to their provinces; and father Fray Cristobal Enriquez, having spent all his supply money, died in the city of Cáceres, which was his birthplace. With these losses the province found itself in the greatest need because of the lack of workmen for the missions in its charge, until the arrival in 1654 of the galleon "San Diego" in charge of the commander Pedro Villarroel de la Cuesta--which was wrecked in the beginning of June near the harbor and bay of Manila, as it went aground on an unknown shoal. However, only the hull of the ship was lost and all the men and the cargo were saved. That galleon brought fifteen religious, who had been sent by the provincial of the province of Méjico, by virtue of the authorization given him by the last procurator of this province, Fray Francisco de Victoria, who died in Méjico. The said religious were admitted into this province at a private meeting of the definitors held on June 13 of the said year 1654. They are as follows: Father Fray Gerónimo de la Serna, who was in charge of that mission, forty years old, and twenty-five in the habit. He had been a prior with vote three times in his province, and died in the year 1668. Father Fray José Polanco, a theologue. He was an excellent minister to the Tagálogs and Ilocans, and served in this province for many years with great credit, for he was an able minister and skilled in both languages. He died in the year 1681, in a grievous manner; for, when coming in a champan from the province of Ilocos, where he was prior of the convent of Bauang, the vessel went to pieces and he was drowned together with sixteen persons in the same boat.