Part 20

The poetical form in which this pasquinade is written dates from an early period in Castile. Cervantes has a poem of this class in Chapter xxvii of the first part of Don Quijote; while Lope de Vega has also employed it. The second, fourth, and sixth lines form a sort of echo to the first, third, and fifth lines (the six lines being, however, written as three in the pasquinade). See Clemencin's edition of Don Quijote (Madrid, 1894), iii, pp. 7-9.

[7] See the book of Esther. This is the Hamah of the King James Bible.

[8] Father Fray Juan Mateos says of this passage: "The author seems to use the word 'quesos' [cheeses], alluding to 'casos' [cases] (a practical question of moral theology). I imagine that the text refers to the accusation made against those fathers of being casuists or adapters of the moral doctrine to their own convenience. From the context, one can deduce that 'cera' [wax] is used in the meaning of 'dinero' [money], and the meaning in that case might be, that the Jesuits were trying to get money by fitting up the consciences of men with moral doctrines easy of fulfilment."

[9] This is a very obscure stanza, although the allusions were doubtless well understood in Manila. The second line might be translated "And who in hanging apples, saw tares;" although the translation as given above is to be preferred.

[10] There is evidently a play on the word "cura," which may mean either "cures," or "priests" [_i.e_.,"cures"]. The meaning of the last line seems to refer to the ecclesiastical term.

[11] This may be another play on words, for "sinzera" may be the adjective "sincere" or the two words "sin zera," "waxless," and hence in this last meaning, an allusion to the third line of the third stanza.

[12] This has been already given in Vol. XXV, pp. 216-219.

[13] See this paper in Vol. XXV, pp. 243-244.

[14] Continuing from this point, the present document resumes. It is probable that the part omitted in the present document was originally a portion of it; but, being written on a loose sheet of paper, has suffered the fate common to many documents and portions of documents in Spanish archives, and been lost.

[15] One of our two copies of this attestation bears date July 29, 1635, and the other November 19, 1635. We have adopted the date above, as being more probably the correct one, errors in the transcripts being due to the poor writing of the original.

[16] See these letters in Vol. XXV, pp. 207-208, 209-210.

[17] See _ante_, p. 61, note 12.

[18] Spanish, _condenatoria_; but the word _comminatoria_ is employed in a similar expression in the "Letter from a citizen of Manila."

[19] So in our transcript, but evidently an error of the transcriber.

[20] As the reader will observe, this letter from Corcuera is, in part, almost the same as that preceding; but it contains a considerable quantity of matter (including several appended documents) which is not found elsewhere, and is for that reason presented here. It is probably one of the letters sent, either partly or wholly in duplicate, by other routes to Spain, so that at least one set of the despatches might reach the home government.

[21] Here used in a technical sense--the option or right to take action or enjoy an advantage alternately with others, as in appointments to ecclesiastical benefices, etc.; the creoles evidently demanding to share those appointments with the clergy brought over from Spain.

[22] Several of the matters discussed in the above letter are answered by the following royal decree:

The King. To Don Sevastian Hurtado de Corcuera, knight of the Order of Alcantara, my governor and captain-general of the Philipinas Islands, and president of my royal Audiencia therein. Your letter of June 30, 636, on ecclesiastical matters has been examined in my royal Council of the Indias, and reply is now made to you. You say that the religious of the Order of St. Augustine need correction, since they had not obeyed the bulls of his Holiness nor the decrees which have been issued in regard to the alternation; and that it was expedient not to allow them any more religious for eight years. Because they have many religious, as well as on account of the reasons that you bring forward for that, it has seemed best to me to charge you that you shall cause the decree for the alternation to be punctually executed, without allowing any more religious in each mission than the number which, conformably to my royal patronage, shall be enough for its needs; and that the rest of them occupy themselves in missions and preaching for which they were sent there. As for what you wrote me about the advanced age of the archbishop of those islands--who is so old that his hands and head tremble, and that it would be desirable to give him a coadjutor, and that you would arrange for giving him two thousand pesos of income besides the four thousand which the said archbishop receives, without drawing it from my royal treasury or from my vassals--I charge you to make known to me the measure or means by which that sum could be obtained without loss to my royal exchequer or my vassals, so that I may consent to your carrying it out if it be worthy of acceptance. In order that the religious of St. Dominic and of the other orders who are laboring in those islands may live with the concord and good example which is proper, and that they may not appropriate more Indian villages than those which are allowed them by my decrees, you shall not permit them to select any new ones beyond what shall be conformable to my patronage; and you shall, with the agreement of the archbishop, endeavor to unite some of the villages to others; and in those which are newly established you shall make the same effort, by introducing secular priests when you find them intelligent and competent. Madrid, September 2, 1638.

