Three Chinese mandarins at Manila.  Geronimo de Salazar y
    Salcedo; May 27. 
    Resignation of his office by the bishop of Nueva
    Segovia.  Miguel de Benavides; July 4. 
    Letters to Felipe III.  Miguel de Benavides; July 5 and 6. 
    Letters to Felipe III.  Pedro de Acuna and others July-December. 
    The Sangley insurrection.  Pedro de Acuna, and others;
    December 12-23.

Source:  All these documents are obtained from MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla.

Translations:  These documents are translated by Robert W. Haight—­except the second, by Jose M. and Clara M. Asensio.

THREE CHINESE MANDARINS AT MANILA

The licentiate Geronimo de Salazar y Salcedo, fiscal for your Majesty in the royal Chancilleria of the Philipinas Islands.  In the month of February or March of each year there usually come from the kingdom of China to this city of Manila thirty ships, and sometimes more, with merchandise from that kingdom.  This year they were detained until the middle of May, and only fourteen ships came.  In one of them were three mandarins, who are the same as those whom we call “governors.”  Three or four days before they arrived at this city, the chief of them sent a letter to Don Pedro de Acuna, governor and captain-general of these islands and president of the royal Audiencia thereof.  A copy of the translation of this letter will be sent with this.  In this they gave us to understand that Oyten, a Chinaman who had been in these islands, told their king that in the port of Cavite there was a great hill of gold which had no owner, and that the people of that vicinity availed themselves of it to obtain a great quantity of gold.  Their king had sent him to learn the truth, for there had been those who contradicted this; and therefore the governor should have no apprehension, and might rest secure.

On the twenty-third of May the three mandarins landed in this city, with many insignia of justice which they are accustomed to wear in China, attended by alguacils, executioners, and other officers, with wands and cords, and receiving much reverence.  They had a small box in which were carried the patents of their offices.  While I was on that day in the company of the governor, all three mandarins came in to visit him, and we saw them coming from a window.  I told the governor that those mandarins could not be allowed to carry their insignia of justice; but he answered me that there was nothing worth notice in that.  A short time after this, Pedro Hurtado Desquivel, clerk of the court of the said royal Audiencia, in behalf of the auditors thereof told the governor to take notice that he could not consent that the mandarins should bear the insignia of justice in this city.  He answered in the same manner as he had replied to me.  The mandarins having taken up quarters in houses which were made ready for them,