LAUFER] RELATIONS OF CHINESE TO THE PHILIPPINES 263 



ing the usual guards in the midship gangway and in the bows and stern. The 

 Chinese rowers three days back had agreed to rise up and seize the galley 

 whenever they should find a favorable opportunity, from a desire to save them- 

 selves the labor of rowing on this expedition, or from coveting the money, 

 jewels, and other articles of value on board, as it seemed to them ill to lose 

 what was offered to their hands. They had provided themselves with candles 

 and white shirts, and had appointed some of their number as chiefs for the 

 execution of the plan; and they carried it out that same night, in the last 

 watch before dawn, when they perceived that the Spaniards slept. At a sig- 

 nal which one of them gave, at the same moment all put on their shirts and 

 lit their candles, and with their catans in their hands they at once attacked the 

 guards and those that slept in the quarters and in the wales ("arrumbadas," 

 planks or frames on which soldiers sleep), and, wounding and killing, they 

 seized upon the galley. But few Spaniards escaped — some by swimming to 

 land, others in the boat which was at the stern. The governor, when he heard 

 the noise in his cabin and perceived that the galley was dragging, and that 

 the rabble was cutting down the awning and was taking to the oars, hurried 

 out carelessly, and his head being unprotected at the hatchway of the cabin, 

 a few Chinese who were watching for him there, split his head with a catan. 

 He fell, wounded, down the stairs into his cabin, and two servants whom he 

 had within carried him to his bed, where he died immediately. The same fate 

 met the servants, who were stabbed through the hatch. The only Spaniards 

 that remained alive in the galley were Juan de Cuellar, secretary of the gover- 

 nor, and Padre Montilla, of the order of Saint Francis, who slept in a cabin 

 amidship; and they stayed there without coming out; and the Chinese did not 

 dare to go in, thinking that there were more Spaniards, until next day, when 

 they took them out, and let them go on the coast of Ylocos, of the island of 

 Luzon itself, in order that the natives might let them take water on shore, of 

 which they were short. 



The Spaniards who were in the other vessels, close to land, although they 

 perceived from their ships the lights and the noise in the galley, thought it was 

 some maneuver that was being executed ; and when afterwards they knew, 

 after a short space, through those who escaped, swimming, what had hap- 

 pened, they could give no assistance, and remained quiet, as everything was 

 lost, and they were few in number, and not in sufficient force. So they waited 

 till morning, and when it dawned they saw the galley had already set the 

 mainsail, and was sailing wind astern, returning to China, and they could not 

 follow it. 



As the wind served, the galley sailed all along the coast of the island until 

 leaving it. It took in some water at the Ylocos, and left there the secretary 

 and the friar. It [the galley] attempted to cross to China, and not being able 

 to fetch it, brought up at the Kingdom of Cochin Chfna, where the King of 

 Tunquin took from them what was in the galley, and two large pieces of 

 artillery which had been embarked for the expedition to Maluco, and the 

 royal standard, and all the jewels, money, and precious things, and left the 

 galley to go ashore on the coast. The Chinese dispersed, and fled to different 

 provinces. The governor, Gomez Perez, met with this disastrous death, with 

 which the enterprise and expedition to Maluco, which he had undertaken, 

 ceased also. Thus his government ended, after he had held it for little more 

 than three years. 



