the number of eight thousand, and in the year
1716 arrived to the number of twelve thousand. It is a fact that the
persecution by the Moros happening afterward (of which something was
said incidentally in volume three, [46] and which will in due time add
much to this history) the number of believers was greatly lessened;
for some retired to other islands, where the war was not so cruel,
others were taken to Jolo in dire captivity, and others surrendered
their lives to so great a weight of misfortune. Notwithstanding that,
in the year 1738, when father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio
printed his first volume, it appeared by trustworthy documents that
Ours administered seven thousand five hundred and fifty-two souls
in the various villages, visitas, missions, and rancherias in that
island. [47] Hence, one may infer that our zealous brothers have
labored there especially in destroying paganism and reducing the many
Zimarrones or apostates who, having thrown off all obedience, had built
themselves forts in those mountains. And if not few of both classes
remain obstinate, it does not proceed certainly from any omission
that has been found in our zealous workers, but from other causes
which are already suggested in other parts of this present volume.

800. Neither can one make from this progress of the Catholic faith
which was attained by the preaching of our religious, any inferences
against the other laborers who began to subdue the island, or against
the secular clergy, who administered it afterward. The Observant
fathers, as a rule, employed there no more than one missionary or at
the most two. The number of the fathers of St. Francis was no larger,
and they had charge at times of the district of Balayan as well as
of Mindoro. Since the fathers of the Society had so much to attend
to in so many parts, two or three of them took care of Mindoro and
Marinduque. Consequently, one ought not to be surprised that so small
a number of laborers did not do more, but, that they had done so much
must surely astonish him who considers it thoroughly. In the same way
the parish priests, who succeeded them, were very few, and since the
reduced Indians occupied so extensive a coast, they had scarce enough
time to administer the bread of the doctrine to the Christians, so that
they had none left to penetrate into the mountains in search of the
Zimarrones or of the heathen Manguianes. [48] But, on the contrary,
from the time that that is