In August, 1629, the governor sent Captain Don Sebastian de Libite—­a very noble Navarrese knight, who had been a very good soldier in Flandes—­to the Pintados as commander-in-chief.  He went with his wife and household to the city of Santisimo Nombre de Jesus.  The weather was very stormy, and they were often menaced by death.  This lady, Dona Catalina de Aguilar, and her whole household were very devoted to the most Holy Child, and called upon Him with great anxiety.  Finally, in a disastrous storm that struck them, where death was facing them, this lady said to her husband:  “Listen, Don Sebastian, promise something to the Holy Child, so that He may help us, and may allow us to see Him.”  He promised one hundred pesos.  “What, no more than that?” replied Dona Catalina; “If we are drowning, for what do we love Him?” Finally, he promised five hundred pesos.  The most Holy Child beheld their devotion, and miraculously saved them from their danger and conveyed them safe to Sugbu, where they fulfilled their vow.  And it is a fact that although they were persons of great wealth of spirit and nobility, they are people who have less of the temporal.  But what they possess is greater, which, at the end, will be a pledge of their reaching heaven.

[Father Medina’s editor, Father Coco, follows the narrative with a list of the Augustinian provincials in the Philippines from 1632-1893—­eighty-two in all.]

DOCUMENTS OF 1630-1633

    Royal letters and decree.  Felipe IV; December 4-31, 1630. 
    Letter to Felipe IV from the bishop of Cebu.  Pedro de Arce;
    July 31, 1631. 
    Royal orders, 1632-33.  Felipe IV; January-March, 1632, and
    March, 1633. 
    Letters to Felipe IV.  Juan Nino de Tavora; July 8, 1632. 
    Events in Filipinas, 1630-32. [Unsigned]; July 2, 1632. 
    Letter from the ecclesiastical cabildo to Felipe IV.  Miguel
    Garcetas, and others; [undated, but 1632].

Sources:  The first and third documents are obtained from MSS. in the Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid; the second, fourth, and sixth, from MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla; the fifth, from a MS. in the Academia Real de la Historia, Madrid.

Translations:  The fifth document, and the first letter each in the first and the third, are translated by Robert W. Haight; the remainder, by James A. Robertson.

ROYAL LETTERS AND DECREE

Letter to Tavora

The King.  To Don Juan Nino de Tavora, my governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands, and president of my royal Audiencia which sits there.  Your letter of August 4, 628, which treats of matters concerning the exchequer, has been received and examined in my royal Council of the Yndias, and this will be your answer.