Note 8 — Events in Manila, 1662–63

The debate became hotter when, at nightfall, our people found the body of Fray José de Madrid,8 a Dominican whom the seditious Sangleys had slain in that morning’s outbreak in order to crush the rest by the horror of that crime—making the other Sangleys think that after so atrocious a deed there remained for them no hope of pardon, and no other means of saving their lives than to follow [the dictates of] their desperation. There is no doubt that if this murder had been known in the morning, it would have injured the interests of the Sangleys; and that between the scruples of prudence and justice [on the one hand], and the boldness of the counsels given by all the rest of the military men [on the other], the piety of so just a vengeance would have strongly prevailed. But the corpse was quickly buried—either by the father’s assailants, repentant; or by the peaceable Sangleys, in fear—and, detected either by the odor or by the signs made by some servants who, hidden in the convent of the Parián, witnessed the occurrence, the body was found that night. The news, which quickly ran through the Parián, filled all with horror and caused some of the Sangleys to flee from that quarter. Accordingly, by morning affairs assumed a worse aspect, and the more influential personages and the military leaders became less friendly to the Sangleys. All directed their efforts to persuading his Lordship to have the heads of all the Sangleys cut off, commencing at the Parián and conducting a campaign in pursuit of the rest of the fugitives. His Lordship, seeing that they had allotted the Sangleys but a short respite, that they had the day before left the settlement of matters with Father Francisco Mesina and that more time than this was necessary for securing the proper degree of order, resolved to hasten the negotiations for peace and to go to see the father with the Sangleys in company with a Sangley named Raimundo, an agent of Cot-sen in this city.