While the above was passing in Manila, our fleet reached Malaca, and entered the strait February twenty-five.  The enemy had left it one week previous, fleeing with all sails set, because of the secret advice that they had received that our fleet was going in search of them.  The day following the arrival of our galleons, the two Chinese trading-ships entered the same strait, bearing all the wealth of India It was a most fortunate event and was worthily celebrated by the public acclamations of the inhabitants of Malaca, who called Governor Don Juan de Silva their redeemer.  They received him in their city under the pall, with demonstrations of joy and honors as if he were a viceroy, for as such did they regard him; and they assured themselves that with his valor and powerful fleet, they were to deliver India from the inopportune war and the continuous pillaging of the Dutch.  But (O human misery!) fortune changed within a few days, and all those hopes were frustrated; it brought the governor to his bed with a mortal burning fever, which killed him in eleven days.  During the course of those eleven days the city made a public procession from the cathedral church to the Misericordia, praying God for his health.  On the day of his death—­namely, April nineteen, 1616—­there were general mourning and tears from men, women, and even children, as if each one of them had lost a father.

Recognizing the approach of death, he received the holy sacraments, and performed many acts of faith and penitence, protesting that he was dying in the service of his king, and, as he hoped, in that of God, for his intent had been none but the conservation and increase of the Catholic faith and the destruction of heresy in those districts.  And he said that if the natives had been harassed any, those molestations had not been intended and were unavoidable, for war brings them.  He ordered his body to be embalmed and carried to this city of Manila in the flagship galley.  From here he ordered his body to be carried to Xerez de los Cavalleros, where he ordered a convent of discalced Carmelites to be founded; and that his remains should be deposited in the residences of the Society.  Thus was it done in Malaca, and afterward here in Manila, where all that fleet arrived in the first part of June, on the eve of Corpus Christi, in the year of 1616.  The mission and ministry of Ours and of the other religious who took part in the campaign had lasted for four months, in which they had a very abundant harvest of souls, discomforts and hardships; for they had been two months below the equator itself, where they suffered incomparable heat and drank poor water, which was the cause of the men catching the plague.  And hence there was considerable to do, and in which to employ their fervor, particularly during Lent and Holy Week, which they spent at sea. [92]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Many documents in this volume are obtained from MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla; their pressmarks are indicated as follows: