in imminent danger of death;
first in shipwreck and later because an Indian tried to kill him,
for the reason that he had tried to get him to give up a certain
concubinage. But God having freed him from those dangers, allowed him
to perish in another through His occult judgments. It was a fact that
that father when attending to the fulfilment of his obligation gave
motive that certain of the Zimarron Indians whom he was endeavoring to
establish soundly in the Catholic faith gave him certain death-dealing
powders in his food, which although they did not deprive him of life
rendered him insensible and he became most pitiably insane. Many other
religious, whom we shall not mention for various reasons, suffered
so much while ministers of those islands, by shipwreck, bad weather,
and persecution, that if they did not obtain the crown to which they
aspired by death, they were left with their health totally lost,
and lived amid continual aches and pains, until their last breath
opened for them, after some years, a pathway to heaven in order that
they might enjoy the reward of their well endured conflicts.

[The remaining sections of this chapter and the two final chapters
of the book do not touch Philippine matters.]

II

Extracts from Juan de la Concepcion's Historia

[It is thought advisable to append to the above extracts from the
Historia of Pedro de San Francisco de Assis, the following extracts
from Concepcion's Historia. The first extract is from vol. viii,
pp. 3-16, and includes a portion of the first chapter. It treats of
the transfer of the province of Zambal to the Dominicans, and the
occupation of the island of Mindoro by the Recollects.]

2. Continuing with the events of this government, we must note that
Don Diego de Villaroto represented in the supreme Council of the Indias
that the island of Mindoro had a vast population who still retained the
dense darkness of their heathen blindness; and that if the spiritual
conquest of that island were given to some order, it would be easy to
illumine its inhabitants with the true light. That representation was
met by a royal decree, dated June 18, 1677, ordering the governor of
these islands, together with the archbishop, to entrust the reduction
of Mindoro to the order that should be most suitable and fitting for
that ministry; and that the curas employed in that island should be
appointed to chaplaincies or prebends. That royal decree was presented
to the r