Some acts were passed afterward, which, translated into Latin and printed, are observed in the province.  I do not place them here, as I think that they do not further our purpose in any way.  Their annulment was asked for, for experience has shown that they have been productive of little good, and that the province had not need of so great rigor as they contain.

CHAPTER XXXV

Of the election of our father Fray Vicente de Sepulveda

Our father visitor-general thought that he had complied with his obligation, and that the affairs of the province were in good condition.  He set about returning to Espana with the results of his labor, although for the completion of the visit there was no time allotted; for he had ample license to remain in the province as long as he judged it advisable for its advantage and greater good.  He did not have good fortune on that voyage, for, either the poor equipment or the late departure caused both the almiranta and the flagship to put back in distress.  Our father visitor also came back and resumed his office, as it was one of which he had made no resignation.  Now came the time for the chapter which was to be held in Guadalupe, according to the decision made.  In this chapter the number of votes was very much less, in obedience to the acts of the intermediary chapter, and the father visitor was to be the president as was necessary in that chapter also, for thus was it ordered in his letters-patent.  Some must have been sorry for it.  Finally, the matter arranged itself in such a way that our father master Fray Diego de Guevara resigned any right that he might have to that presidency and to the visitation of those islands, and for greater assurance broke the seal of it when he entered the chapter.  As the only received master in that province, it was understood that he would be provincial; but I think that the fathers were very far from thinking of it, for they inclined to our father Fray Miguel Garcia, who was most keen and very accurate in matters of government.  Being, moreover, a prince of the Church, the latter was more conspicuous, as all thought; and I have even heard very influential persons and even governors say of the archbishop, “He is very wise!  He is very wise!”

Upon the arrival, then, of the nineteenth of the month of May, 1614, the date upon which our chapter fell, our father Fray Vicente de Sepulveda, a person who, one would think, had entered these islands for eminence in everything, was elected.  For coming in the company of the bishop Solier (I mean the company which he himself brought to this land), in the year 1606, as soon as the said Solier was elected provincial, he made him [i.e., Sepulveda] prior of the convent of Macabebe in Pampanga, one of the best of all the convents.  Later, while our father Fray Miguel Garcia was provincial, he was elected definitor, and now we see him provincial; and in the succeeding triennium we shall see him return to the office because of the death of the holder of it, which is in accordance with the rules.  Within a little more than a month after he had taken the office, we shall see him choked to death.  Thus he served as an official in the province for scarcely one and one-half years before he was at the head of it.  But so great fortune in temporal affairs announced such a misfortune.