Note 41 — The Bibliographical History

Further evidence that there was no printing as early as 1581 is to be found in a letter41 from Juan de Plasencia, a Tagalist of great renown, to the King, dated from Manila, June 18, 1585, in which he reported on the state of missionary work in China and Japan, and added that he had written a grammar and a declaration of the whole Doctrina in the most common language of the Philippines, and that he was then making a dictionary, concluding by asking the King to send decrees ordering those works to be printed in Mexico at the expense of the Exchequer. Is it likely that Plasencia would have so written if an Arte y Vocabulario had been printed four years earlier? Furthermore, San Antonio, recording the book on the customs and rites of the Indians written by Plasencia at the request of the Governor Santiago de Vera, and dated October 24, 1589, said that it was not printed “because printing houses had not yet come to this country.”42