which is the same as executioners in Espana, bear two half-canes four dedos wide and a braza long, with which they flog the delinquents, whom if they wished they could kill with a few strokes.  Between these go two Sangleys each one of whom cries out in his own language from time to time, with loud shouts; and it is said that they are calling out, “Make way, for the mandarins are coming,” and as soon as they come out of their houses, and until they enter them again, these cries are kept up.  When the Sangleys meet the mandarins, they flee from them and hide themselves; and if they cannot do this they bend their backs very low with their arms extended upon the ground, and remain in this position while the mandarins pass, which is quite in the form and manner which is customary in the said kingdom of China.  Sunday afternoon in front of the house of one of the said mandarins they [MS. torn—­whipped?] an Indian or mulatto in the street before the house of the said mandarin (the latter being at the window), in judicial form according to the Chinese usage.  Yesterday, Monday, they flogged a Sangley in his own house; and another one they put to the hand-torture, quite according to their usage.  Two of those who are said to correspond to alguazils, bearing the said banners as a sign thereof (just as the long staves of justice are borne in Espana), seized a Christian Sangley in the [MS. illegible] of the licentiate Christoval Tellez de Almacan, your auditor of the said royal Audiencia, saying that they were going to take him before a mandarin, who had ordered them to seize him; but when they were outside of the house of Doctor Antonio de Morga, an auditor of the said royal Chancilleria, he came to a window at hearing the noise, and stopped them.  He did so because this is administering justice, and all these things are insignia thereof—­whence no little scandal has arisen in this city of Manila, on account of the grave offenses which have been committed here by the said persons who call themselves mandarins, and by the others whom they have with them.  I give information of this so that suitable action in this matter may be decided upon and decreed, and which, if necessary, I offer my services to investigate.  I beg and beseech your Highness to command and decree whatever may be fitting in such a case, and that information may be given concerning this my petition, and concerning what may be decreed in regard to it, in order to inform thereby the royal person of your Highness for which, etc., I demand justice.

The licentiate Geronimo de Salazar y Salcedo

In public session on the twenty-seventh of May in the year one thousand six hundred and three.  Let the investigation be immediately made, and committed to the secretary, and the results brought up for judicial action.

Esquivel

[Then follows the above-mentioned investigation—­depositions by various persons, corroborating the statements of the fiscal; and a decree by the governor, forbidding any Chinaman to insult or molest the mandarins, and the latter to exercise any rights of justice in Spanish territory.]