[17] Jeronimo de Salas made his profession in the Augustinian convent at Madrid, in 1590, and reached the Philippines in 1595.  He was a missionary to the Indians for some fifteen years, and was afterward elected to high positions in his order.  “So exceptional was the executive ability of which he gave proof in the discharge of these offices that in the provincial chapter held in 1617 he was unanimously elected prior provincial.  Most unfortunately, when so much was hoped from the eminent abilities of this very judicious and learned religious, an acute illness ended his valuable life; he died at Manila on May 17 of the same year.” (Perez’s Catalogo, p. 49.)

[18] Alonso Rincon was one of the Augustinians arriving in the Philippines in 1606.  He was minister in various Indian villages until 1617, when he was appointed prior of the Manila convent.  He was sent as procurator to Spain and Rome in 1618, and returned to Manila four years afterward.  He died there in 1631.

[19] The Ventura del Arco transcript ends here; but it is followed by a note, thus: 

Note by the transcriber:  “The court of Rome was greatly offended at the just and proper procedure of the definitorio of the Order, giving them to understand that they should have concealed the crime and the criminals; but that, besides being against all morality and the necessity of making a public example of offenders, would have been impossible in this case, so notorious in Manila from the hour when the crime and the delinquents were discovered.”

[20] Cf. the brief account of this tragic occurrence given by the Augustinian chronicler Juan de Medina, in his Historia (1630), which will be presented in a later volume of this series.

[21] A fleet of five caravels arrived at Manila in 1612, which had come from Cadiz via the Cape of Good Hope; they were commanded by Ruy Gonzalez Sequeira, and brought reenforcements of nearly six hundred men.

[22] This was Alonso Fajardo y Tenza; for sketch of his career as governor, see appendix at end of Vol.  XVII.

[23] These italic sidebeads represent marginal notes in the MS. from which this document is translated.

[24] So in the transcription, but apparently a copyist’s error of sesenta ("sixty”) for setenta ("seventy “).  See Vol.  III, p. 153.

[25] Evidently referring to the statement above (under the heading “Camarines”) as to the use of gold by the Indians for their ornaments.

[26] Achen is at the northwest extremity of Sumatra, and Jambi is a state in the northeast part of the same island.  Sumatra is the principal source of the black pepper of commerce.  See articles “Sumatra,” “Jambi,” and “Pepper,” in Crawfurd’s Dictionary of Indian Islands.  Negapatan is on the eastern coast of Hindustan, not far from Cape Comorin.

[27] Better known by its modern name of Johor; it is the Malay state at the southern end of the Malayan peninsula, and the British territory of Malacca and the Malay state of Pahang lie north of it.  The town of Johor was founded in 1511, by the Malays who were then expelled from Malacca by the Portuguese.  Johor was not an island, but part of the mainland:  the text probably refers to one of the islands off its coast on which a Dutch post may have been located; some of these islands are still possessed by the Dutch.