after their fashion. Don Luys remained to guard
the monastery, with the men brought from Manila, where
he had placed in shelter many women and children of
Christian Sangleys, with the religious. The sargento-mayor
returned immediately to the city, where he told of
what was being done. The call to arms was sounded,
for the noise and shouts of the Sangleys, who had sallied
out to set fire to some houses in the country, was
so great that it was thought that they were devastating
that district. The Sangleys burned, first, a
stone country-house belonging to Captain Estevan de
Marquina. The latter was living there with his
wife and children; and none of them escaped, except
a little girl, who was wounded, but who was hidden
in a thicket. [10] Thence the Sangleys went to the
settlement of Laguio, [11] situated on the shore of
the river, and burned it. They killed several
Indians of that settlement, and the rest fled to the
city. There the gates were already shut and all
the people, with arms in hand, manned the walls and
other suitable posts, ready for any emergency, until
dawn. The enemy, who now had a greater number
of men, retired to their fort, to make another sally
thence with more force. Don Luys Dasmarinas,
who was guarding the church and monastery of Minondoc,
expected hourly that the enemy was about to attack
him, and sent a messenger to the governor to beg for
more men. These were sent him, and consisted
of regulars and inhabitants of the city, under Captains
Don Tomas Brabo de Acuna (the governor’s nephew),
Joan de Alcega, Pedro de Arzeo, and Gaspar Perez, by
whose counsel and advice Don Luys was to be guided
on this occasion. All was confusion, shouting,
and outcry in the city, particularly among the Indians,
and the women and children, who were coming thither
for safety. Although, to make certain of the
Sangleys of the parian, their merchants had been asked
to come into the city, and bring their property, they
did not dare to do so; for they always thought that
the enemy would take the city because of their great
force of numbers, and annihilate the Spaniards, and
they would all be in danger. Consequently they
preferred to remain in their parian, in order to join
the victorious side. Don Luys Dasmarinas thought
it advisable to go in search of the enemy immediately
with the reenforcements sent him by the governor, before
they should all assemble and present a strong front.
He left seventy soldiers in Minondoc, in charge of
Gaspar Perez; while with the rest, about one hundred
and forty of the best picked arquebusiers, he went
to the village of Tondo, in order to fortify himself
in the church, a stone building. He arrived there
at eleven o’clock in the morning. The Chinese,
in number one thousand five hundred, arrived at the
same place at the same time, bent on the same purpose.
An hour’s skirmish took place between the two
sides, as to which one would gain the monastery.
Captain Gaspar Perez came up with the reenforcement
of the men left at Minondoc. The enemy retired