Doctor Vera, who is now president, on seeing the good will with which those two Sangley Christians, Don Francisco Canco and Don Tomas Siguan, offered their services for taking the fathers to China, exempted them, in the name of your Majesty, from paying taxes for the use of a ship for six years.  I entreat your Majesty to be pleased to confirm this grant, and to extend it for life; for they certainly performed a great deed, and one considered of much importance by all the inhabitants of this city, both Spaniards and Sangleys.  They deserve this favor from your Majesty, even if we should not gain the desired result, because they for their part have offered what they could.

Fray Juan Cobo, the Dominican religious—­who, as I have said before, knows the language of the Sangleys and their writing, and who is most esteemed by them—­is sending to your Majesty a book, one of a number brought to him from China.  This intercourse which is taking root between them and ourselves is not a bad beginning for the object we have in view.  The book is in Chinese writing on one half of the leaf, and Castilian on the other, the two corresponding to each other.  It is a work worthy of your Majesty, and may it be received as such, not because of its worth, but because it is so rare a work, never seen before in the Parian, or outside of China.  According to my judgment, it contains things worthy of consideration, by which is seen the force of the human reason; since without the light of the faith those things approach so near to those taught us by the Christian religion.  From this your Majesty will see how much in error is the person who pretends that in kingdoms like that of China, where such things are taught, we should enter by force of arms to preach to them our faith.  It is clear that with a people like this, the force of reason has more power than that of arms.  May our Lord direct this affair according to His will; and may He be pleased that within the days of your Majesty we may see these kingdoms converted to the faith, and that your Majesty may enjoy this reputation first on earth and then in heaven.  Amen.  Manila, June 24, 1590.

Fray Domingo, Bishop of the Philipinas.

Two Letters from Domingo de Salazar to Felipe II

Sire: 

Five decrees of your Majesty came to me this year of ninety in the ship “Santiago,” which arrived at this port on the last of May.  They are all dated at Madrid, four on the twenty-third of June of the year eighty-seven, and the fifth on the eighteenth of February of eighty-eight.  After perusing the contents of the said decrees, I can truly not restrain my surprise that there can be men in the world who dare to say and declare things which are not certainly proved to be the truth, much less to give such information to their king.  To report to one’s sovereign the contrary of what happens, or to affirm what one is not certain is the truth,