The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. Volume 26 of 55. Unknown

under the mantle of the Inquisition.

      The said defamatory protest or libel was authenticated by a royal clerk named Diego de Rueda. The judge-conservator arrested him. The father commissary went to ask for him, with censures, as he declared that the clerk was a familiar of the Holy Office. The judge replied that he had arrested the clerk to get his confession, because of the said protest which he had authenticated; that he had already taken that confession, and needed him no longer; and that the father commissary should ask me for him, for I had arrested him. The father commissary replied that he was not satisfied with that reply, and that the clerk should be given to him. But the judge answered by producing proof that he did not hold the clerk prisoner, and could not hand him over. Thereupon, it appears that the father commissary calmed himself, and turned upon me in good earnest. At the earliest light he sent a youthful and somewhat impudent friar to me, to notify me of the act—which I enclose herewith13 so that your Highness may see whether this is the way to treat one who occupies such a post as I, and whom his Majesty has delegated in his place. Considering that the cause pertained to me, because that clerk had committed an offense in the exercise of his duty, and that the father commissary was exceeding his commission—and still more did he whom the father commissary sent to notify me so discourteously and impudently—I took the act from his hands, and sent him to his superior of the convent at the port of Cavite, with orders to keep him there and reduce him to order, as I did not wish him to excite the community, as the friars were doing.

      The fathers of St. Dominic took opportunity from this occurrence to utter blasphemies against me, and to declare me excommunicated for preventing the exercise of the Holy Office (as if the preservation of the royal jurisdiction would be a hindrance to that holy tribunal, which only undertakes what concerns it)—saying that I was deposed, and was not governor, nor could I be governor. They declared that the senior auditor should immediately assume the government, arrest me, and send me to a fort. They confirmed this by the father commissary bringing from Cavite father Fray Francisco Pinelo—an eloquent man, and a bold preacher in the pulpit—whom he caused to preach in his convent in this city on the second Sunday in Advent. At the beginning of his sermon, he proceeded to read a bull, translated into Romance. He declared that it was issued by Pius V, and that his Holiness ordered therein that whoever should prevent the exercise of the Holy Office should be infamous, and incapacitated from holding office. This he said with such words and manner, and at such a time, that it had the effect of pointing me out with the finger; and it was seen clearly that everything was said for me, and that he was censuring me as infamous, and saying that I was not governor. In order that your Highness may see the freedom of these friars, and how they treat him who is in the place of king—and this under cover of the Inquisition, using the authority of so holy and upright a tribunal to avenge their passions in matters that do not concern the Inquisition; and they cannot see that to support it I have a sword at my side with which to fight to the death in defense of this holy tribunal, as I have done for twenty-five years in your Highness’s service against the enemies of the faith—in this same sermon, a thousand things were said against me calling me Herod; and against the royal Audiencia because it declared, contrary to the will of the father commissary, that the judge-conservator was legal. Aspersions were uttered against the fathers of the Society, censuring them as heretics; and against the judge himself, calling him a London canon, besides a thousand other impudent speeches in the same manner. Other preachers of his order have followed the same style of preaching, and they have been imitated by the Recollect fathers of St. Augustine—who style those of the Society hypocrites and heretics; and they utter innumerable satires on them in the pulpits, making the pulpit a lectureship of vengeance, although it is the place that belongs to Christ for the preaching of His holy word. How could the father commissary remedy these disorderly acts, since he was at the head of them, and since they were by his order, as can be understood from the above?

      In this manner did they disturb and stir up the people, and even excited them to revolt—so that if I had not had arms in my hands, and the garrison which is here at my order, beyond question a greater calamity would have been feared; and I fear one, if your Highness do not take it in hand, and make a beginning in correcting such acts of boldness. I will add that I had given orders at the gates of the city that the said cleric Don Pedro de Monroy was not to be allowed to enter, as he was a seditious man, and in union with the friars he was exciting innumerable rumors and disputes in this city; and in the time of Governor Don Alonso Faxardo he was declared exiled from the kingdoms, and the temporalities had been taken away from him, because of a riot that he caused. It happened on November 21 of the past year, that he, clad as a Franciscan friar, together with another of the same order as his companion, attempted to enter a gate at the Ave Marias. The commandant, who recognized him, laid hold of him, and ordered the soldiers to take their weapons in order to prevent his entrance, and to obey their orders. But so many Dominican friars (who were prepared for that emergency), charged down upon them and defended the said cleric with their fists and with violence; and forcing my guardhouse, they placed him within the city, in spite of the soldiers, who had no opportunity to use their weapons. That appears from a legal investigation which they made in their exoneration, for I was intending to punish them for not having kept my order. I was angry, as was natural, at that lawless act and the boldness of the friars. I advised their superior of it; but he answered that that friar had entered the city because he had been summoned by the Inquisition and its commissary. For, even for such an outrage, which would have been worthy of punishment in any other, those friars take as a cloak such a holy institution as is the Inquisition—as if it were not proper to advise me, and not to force my guardhouse, even though it were a matter for the Inquisition. For it is certain that in all that pertains to that holy tribunal, the father commissary must find in me all protection and aid. But I was told nothing except that the force and violence was practiced of which I have given an account. It is to be presumed that it was not a matter that pertained to so holy and righteous a tribunal; but to say that it was a matter of the Inquisition was only a pretext and excuse for an act of boldness like that. And in order that your Highness may see more clearly what I state, the viceroy of Nueva España, the marquis de Cerralbo, sent a surgeon named Don Garcia to this country for his crimes. He came, condemned to serve for eight years at the will of the governor, without pay. But as I had need of him to go in the fleet of galleons that I was despatching to the forts of Terrenate, I tried to have him prepare for that service. He took refuge in the convent of St. Dominic, where the fathers aided and protected him. One of them, named Fray Francisco de Paula, told me that among the multitude of my affairs that were to be treated by the Inquisition was the fact that I was trying to send the said Francisco Garcia in the fleet, as its surgeon, since he was a familiar of the Holy Office. I had not known that before, and I think that it is not so, since the viceroy, in the presence of the tribunal of the holy Inquisition of Mexico, condemned him and sent him here; or else his cause was such that, even though he was a familiar of the Holy Office, that holy tribunal did not think it advisable to prevent the punishment imposed by the viceroy. And although the tribunal of Mexico, notwithstanding its so great power, refused to prevent that punishment, a friar tries to prevent it here and opposes me, the governor, and protects even a criminal from me—not so much to protect him, as to turn upon and oppose me. In truth, Sir, this is a grievous thing, namely, that in whatever desires or whims these friars have, and for whomever they wish to be aided and protected for them against the governor, they immediately find a path by way of the Inquisition.

      Those fathers gave the final touch to those annoyances by taking from me, to my great vexation, a goodly number of sailors and some soldiers, who had received their pay in order to make the voyage in the said fleet of galleons to Terrenate. One of two friars of St. Dominic fled with them in a boat and went by way of Macajar to India, in order to go to España with serious complaints, as I am told, for your Highness. However, the path that they are taking is very apt to lead them into the hands of the Dutch or of the many other enemies who infest the seas of Yndia. It is said, and I regard it as certain, that that was the plan of the father commissary of the Holy Office; and at least he concurred in and had a part in it. Let your Highness consider the boldness and freedom of those friars in recklessly entering a matter which is so to the disservice of your Highness; and it is a kind of treason to take away the people who are in your service, and who have been already paid to go in the royal fleet.

      Many other things of this sort and of this

13

See this paper in Vol. XXV, pp. 243–244.