Note 12 — MATTA’S REPORT, 1843

“There was still at Manila another caste of mestizos, originating from Japanese and the Indian women. These Japanese landed on the island of Luçon, about fourscore years ago, in a dismantled vessel, and destitute of everything; I saw them in 1767. They numbered, I believe, at most sixty or seventy persons, all Christians. But as the form of government doubtless did not please them, nor perhaps did the Inquisition, they had demanded to return [to their own country]; and all, or nearly all, actually departed in that same year, 1767, and returned to Japan, where they have probably resumed the faith of their fathers.” (Le Gentil, Voyage, ii, pp. 53, 54.) Concepción states (Hist. de Philipinas, vii, p. 6) that in 1658 a number of Christian Japanese were living in the barrio of San Anton, near Manila; some of them had come on a Japanese ship that was driven to Cavite by storms, and remained with their countrymen at Manila. ↑