d
that the governor summoned the father custodian one day, and asked
him for a friar to send to the Cagayan River, whither he had but a few
days before sent certain Spaniards to form a colony. The custodian said
that he would give him a friar, and that he himself would accompany the
latter as far as the province of Illocos whither he was going to visit
the missions; thence he would despatch him to the Cagayan River, as
his Excellency ordered. The father custodian asked as companions, for a
guard during the journey, Sergeant Francisco de Duenas and the soldier
Juan Diaz Pardo (their friend, as above said), intending to go from
there to China, as was done, and as will be told in the following. The
governor, wishing to please him, granted this request, and the father
custodian set out in haste, taking with him the above-named soldiers
and one religious as associate, by name Fray Augustin de Tordesillas
[31]--he who afterward related from memory what had happened to them
in China, whence has been taken this little relation.

They arrived at Illocos, where father Fray Juan Baptista [32]
and father Fray Sebastian de San Fracisco, of their own order, were
busied in instructing the natives. This was on the fourth of June. The
next day they held a council, at which it was unanimously resolved
that all there should venture themselves to go to China to convert
those pagans, or else die in the attempt. Therefore it was decided
to approach another soldier likewise of their company, named Pedro
de Villaroel. They told him--without declaring their own intention,
so that he might not disclose it--that, if he wished to accompany them
and the two other soldiers, who were about to go together upon a matter
of great service to God, and the gain of many souls, he should say so,
and without asking whither, or to what end, because this could not be
told until due time. He answered immediately that he would accompany
them willingly, and would not abandon them until death. Thereupon they
all, with peculiar gladness, betook themselves to the vessel in which
the father custodian and his associate, and the two other soldiers,
had come thither from Manila. This was a fairly good fragata, although
supplied with but few and indifferent sailors. After all had embarked
and had stowed away what could be collected in the short time at their
disposal, for sustenance while on the way, they set sail on that
very day, the twelfth of the same month of June, a