and through unknown seas (in which he saw great monsters), for the distance of one thousand leguas, he sighted the cape of San Lucas.  There the gulf of the Californias begins.  The father anchored in Acapulco, the best of the ports known to the pilots, after having spent more than seven months on the voyage.  He went to Mexico and to Vera Cruz; and, continuing his journey and encountering a new storm on the ocean, was driven to the coasts of Terranova [i.e., Newfoundland] and of Labrador.  As a consequence so much shortness of food was experienced that only two onzas of biscuit were given to each man, and about the same amount of water.  The ship began to leak, so that it was as if by a miracle that it was able to put in at the Terceras.  There they refitted, and the father finished his navigation, by coming to Cadiz, after having made to that point from Manila seven thousand one hundred and sixty leguas, in the manner that we have seen.  Thence he went to Madrid, and was given favorable audience; and everything that he petitioned was conceded to him.  But when twenty religious had been assembled, although they were even about ready to sail in the fleet that was being sent with reenforcements to the Malucas, the father’s luck turned against him with the order that was received, for the boats that were ready not to sail.  Consequently, he was accommodated on the fleet of Nueva Espana, but with very few religious.  However they proved to be many, because of the lack of religious in the ministries and convents of the Indias....

General History of the Discalced Religious of St. Augustine By Fray Luis de Jesus [42]

Decade Fourth

Chapter First

The Augustinian Reform is erected, by pontifical favor, into a congregation, divided into provinces, and governed by a vicar-general.

[The first eleven sections of this chapter relate to affairs in Spain, and contain matters touching the order at large, as well as the affairs of various districts, and others pertaining to the lives of various religious of the order.  The balance of the chapter deals with Philippine matters, as follows.]

Year 1621

Sec.  XII

Foundation of the convent of Zibu in Filipinas

During this year of twenty-one, when our discalced order was erected into a congregation in Espana, the number of our houses in the Filipinas Islands was increased by the efforts of the zeal of the religious who were attending therein to the service of God and the welfare of so many souls, who were in need of ministers to lighten them with the divine word upon the pathway of the Lord.  Sovereign Providence, then, arranged that our discalced should have a convent in that island of Zibu.  It has been a station for the entrance of the publication of the faith of Christ our Lord to many distant provinces of barbarous and blinded people.