SALTER] RELATIONS OF CHINESE TO THE PHILIPPINES 269 



country, to take it, and bring back the ships laden with gold and riches. 

 This, together with what the Chinese had said at first, seemed of much im- 

 portance, especially so to Don Fray Miguel de Benavides, archbishop-elect of 

 Manila, who knew the language, and that it went much further than what the 

 mandarins had implied. The archbishop, therefore, and other monks, warned 

 the governor and the city, publicly and secretly, to look to its defense, because 

 they held it as certain that a fleet from China would shortly come against it. 

 The governor at once dispatched the mandarins and put them on board their 

 ship with their prisoner, having given them a few presents of silver and other 

 articles, with which they were pleased. Although, according to the opinion of 

 the greater number of the townspeople, the coming of the Chinese against the 

 country was a thing very contrary to reason, yet the governor began in a 

 covered manner to make preparation of ships and other things for the pur- 

 pose of defense; and he hastened to complete considerable repairs which he 

 had begun to make in the fort of Santiago, at the point of the river, con- 

 structing a wall with its buttresses in the inner part of which looks to the 

 parade, of much strength for the defense of the fort. 



After the departure of the mandarins, suspicion against the Chi- 

 nese constantly increased, and an uprising' against Spanish rule was 

 imputed to them — a charge heralded, first of all, by the influential 

 clergy, but which was not justified by any plausible arguments. 

 The well-to-do class of the Chinese population had certainly no 

 mind to stake their lives and hard-earned property in a revolution. 

 The preservation of the Spanish possession of Manila was a point 

 of the most vital interest to them, for only under such conditions 

 could they be enabled to amass wealth. If the Philippines should 

 ever come under Chinese sway, trade with the Spaniards would 

 naturally cease, and thus their means of subsistence be cut off. It 

 was only the over-hasty initiative steps and the oppressive measures 

 of the colonial government which incited the Chinese, first of all the 

 proletarian class, to put an end to the unsafe situation by a general 

 riot, into which finally the patricians were also forced, under pressure 

 of a preposterous policy enforced by the mailed fist of the Spaniards. 



Since 1598 Manila had also had a colony of Japanese. 1 Acuna 

 summoned the Japanese nobles, and laid before them the question 

 as to what part they would take in case of a Chinese insurrection. 

 Their response was, already known to Acuna, that they would fight 

 by the side of the Spaniards. This secret understanding was pro- 

 mulgated in the parian, where it provoked an indescribable panic. 

 Part of the traders fled, but the majority were ready to kill the 



1 An interesting passage extracted from a Japanese work of travel, and re- 

 lating to the life of Japanese on Luzon, will be found in the Journal of the 

 China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, new series (1865), vol. 11, pp. 

 79-8o. 



