rother Bartolomeo Calvo,
at the request of the general, Antonio de Morga, auditor of the
royal Audiencia, and of other officers of rank, who were accustomed
to confess to the said father.

Now when the father had exerted himself to receive the confessions
of the soldiery, and had exhorted them to fight bravely, on the
fourteenth of December they came in sight of the enemy; and the
flagship spread its sails and bore down so swiftly on the other
flagship that the passage from one to the other was easy. In the
conflict our men tore away the enemy's flags and carried them back to
their own ship, shouting, "Victory!" with joyful voices. Just then
our ship, having taken in a great quantity of water from all sides,
was by the permission of God suddenly swallowed in the waves with
all the sailors, except a few who by the help of a skiff captured
from the Dutch, or by swimming, made their way to land. The general
was one who threw himself into the water with two flags of the enemy's.

Then the almiranta, having encountered the enemy's almiranta,
captured it, and carried it away to Manila, where punishment was
inflicted on all the sailors. Among the number of those on our side
who were slain or drowned, a hundred and fifty-nine in all, Father
Diego was drowned. He had heard, as it appeared, the confessions of
all; and as he was making the effort to throw himself clear into the
sea, he was called back by the voice of a captain desiring to make
his confession. While he was hearing the confession he was drowned,
with the brother and the rest. The father was in the twenty-ninth year
of his age, and had lived fifteen years in the Society. The brother,
his companion, was of the same age, and had lived in the Society seven
years; he had entered it in these regions. He was a man endowed with
every virtue, being especially noteworthy for his obedience, to which
he was always greatly inclined.

Of the brethren there has also died Martin Sanchez, a native of these
islands, who was for a decade a member of the Society, and who left a
glorious example in life and death. There remain in this vice-province
thirty priests and twenty-nine brethren (of whom two are scholastics
and four novices)--those nine being included whom your Paternity has
sent hither with Father Gregorio Lopez, in whom this vice-province
assuredly receives a great assistance. As it is of later birth, more
scantily supplied with workers, and further from Rome, it is likewi