associate, and their friend the soldier.  But, at their arrival, they found the Chinese captain had reached a new determination, and neither gifts nor petitions could persuade him to fulfil his promises in Manila.  On the contrary, he returned them the earnest-money that he 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 Duenas 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 [31]—­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 Baptista [32] and father Fray Sebastian de San Fracisco, of their own order, were busied in instructing the natives.  This was on the fourth of June.  The next day they held a council, at which it was unanimously resolved that all there should venture themselves to go to China to convert those pagans, or else die in the attempt.  Therefore it was decided to approach another soldier likewise of their company, named Pedro de Villaroel.  They told him—­without declaring their own intention, so that he might not disclose it—­that, if he wished to accompany them and the two other soldiers, who were about to go together upon a matter of great service to God, and the gain of many souls, he should say so, and without asking whither, or to what end, because this could not be told until due time.  He answered immediately that he would accompany them willingly, and would not abandon them until death.  Thereupon they all, with peculiar gladness, betook themselves to the vessel in which the father custodian and his associate, and the two other soldiers, had come thither from Manila.  This was a fairly good fragata, although supplied with but few and indifferent