adquarters
in Mobo, [74] a famous village of Masbate. They built a church there,
under the advocacy of Our Lady of Remedies. It was a costly edifice,
adorned with good reredoses, and had a sacristy well supplied with
vestments, besides a capacious house with its suitable quarters and
dormitories for the resident and transient religious. Thence they
made their apostolic excursions for the conversion of the heathens,
who were still numerous, and the reduction of fugitive apostates. The
settlements already established numbered six, and three new villages
were established with the increase of those who settled down.

4. This province of San Nicolas petitioned his Majesty in the year
one thousand seven hundred and twenty-four to confirm that possession
which had been conferred on it in his royal name. His Majesty ordered
the governor of Philipinas and the bishop of Nueva Caceres to make no
innovation in the spiritual administration of that district until his
royal Council should provide what was suitable. He also ordered them
to report on the progress of the faith in that territory since it had
been under their charge. Judicial investigations were made in Manila
by the government, in order to inform the king with reports. From
them it appeared that, although the entire district of Masbate had
formerly had only one parish priest, since the Recollect fathers had
taken charge of it, three religious at least had lived there. It was
proved also by the books of the royal accountancy, that in the year
preceding their possession, that is, in the year eighty-seven, the
entire ministry contained only one hundred and eighty-seven families;
while in the year seven hundred and twenty-two there were five hundred
and eighty-five families. Consequently, the present governor, the
Marquis de Torre Campo, reported that the district of Masbate had
had an increase of three hundred and ninety-eight whole tributes
through the apostolic zeal of those ministers. The Recollects not
only in those districts, but also in the remainder of these islands,
devote themselves to the spread of our holy Catholic faith with the
greatest toil and with the most visible fruit.

5. That progress was not made without great toil and hardship. They
had to do with a great number of mountain Indians and Zimarrones,
who became fearsome when abandoned to liberty. Apostates from the
faith and from civilized life, they had taken to the deserts and to
the roughest mountains