2^0 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS* COLLECTIONS [ vol ~ 50 



of this delegation was a Mohammedan, who probably made himself 

 understood in Arabic through Chinese Mohammedan interpreters, 

 as, add the Annals, was also the custom in Corea. 



In 1 57 1, three years after its foundation, Manila was attacked and 

 nearly taken by Lin-fung. The city was saved only by the valor of 

 the hero Salcedo. This event was recorded at great length by the 

 Augustinian monk Fray Gaspar, in his "Conquista de las islas Fili- 

 pinas," which appeared in Madrid in 1698. 1 The "Ming shih" al- 

 ludes to Lin-fung only once, in the passage above quoted ; but the 

 Chinese Annals of the province of Fuhkien, the Chronicle of Chang- 

 chou, and the "Hai kuo t'u chi" 2 give fuller accounts of his piratical 

 enterprises. The Spanish embassy mentioned in the "Ming shih" as 

 having arrived after the expulsion of the corsair is confirmed by the 

 Spanish documents of the time. The governor, Labezares, consid- 

 ered it his principal task to entertain peaceable and amicable relations 

 with an empire whose pirates alone were able to shatter the Spanish 

 possessions in Asia. He was led to such a policy still more by 

 commercial considerations. The commander of an imperial Chinese 

 war vessel, who had been sent out from Chang-chou to look after 

 Limahon and who was charmed with the chivalrous character and 

 the generosity of the Spaniards, offered to take Spanish envoys over 

 to China in his ship. This embassy consisted of two military officers 

 and two Augustinian friars. The instructions given by Labezares to 

 this mission are not without a tinge of modern politics. He declared 

 to the Viceroy of Fuhkien that the Spaniards were animated by the 

 desire to live on friendly terms with the Chinese Empire, and to 

 promote commerce between the two peoples. He requested that 

 missionaries be admitted into the empire, and particularly that a 

 Chinese port be ceded to Spain, whence, like Portugal in Macao, 

 she could trade undisturbed with China ; the envoys to pay atten- 

 tion to the customs and manners of the Chinese, and especially to 

 study what articles of merchandise were best suited for inter- 

 change between China and the Philippines and what industrial prod- 

 ucts of Spain and her colonies would promise a fair market in 

 China. This man, Labezares, was evidently more than three cen- 

 turies ahead of his time. The embassy was unsuccessful in effecting 

 its object, although it humiliated itself so far as to perform the 

 kotow before the viceroy, and returned to Manila in 1575, accom- 

 panied by three Chinese captains who had come to bring Limahon 



1 F. Blumentritt, loc. cit, pp. 5-16. 



2 A geographical work published in 1844 (Wylie, Notes on Chinese Litera- 

 ture, p. 66). 