I the King

Countersigned by Don Gabriel de Ocana y Alarcon, and signed by the Council. (Conserved in Archivo Historico Nacional, in the Cedulario Indico, tomo 39, folio 225b.)

[23] _Para el efecto de propaganda fide_: evidently an allusion to the Congregation of the Propaganda (vol. xxi, p. 164, note 40), and may be freely rendered, "for carrying on the work of the [Congregation for the] propagation of the faith"--Collado's friars being assigned to mission work only.

[24] Expenses incurred either directly under the factor--one of the royal officials--or in the trading ports established by the Spaniards.

[25] The above shows the form in which the accounts from this point are entered. For the sake of greater condensation, we have reduced the balance of the document to the following tabular form.

[26] From this and many other entries in these tables, it appears that much of the money reported as paid from the royal treasury never really left it, but that accounts were simply canceled. The benefit of these transactions would accrue to the purchaser of the pay-check, for he bought at a discount from the original holder; and, until the law whereby all the creditors of the royal treasury made a _voluntary gift_ to the king of two-thirds of the account was enforced by Corcuera, he could use the pay-check at its face value, thus making immense profits, or canceling his debts to the royal treasury at small cost to himself.

[27] Probably planks one braza long.

[28] Spanish, _de guzmanes_; _i.e._, young men from noble families, who served as midshipmen in the navy, or as cadets in the army.

[29] That is, what is saved on a short voyage is consumed by extra expense on a long one; and the expenses average about the same, one year with another.

[30] That is, the repartimientos or amounts assessed on each district for the royal service, in rice, oil, and other products.

[31] Juan del Carpio was born at Rio Frio, Spain, in 1583. While a youth, he met in Spain Alonso Humanes, who was going with missionaries to the Philippines, and offered himself for that work. Humanes took him to Mexico, where Carpio entered (1604) the Jesuit order; completing there his education, he went to the Philippines in 1615. His missionary labors were carried on among the Visayans, during eighteen years. He was murdered by the Moro pirates, December 3, 1634. See account of his life in Murillo Velarde's _Historia_, fol. 70 verso, 71.

[32] Juan Domingo Bilancio--thus Murillo Velarde (_Hist. de Philipinas_, fol. 64); but Retana and Pastells (in Combes's _Hist. de Mindanao_, cols. 740, 741) give the name as Juan Bautista Vilancio--was born in the kingdom of Naples, about 1573. Before attaining his majority, he entered the Jesuit order, and came to Manila in 1602, spending the rest of his life in the Philippine missions. He was captured by the Moro pirates in 1632, who demanded a heavy ransom for him. This was raised in the following year, but he died in captivity before the money reached him. His name (apparently Vilanci) is given a Spanish form by all these writers; and he is not mentioned by Sommervogel.

[33] The Paraguay missions, among the most famous of the Society of Jesus, and an offshoot of those of Brazil, were founded in 1588. The reductions formed from the converts early in the seventeenth century, formed what has been called "the republic of Paraguay." There the religious instructed them not only in religion, but in various trades and industries, the products of their work being communal. The great prosperity of the reductions was arrested (1631-32) by the heathen tribes of Brazil, whereupon the Christian Indians abandoned them and founded new missions at the Grand Rapids of the Parana River. In 1656 there were said to have been more than twenty towns all civilized, each containing 5,000 or 6,000 Indians, and many other towns partly civilized. Each reduction was governed by two priests. After the expulsion the missions declined rapidly. See _Jesuit Relations_ (Cleveland reissue), xii, p. 276.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, by Various