on the order. In the world this proceeding
was discussed with the charity that is exercised in other things;
but, when everything was over, it was also erased from memory--and
more, as the government of our father Fray Pedro de Arce followed
immediately, who exercised the office of rector-provincial for that
one and one-half years, and his fame and well-known virtue filled
everything with fragrance and good-will.

[The order of discalced Augustinians in Spain petition for leave to go
to the islands in 1605. The petition granted, a number of them set out;
and, after waiting at Sevilla for some time for vessels, reach Mexico,
where they are entreated to found a convent. Refusing this request,
however, they continue on their journey, reaching the Philippines,
in 1606, under the leadership of Juan de San Jeronimo. "They were
given a house outside the city in a garden [11] that had belonged
to Don Pedro de Acuna, who governed these islands.... But those who
treated the said fathers most generously were Ours, for we gave them
our best and brightest jewel, namely, San Nicolas, allowing them to
found their convent in his name. This meant wholly to enrich them and
to leave us poor." Further, a layman named Don Bernardino, captain and
castellan of the port of Manila, builds a convent for the new order
"sufficient for forty religious." At death he and his wife also leave
money to continue the work, and the new order begins to multiply.]

Since then those fathers have continued to establish convents here. For
as they were the last, and the islands are in the conditions under
which Miguel Lopez de Legazpi left them, there was not before any place
where they could settle. However, outside Manila, they possess a small
house called Sampaloc, because it has many tamarind trees. There they
minister to a few Tagals, and one religious lives there generally. [12]
It has a stone church and house. They have a garden with a stone
house and its chapel (where one religious lives), near the walls of
Manila, in the suburbs. Opposite the island of Mariveles, in the same
district of Manila, they have a Tagal mission. It is but small, and,
with its visitas, does not amount to four hundred Indians. But farther
along the coast, they have two Zambal missions of settled Indians,
which are situated nearer here than Ilocos. One is called Masinloc
and the other Bolinao. [13] Each one must have more than five hundred
Indians. They have also extended from he