Translations:  The first and fourth are translated by Robert W. Haight; the second and third, by Henry B. Lathrop, of the University of Wisconsin.

COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE CHINESE

In the city of Manila, on the third day of the month of February in the year one thousand six hundred and five, the most reverend Senor Don Fray Miguel de Benavides, archbishop of these islands, member of the council of the king our lord, etc., declared that, since the uprising of the Chinese Sangleys who were formerly settled in this city, in a market [alcayceria], or large town (which they call Parian) that was situated there, the said Parian and town has been commanded to be built, and has now been built anew, and is at this time again peopled with the said infidel Sangleys.  The said Sangleys are infidels and idolaters, and a most pernicious and injurious people to be settled among the Christian natives, newly converted to our holy Catholic faith; for the said infidel Sangleys are most vicious, both with women and in an unnatural manner, and are extremely liberal in spending money for their purposes and desires, and artful and crafty for every form of evil.  Moreover, these Indian men and women of these islands, especially those of the neighborhod of Manila, are very easily persuaded to carnal sins, in short, as natives of so hot and humid a climate; although it is a crime against nature, this they do not know, and in some regions did not even have a word for it in their language, until these infidel Chinese made this sin known to them.  These native Indian men and women are very greedy, and as they are but lately made Christians, and are not thoroughly instructed, a great many of them find it very easy to leave not only Christian morals, but even the Catholic faith as well, and embrace the superstitions and rites which the idolatrous infidels desire to teach them.  Likewise—­and this is very important, considering the state of the faith here, and upon what depends the peace and preservation of these islands (namely, the faith in God and obedience to the king our lord), and the extreme danger and peril in which these infidel Sangleys placed us in the previous year of one thousand six hundred and three, in the month of October, from which we were delivered only by the mercy and infinite power of God, by which alone we could be freed—­their desire to slaughter all of us Spaniards, and to make themselves masters of this kingdom, is much inflamed now at seeing so many thousands as were here of their fathers, sons, brothers, and kinsmen, and of their friends and countrymen, slain; and how so great an amount of their property here was destroyed.  With this so open enmity, hatred, and thirst for vengeance so aroused, they will seek, great in cunning and craft as they are, to sow discord between us Spaniards and the Indian natives of these islands, and separate us, mind and heart.