indful
of the said great need of ministers and the great fruit that they
obtain for our Lord and your Majesty, whose royal Catholic person may
the divine Majesty preserve, as is necessary to Christendom. Manila,
June twenty, one thousand six hundred and fifty-two. [9]

Matheo de Arceo
Jeronimo de Fuentes Cortes
Nicolas Fernandez Paredes
Cristobal Velazquez
Gabriel Gomez del Castillo
Pedro de Morales
Pedro de Almonte
Juan de Somonte
A. de Verastegui
Francisco Lopez Montenegro
Albaro de Castillo

CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES IN 1652

Summary of the memorial of the Jesuit Magino Sola [10] to Don Sabiniano
Manrique de Lara, governor of the Filipinas Islands, explaining the
needs of the islands.

In this memorial Magino Sola shows that the conquest cannot
be sustained, or extended to the points that are indispensable,
without arms and soldiers. That the conquest may be carried on, it is
necessary that the pay of the soldiers be met, as well as the other
obligations of the islands, which have been quite disregarded for
several years. Especial attention should be given to the evangelical
ministers, who ought to be helped by the military.

The scarcity and misery has been the cause of serious disturbances. The
father says: "The reason why the Chinese in Filipinas rose in revolt
was only because of the lack of the ordinary supplies for the soldiers,
so that the soldiers violently seized their food and clothing from
the houses and Parian of the Chinese. The merchants could not pay
the Chinese for the goods that they had bought from them for the
want of the same succor. [11] The reason why the natives in some
provinces have risen in insurrection and killed their ministers and
the Spaniards was only because, the ordinary supplies being lacking,
the Spaniards could not satisfy the natives for the food and goods
that they had given on credit, nor pay them for their work.

"The reason why the governor of those islands found himself obliged
to seize the money of their citizens and that of this city [i.e.,
Mexico], with so great loss to trade, was only for the reenforcement
of the presidios, and to avoid troubles which follow from not paying
the soldiers. Let one consider in how many years either the relief
for those islands has been lacking altogether, or has been sent in so
small quantity that it neither supplies the need, nor gives any hope of
paying the amount owed. That is the origin and beginning, if