8. Very soon did experience show the great importance of the firmness of so valiant a religious. For on the night of that same day, after the convent was locked, some of the loyal Indians, who were guarding the outside of it, captured a strange Indian, who declared that he was bringing a message to the father prior, which was to be given into his own hand. He was taken into the father's presence after observing the necessary precautions, where he delivered the message. It was from the father vicar of Lingayèn and contained extensive notices of the insurrection of Pangasinàn which had broken out, the murder of the alcalde-mayor, and the devastation of that part of so flourishing a province. He sent letters for his provincial and for the governor of the islands, in which a speedy relief was asked in order that the sedition might be stifled at its beginning. He besought the father prior to send them quickly to Manila, as it was impossible to send them from Pangasinàn overland. And now it is seen that if the father prior, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, had retired from Bolinào as fear persuaded him, that despatch would have been fruitless, and perhaps had those advices been unknown in Manila, Pangasinàn would have been endangered; but since he remained inflexible against the incentives of fear, he was able to take the fitting means, in order that the promptest and most efficacious aid might be obtained. 9. It was not considered advisable to entrust the conveyance of such letters to the Indians of Bolinào, and accordingly it was resolved to despatch father Fray Luis de San Joseph overland to Masingloc under the pretext that he was going on affairs connected with the spiritual administration, but his real purpose was to deliver the messages to the minister of the said village, in order that the latter might despatch them. The religious exposed himself to evident danger of death; for the village of Agno, through which he could not avoid passing, was almost entirely in insurrection, and because in the stretch extending from the territory of Agno to that of Bàlcac, it was necessary to take the rough sea in a small fishing boat which carried no sail and only one oar with the religious himself at the helm. At last he reached Masingloc, after conquering so great an obstacle. Thence, not without the most serious dangers, the minister sent the messages to Manila, arranging to have them carried by father Fray Bernardino de la Concepcion, accompanied by three of the most faithful chiefs. One of those chiefs was appointed master-of-camp by the governor as a reward for so excellent a service, another, sargento-mayor, and the third, captain of the militia of his village; and they were exempted for life from paying tribute. And since the father vicar of Lingayèn despatched a second mail to Bolinào in case that the first should fail, the father prior, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, despatched the letters in a Chinese vessel which made