[36] Referring to Fray Vittorio Ricci, the Dominican missionary who carried to Manila the message of Kue-sing, the Chinese corsair.
[37] Salcedo is commended for having despatched the Acapulco galleons so promptly, and so well equipped, that during his term of office they made the voyage every year, without being driven back by storms or compelled to winter at Acapulco; and the voyage to that port--formerly eight or nine months, often with shipwreck and great loss of life and property--was reduced to four or five months. (Ventura del Arco MSS., ii, p. 507.)
[38] That is, of the posts filled in the islands by religious, in which they act as parish priests; the presentation of these lists to the royal patron practically reduces the aforesaid religious to employees of the government, and subjects them to episcopal visitation--a procedure which the orders always strenuously opposed. This subject is fully discussed by Santa Theresa, ante.
[39] Biographical sketches of all these may be found in Reseña biográfica, ii,pp. 17-100.
[40] A port and village on the northern coast of Sámar--that is, south of the Embocadero.
[41] Alluding to the process of canonization for the Japanese martyrs, then before the proper authorities at Rome. For description of this process, see Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, pp. 113, 114.
[42] Spanish, jura publicada. Felipe IV had died on September 17, 1665; and he was succeeded by the infant Cárlos II, who reigned (under the regency of his mother, Mariana of Austria, until his fifteenth year) until the end of the seventeenth century.
[43] Spanish, amantisimo por extremo. Dominguez says (Diccionario nacional) that amantisimo is used, in mystical and erotic language, in the sense of muy amado ("greatly beloved"); our text here implies that Poblete was very dear, on account of his purity, to God and the Virgin Mary.
[44] The palm was a symbol of victory and triumph--in religious language, especially of triumph over the infernal powers; and, by extension, of virginity.
[45] i.e., the third part of the Dominican history, written by father Fray Vicente de Salazar, O.P. (Manila, 1742), and treating of events from 1661 to 1690.
[46] Juan de Trezo (so called by Pérez) was a native of Extremadura, and became prior of the convents of Santo Niño de Cebú (1620) and of Otón (1623). He ministered in the villages of Taal (1631), Sala (1633), Taguig (1635), and Malolos (1636); and was definitor (1638), president of the capitular province (1641), and minister of Otón and Caruyan (1644-45). He died in 1650. See Pérez's Catálogo, p. 91.