The “Instructions for the commissary of the Inquisition” is found in the Archivo general of Simancas; our translation is made from a transcription of the original MS. Its pressmark is:  “Consejo de Inquisicion; libro 762, folio 170.”

The Salazar “Relation” of 1583 we translate from the text given in Retana’s Archivo del bibliofilo filipino iii, no. 1,

The papal decrees regarding the Dominicans are obtained from Hernaez’s Coleccion de bulas, i, pp. 527, 528.

NOTES

[1] This document is presented in both Spanish text and English translation.

[2] This document is presented in both Spanish text and English translation.

[3] A pretender to the Portuguese throne, who occupied it for a short period (in 1580) in the interim between Henrique’s death and Felipe’s accession, see Vol.  I, pp. 355, 356.

[4] Alonso Sanchez was born at Mondejar, in 1547; and became a novice in the Jesuit order (June 18, 1565), at Alcala.  In 1579, he went to Mexico; and two years later, with Bishop Salazar, to the Philippines.  He was sent to Macao in 1582 to receive for Felipe II the allegiance of the Portuguese at that place.  Stanley, in his edition of Morga’s Sucesos (p. 402) says:  “The library of the Academy of History, Madrid, contains a Chinese copy of a chapa, by which the mandarins of Canton allowed a Portuguese ship to come and fetch Padre Alonso Sanchez and the dispatches from Machan (Moluccas).”  In 1586 Sanchez was commissioned by the governor and Spanish inhabitants of the Philippines to go to Rome and Madrid in their behalf; documents which explain this embassy will be presented in later volumes of this series.  He died at Alcala, May 27, 1593.  Sommervogel cites (Bibliotheque Comp.  Jesus, viii, col. 520, 521) various writings by Sanchez, mainly on missionary affairs, or on the relations between the Philippine colony and the crown of Spain.

[5] Thomas Candish, the English navigator, relates in picturesque style the fortunes of the Spanish settlement here referred to, “King Philips citie which the Spaniards had built.”  Candish halted there in January, 1587; the place was then deserted, and he named it Port Famine.  It was located not far from the extreme southern point of the Patagonian mainland, at a point commanding the Strait of Magellan.  Candish says:  “They had contriued their Citie very well, and seated it in the best place of the Streights for wood and water:  they had builded vp their Churches by themselues:  they had Lawes very seuere among themselues, for they had erected a Gibet, whereon they had done execution vpon some of their company....  During the time that they were there, which was two yeeres the least, they could neuer haue any thing to growe or in any wise prosper.  And on the other side the Indians oftentimes preyed vpon them vntill their victuals grewe so short... that they dyed like dogges in their houses, and in their clothes, wherein we found them still at our comming....  To conclude, they were determined to haue trauailed towards the riuer of Plate, only being left aliue 23 persons, whereof two were women, which were the remainder of 4 hundred.”  See Hakluyt’s Voyages (Goldsmid ed., Edinburgh, 1890), xvi, pp. 12, 13.