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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 42, 1670-1700: 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 42, 1670-1700: 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

While this loss was so great, one of the most grievous losses that
these islands have suffered, it was made worse by the non-arrival of
the galleon that was expected that year, the "Santo Cristo de Burgos,"
in charge of General Don Bernardo Ignacio del Bayo--who, as we have
said, was sent by the viceroy Conde de Galves in the year of 1691, and
returned in the same ship the following year; and it put back to the
port of Solsogón, after having endured great tempests. It remained at
Solsogón in order to continue its voyage the year of 1693, as it did;
but it not only failed to reach port, but was wrecked, without our
gaining the least knowledge of the place where that occurred. There
were some suspicions that it was destroyed by fire (a danger for which
there is on the sea no help), for at one of the Marianas Islands were
found fragments of burned wood, which were sent [here] by the governor
of Filipinas, Don José Madrazo, and were recognized to be of woods that
are found in these islands only. Careful search was made for many years
along the coasts of South America, and in other regions; but not the
least news of this ship has been received. Among the persons who were
lost in this galleon was a religious who was most highly esteemed by
this province for his great virtue and learning; this was the father
reader Fray Francisco de Ugarte, a Vizcayan, a native of Marquina,
who came as superior of the mission which reached this province in the
year 1684; he had been sent in this galleon to España, as procurator
of the province, to ask for a new reënforcement of missionaries. Much
could be said of the great virtue of this religious, of his frequent
prayer and mortification, his poverty, his extraordinary humility
and affability--which I omit, in order not to seem too partial to
him, or expose myself to the censure which I have seen incurred by
many historians among the regulars, who have indulged in so excessive
praises of this sort that they expose themselves to the charge of being
too partial, because the persons eulogized are of their own houses.

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