is a port where men of not a few Asiatic nations assemble for the sake of its commerce, which is remarkable.  Hence that place comes to be the largest one in the Philippinas Islands after the said metropolis, and all the seamen live there, in order to be conveniently near to its traffic and its trade.  With such a motive, that convent was founded by father Fray Andres del Espiritu Santo, and under so good auspices that it has been of use to the service of God and to the credit of the Reform, because of the spiritual blessing that it has obtained, as well as by the esteem in which it has been held, as the various people who come there from the most remote and distant kingdoms have experienced the example and instruction of Ours.  Divine Omnipotence has there made illustrious, for the feeding of hearts, a devout image of our Lady of Rule [Nuestra Senora de Regla]—­modeled from the one that protects and defends the Andalusian shores between Cadiz and San Lucar—­especially favoring through her means the poor sailors in the continual dangers of their fearful duty.  So many are the vows that attest her miracles, that it would be a digression to have to mention them.

While the useful foundation of that convent was being directed in Philippinas, father Fray Rodrigo de San Miguel was in Espana, working carefully and diligently in order to get the necessary despatches to conduct helpers suitable for the prosecution of the spiritual conquest that had been happily commenced among the Zambales.  The vigilance employed by two commissaries to get the so desired subsidy for his brothers was disappointed by death, and by the opposition we have already related.  Consequently, the few who were fighting the devil in the enclosure did not desist, and sent the above-named father—­since he was the most fitting person that could be found for the attainment of such an enterprise—­to whom they consigned papers of great moment, as a testimonial of the work and of the fruit which they were gathering with the gain of souls.  Our calced fathers themselves affirmed it, to the confusion of those who here opposed father Fray Francisco de la Madre de Dios, and their ministries and desires.  The father embarked with great haste, but as he was coming on an affair of heaven, misfortunes were not wanting in the world, and he endured very heavy ones.  He himself mentioned them in a relation that he made to Pope Urban Eighth at the latter’s command, when he reached his feet, as the ambassador of certain schismatic princes of the Orient (as we shall relate in detail when we come to the year of that event).  The father declares, then, that having suffered a severe storm amid the islands—­during which the vessels anchored at Manila were wrecked—­he sailed immediately toward Japon.  Thence, after suffering other tempests, they finally sighted Cape Mendocino in forty-four degrees of latitude.  Then coasting along the shores of Nueva Espana (which was composed of inaccessible mountains),