do what we could in the city; or, if
a reenforcement should come to us, extending our labors in securing
conversions, according to the number of our men.

I reached Manila in May of the year fifteen hundred and ninety-five,
leaving in Tigbauan and its vicinity, and in the town of Arevalo,
not a few persons sorrowing at my departure. The general, Doctor
Antonio de Morga, arrived in the following June, having come to
serve as lieutenant of the governor and captain-general of the
islands. He brought with him two fine vessels, and eight priests
[63] of our Society. The joy of the communities of Manila and Sebu,
and of Ours, was beyond belief upon learning that these fathers had
arrived. From both places, requests came in to us for priests: from
Manila, for instruction and schools, of which its sons were in great
want; from Sebu, for a college which they desired in their city. On
the other hand, the lieutenant governor of his Catholic Majesty urged
that the Society should take charge of a province of Indians as did
the other religious orders; and the Indians themselves, with several
encomenderos, supported this request. Finally an effort was made to
satisfy everyone, in the way which I shall relate. Four of us priests
went to the island of Leite which we reached on the day of the Triumph
of the Holy Cross, the sixteenth of July of the same year. Two of us
remained at Carigara in the house of Christoval de Trujillo, the owner
of that encomienda, a man of eminent piety, and our benefactor. He
straightway built for us there the first house that we possessed in
that island. The other two of us went along the coast of that island
and those of Ibabao and Samar, observing what peoples and posts were
best adapted at that time for our settlement. We returned to Carigara
at the end of July, where, thanks to the incredible haste and large
number of the Indians, we found our house finished and the two fathers
established in it. Early in August, I had information from the father
vice-provincial, Antonio Sedeno, that he had arrived at Sebu with
two other priests, and summoned me thither. Father Juan del Campo and
Father Cosme de Flores remained in Carigara, and undertook the study of
the Bissaya language with great fervor. Father Antonio Pereira and I,
with another brother, went on to Sebu in conformity with the order
of the father vice-provincial. Father Antonio Pereira had remained
with Ours in these islands from the time of his arrival