The succession of Luis Perez Dasmarinas to the government of the Philippines, and the designs of the Chinese to capture the islands, form the subject matter of Chapter III.  By virtue of his father’s will and a royal decree empowering the latter to name his successor in case of absence or death, Luis Perez takes over the command from Pedro de Rojas, who has been elected by the city, with which “all the city received great happiness, both because of what they owed the father, and the love that they bore the son, of whose heroic virtues much might be said.”  The Chinese send a vast fleet to Manila in charge of a number of mandarins, in order to conquer Luzon, because they fear the Spaniards, and “would much rather see us very far from their kingdom than to have the gain derived from us ...  The governor received the mandarins and their embassy, who pretended that they came to trade, and asked us not to receive the Japanese in our ports, who are their mortal enemies; and taking farewell of them with a good countenance, he sent them to their own country.  The next year one of those mandarins returned disguised, in order to act the spy, but as I was inspecting the ships, I noticed and arrested him; but such is the cunning of those people, that he was able to clear himself, so that it seemed better to the governor and to Doctor Antonio de Morga, his lieutenant of justice, to allow the mandarin to return to his own country.”

The expedition to Camboja by Gallinato, and events there, and the arrival of Mendana’s ship at Manila are told in Chapter IV.  Blaz Ruyz, Diego Veloso, and Pantaleon Carnero, having seized the vessel on which they were being carried as prisoners to Siam from Camboja, arrive at Manila, and induce the sending of the three vessels under Gallinato. [36] The latter, however, is blown out of his course as far as the strait of Sincapura.  The other two vessels under Blas Ruyz and Diego Veloso reach Camboja, but the ship of the latter is wrecked on the coast.  “A relative of the legitimate king was then ruling, one Nancaparan Prabantul,” whom their arrival does not please.  The trouble with the Chinese follows, of the three thousand of whom, the Spaniards kill five hundred, and the consequent embassy of Blas Ruyz with forty men to Sistor.  The king’s refusal to treat with them unless they make reparation to the Chinese, and his evident preparations to seize their small body of men, lead to the attack on the palace, the killing of the king and one of his sons, and the flight to the Spanish ship, leaving three killed—­one Indian, one Japanese, and one Spaniard—­but with many wounded.  Gallinato’s arrival at this juncture puts an end to affairs there, and all depart for Cochinchina, where Blas Ruyz and Diego Veloso go to find the legitimate king of Camboja at Laos, “crossing those kingdoms for more than two hundred leguas, through territory where a Spaniard had never been seen ...  I have related this event because of the many fictions that were told here about