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 García, 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
Sepúlveda, 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._, Sepúlveda] prior of the convent of
Macabebe in Pampanga, one of the best of all the convents. Later,
while our father Fray Miguel García 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.

At that chapter presided the definitor, namely, our father,
Fray Francisco Bonifacio; for, by the resignation of our father