The French have a factory there. [77] Three of their ships came and fought with the Hollanders, who took away one; the other two were sent to France with cargoes.  Some galleons have also come from the English, who, according to report, now have fourteen.  It is said that they have had a fight with the Hollanders, from whom they took away two ships.  These two nations are unfriendly because of the above-mentioned injury which the English received from the Hollanders, and also because they are rivals.  It is said that the English have an order from their king to the effect that if the Hollanders should be stronger than themselves they must join with us and harass them on all sides.

The Hollanders have seen that in their battles with us they have received much damage from our galleys; therefore they built two vessels of this class to bring with their fleet to these islands.  But our Lord was pleased so to order it that, when coming from Amb[o]ino to Ternate, one galley sank with all the people, and the other ran aground, although the people were saved.

Of the Philipinas Islands

On the eleventh of November, 1618, at three o’clock in the morning, a comet was seen from this city of Manila.  It had a tail, was silver-colored, with a slightly ashen tinge, and had an extraordinary form.  At first it was like a trumpet, and then like a catan (which is a weapon peculiar to Japon, resembling the cutlass), with the edge toward the southwest; and at the end it appeared palm-shaped.  The declination [78] of the southwestern end was twenty degrees south.  At first its length was equal to the whole of the sign of Libra, with which it rose.  Eight days afterward, the declination of the southwestern end was twenty-four degrees and thirty minutes south.  At this time the head was thirty-one degrees south, and the lower point, or end of the tail, eight degrees from the star called Spica Virginia.  No star exhalation [79] was seen, although some say that they saw a very small one.  On the twenty-fourth of November another tailed comet appeared, even more beautiful and resplendent than the first.  At its head [al pie] was a burning star.  It appeared in the east.  It had a declination of eight degrees, and it pointed southwestward to the sign of the Scorpion, which is the sign of Manila.  These two comets lasted some three months.  They write from Japon, Maluco, and India that they were seen in those places.

The devotion of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin has been notable in this city.  This year great eight-day fiestas, with masks and illuminations, have been celebrated with much solemnity in the cathedral church and in that of St. Francis.  It is feared that there will be much hunger in the islands during the present year, because the locusts are so numerous that they cover the fields and destroy the grain.  May God help us!