en who so commendably labored with them
there. His life has been a great source of edification and consolation
to all. In order that his presence there should do no harm, he went
very secretly and without company. He wears secular dress. The good
father goes from house to house, under a thousand inconveniences and
dangers, such as the other fathers also endure. What he has suffered
and is still suffering in this way is very pitiful.

Some religious (although only a few) from the orders of St. Dominic,
St. Francis, and St. Augustine, are also working laudably in the
vineyard of the Lord. Some went to Japon this year, but the majority of
them have not succeeded in this design, because most of the Japanese
boatmen, although Christians, have been afraid to carry them. For the
emperor issued a very stringent order that any boat which should carry
religious should be burned with all its goods, and that those going
in it should be put to death. Nevertheless, some Franciscan friars
have gone, very secretly. Some time ago, in the city of Fixoxuna,
Father Antonio and Brother Leonardo, both Japanese, were imprisoned
for the faith. For this also, on August 16, 1618, they beheaded in the
city of Meaco Fray Juan de Santa Marta, of the Order of St. Francis,
and a native of Cataluna. He had been imprisoned three years in the
public jail, where, in spite of the hard labor and bad treatment to
which he was subjected, he continued to preach our holy faith to the
heathen prisoners, some of whom received it and died in it. [72]

At midnight on December 13, 1618, they seized Father Carlos Espinola,
procurator of the province of Japon, and his companion, Brother
Ambrosio Fernandez. The same night they seized two other fathers,
Dominicans, two of four who went to Japon last year. The other two
returned to these islands. On the twenty-fifth of March, 1619, they
seized the provincial and the prior of the Dominicans, Fray Francisco
Morales and Fray Alonso de Mena. One of these Dominican fathers died
in the jail. Thereupon the rest of the religious concealed themselves
so effectively that the Portuguese traders in the country could not
find any one to whom they might make their Lenten confessions.

Last year I wrote how one of the ships which were despatched from
this city to aid Maluco resorted to treason, and took possession of
everything. Thenceforth, as is well known, it went from one country
to another and from one place to another. Finally