Volume 19 / Part 1 — Part First
Reading edition
In Chapter II some of the leading events of the term of Gomez Perez Dasmariñas are noted, and his unfortunate death. Such is his activity and care “that he alone aggrandized that city more than had all his predecessors, or his successors to this time.” [194] Negotiations are opened with Japan, and the embassy from Camboja begging for aid against Siam is received at Manila. “I believe,” says Los Rios, “that if he had done it, it would have been a great stroke of fortune, and your Majesty would justly be lord of that kingdom and of Sian, which is very wealthy. That is the only thing in which I believe that Gomez Perez erred.”
The succession of Luis Perez Dasmariñas 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 Luzón, 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 [195] better to the governor and to Doctor Antonio de Morga, his lieutenant of justice, to allow the mandarin to return to his own country.”