had received, and absolutely refused to take them; for he knew that, if he did, he would lose his life and property. Seeing this, the recently-baptized Chinese religious wept bitterly in his indignation and sorrow, because the devil had changed that captain's heart, so that the holy gospel might not be preached in that kingdom. The father custodian consoled him, and resolved to return to Manila and to await another occasion, which they did. After they had spent several days there, it happened that the governor summoned the father custodian one day, and asked him for a friar to send to the Cagayan River, whither he had but a few days before sent certain Spaniards to form a colony. The custodian said that he would give him a friar, and that he himself would accompany the latter as far as the province of Illocos whither he was going to visit the missions; thence he would despatch him to the Cagayan River, as his Excellency ordered. The father custodian asked as companions, for a guard during the journey. Sergeant Francisco de Dueñas and the soldier Juan Diaz Pardo (their friend, as above said), intending to go from there to China, as was done, and as will be told in the following. The governor, wishing to please him, granted this request, and the father custodian set out in haste, taking with him the above-named soldiers and one religious as associate, by name Fray Augustin de Tordesillas[1]—he who afterward related from memory what had happened to them in China, whence has been taken this little relation.
They arrived at Illocos, where father Fray Juan
- ↑ Agustín de Tordesillas was one of the Franciscans who first came to the Philippines. At the time when he went to China with Alfaro, Tordesillas was at the head of his convent in Manila. See account of this mission in Santa Inés's Crónica, i, cap. vi–ix.
