[40] Francisco de Mesina was born in Messina, Sicily, in 1614; at the age of fifteen he became a Jesuit novice, and in 1643 came to the Philippines. He acted as minister at the college of Manila during one year, and then went to Camboja with a Spanish expedition who built a ship there, ministering to the Spaniards, and to the natives of the country. For two years he was rector of Silang, and more than twenty years minister to the Chinese at Santa Cruz, near Manila, becoming very proficient in their language. He was three years provincial, and was sent to Macan and Camboja by the governor "on affairs of the royal service;" and he died at Santa Cruz, October 12, 1682. (Murillo Velarde, Hist. Philipinas, fol. 354.) [41] Spanish, almojarifazgo: export and import duties, as our modern officials would call them. This tax was first collected by the Moors in the cities and coasts of Andalucía, and afterward--in the times of St. Fernando, according to various authors--came to be introduced among the Christians; and they, on accepting or establishing this impost, adopted the name by which the Arabs designated it.--Fray Tirso López (editor of Diaz). [42] Don Francísco Xavier, in the year 1670 (Murillo Velarde, Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 300). [43] Francisco Miedes was a native of Madrid, born about 1621; he entered the Jesuit order about 1643, and in 1643 came to the islands. During the first year he was an instructor at the college of Manila; the rest of his life was spent in the missions of Ternate and Siao. He compiled grammars and vocabularies of the dialects spoken in those islands, and performed his missionary labors with great self-sacrifice and devotion, suffering much from poverty and lack of the usual comforts of life. The hardships of this career, and his frequent austerities, broke down his strength, and he finally died at Iloilo, on June 21, 1674. (Murillo Velarde, ut supra, fol. 352 b, 353.) Gerónimo Cebreros was born in Mexico on May 30, 1626, and at the age of twenty-three entered the Jesuit novitiate, and four years later came to the islands. He was a missionary in Ternate and Siao, and for six years the superior of those missions; afterward he labored among the Spaniards and Tagals in Luzón, and died on August 15, 1713. (Ut supra, fol. 400 b.)