The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. Volume 18 of 55. Unknown

1

Spanish, se hierra; an allusion to the branding of convicts with a hot iron; that is, a defeat on the part of the Spaniards would be an irremediable damage to their reputation.

2

See Vol. XIV, p. 314, note 53.

3

The property of deceased persons was carefully guarded by law, as numerous decrees show; see Recopilación de leyes, lib. ix, tit. xiv, which contains twenty-five ordinances, devoted to “the property of persons who have died in the Indias, and its administration and accounts in the House of Trade at Sevilla;” and lib. ii, tit. xxxii, with seventy ordinances regarding “the courts in charge of such property, and its administration and accounts in the Indias, and on vessels of war or trade.” Two of these laws (ley xxii in the former group, and ley lix in the latter) give definite and unqualified command that the funds in the probate treasury shall not be used for any purpose whatsoever, even for the needs of the royal service; and another (ley lx, second group), dated December 13, 1620, commands that the proceeds of estates left by persons dying in the Philippines shall be accounted for and paid (to the heirs) at the royal treasury in the city of Mexico.

4

Juan Ronquillo was a relative of Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa. After the death of Rodríguez de Figueroa, he conducted an expedition to Mindanao in 1597 at Governor Tello’s order (see description of that expedition, Vol. XV). In 1617 he defeated the Dutch at Playa Honda, as above described.

5

Playa Honda (signifying “a low beach”) is the name of an extensive plain in Batalan or Botolan mountain, 1,847 feet high, on the coast of Zambales province, Luzón, to the northwest of Manila. In the text, this name is applied to a road or anchorage on that coast; its early name was Paynauén.

6

This was Miguel García Serrano; he made his profession as an Augustinian friar in 1592, at Agreda, Spain. Three years later, he arrived in the Philippines, where he was minister in several native villages, and held various important offices in his order, being provincial in 1611. Then he went to Spain and Rome; and, when the see of Nueva Segovia became vacant, Serrano was appointed to it. After ruling this bishopric for two years (June, 1617-August, 1619) he became archbishop of Manila. His death occurred in June, 1629.

7

“At this time (i.e., late in the sixteenth century], also, political and religious war was almost universal in Europe, and the quarrels of the various nationalities followed the buccaneers, pirates, traders, and missionaries to the distant seas of Japan .... All foreigners, but especially Portuguese, were then slave traders, and thousands of Japanese were bought and sold, and shipped to Macao, in China, and to the Philippines. Hidéyoshi repeatedly issued decrees threatening with death these slave-traders, and even the purchasers. The seaports of Hirado and Nagasaki were the resort of the lowest class of adventurers from all European Nations, and the result was a continual series of uproars, broils, and murders among the foreigners, requiring ever and anon the intervention of the native authorities to keep the peace.” (Griffis’s Mikado’s Empire, p. 254.)

8

A small island—the name meaning “Vay Island,” Pulo being simply the Malay word for “island”—situated near the island of Banda. The English post thereon which is mentioned in the text was of little consequence, according to Richard Cocks—see his Diary, 1615–22 (Hakluyt Society’s publications, London, 1883), i, pp. 269, 274, 275, 292; he states that there were “5 or 7 English men in that iland,” and that they were slain by the Dutch and the natives. The editor of the Diary, E.M. Thompson, cites (p. 269) mention of this event in Purchas His Pilgrimes. The name Pulovay is also applied to a small island north of Achen, Sumatra.

9

This document is also contained in the Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library), i, pp. 443–471. Certain variations occur therein from the text we follow, which is transcribed from the original MS. in the Real Academia de Historia, Madrid; and that of Ventura del Arco purports to be taken from the same MS. This apparent discrepancy probably arises from the two transcriptions being made from different copies of the same document. In the collection of the Real Academia more than one copy exists, in the case of certain documents; and there may be more than one copy of the one here presented. It should be remembered, in this connection, that in the religious houses in Europe manuscript copies of letters from distant lands were largely circulated, at that period, for the edification of their members (as we have before noted); and these copies were often not verbatim, the transcriber sometimes making slight changes, or omissions, or adding information which he had received later or by other channels. Our own text has been collated with that of Ventura del Arco, and variations or additions found in the latter are indicated as above, in brackets, followed by ”V.d.A.”—omitting, however, some typographical and other slight variations, which are unimportant. In the Ventura del Arco transcript there are considerable omissions of matter contained in the MS. that we follow.

10

For account of the arrival of these vessels in Japan, and various details regarding their exploits in the Philippines, see Cocks’s Diary, i, pp. 259–281. The name “Leon Rojo” signifies “Red Lion;” and “Fregelingas” is apparently a Spanish corruption of “Vlissingue” (“Flushing”).

11

This word is written Tono in the Ventura del Arco transcript. The ruler of Firando (the local form of Hirado, as it is more correctly written) was then Takanobu, who became daimio—“king,” in the English and Spanish writers; but equivalent to “baron”—of that island. The name Tono Sama, applied to the daimio, is not a personal name, but a polite form, equivalent to “your Lordship.” See Satow’s notes on Voyage of Saris (Hakluyt Society’s publications, London, 1900), p. 79. Cocks speaks of this ruler as Figen Sama.

The “history of Hirado as a commercial port” up to 1611 is recounted by Satow (ut supra, pp. xliv–li).

12

This commander is mentioned by Cocks as John Derickson Lamb. The ship called “Galeaça” in our text is “Gallias” in that of Cocks.

13

Evidently Ilocos, as is shown by another mention near the end of this paragraph.

14

Name of the Moro pirates who inhabit the little islands of the Sulu group east of Tawi-tawi, and the islands between these and Borneo; but on the last the name Tirones is also conferred—derived from the province of Tiron in Borneo, to which these islands are adjacent. See Blumentritt’s list of Philippine tribes and languages (Mason’s translation), in Smithsonian Report, 1899. pp. 527–547.

15

“In 1611, Iyéyasu obtained documentary proof of what he had long suspected, viz., the existence of a plot on the part of the native converts and the foreign emissaries to reduce Japan to the position of a subject state… Iyéyasu now put forth strenuous measures to root out utterly what he believed to be a pestilent breeder of sedition and war. Fresh edicts were issued, and in 1614 twenty-two Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian friars, one hundred and seventeen Jesuits, and hundreds of native priests and catechists, were embarked by force on board junks, and sent out of the country.” (Griffis’s Mikado’s Empire, p. 256.)

The priests mentioned in our text were put to death in June, 1617, at Omura (Cocks’s Diary, i, pp. 256, 258).

16

Vicente Sepúlveda was a native of Castilla, and entered the Augustinian order in that province; he was a religious of great attainments in knowledge and virtue. He arrived in the Philippines in 1606, became very proficient in the language of the Pampangos, and was a missionary among them for five years.