The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 36]

1649-1666] EVENTS IN MANILA, 1662-63

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ers. He was attired in the garb of a mandarin's rank,
which the barbarian had conferred on him to equip
him for this embassy. Little pomp was displayed
in his reception, for the unfriendly nature of his
errand was already known. Don Sabiniano Manrrique de Lara received the letter which he brought;
it was full of arrogance, ostentatiously boasting of
Cot-sen's power, and declaring that his champans
were many thousands in number and his perfect
soldiers hundreds of thousands; (it is a fact that
those champans, counting large and small, amount
to I5,ooo, as is known by eyewitnesses); and, in virtue of this pompous and noisy declaration, he demanded that these islands should pay him tribute,
threatening us with the example of the Dutch.43
The insolence of this demand angered all the
Spaniards, and our resolute attitude filled the Sangleys with anxiety; for, as it could not be imagined
and was a student and afterward a teacher in the Dominican college at Rome. Meeting there (1643) the noted Fray J. B. Morales, Ricci decided to return with him to the East, and arrived
at Manila in I648. There he ministered to the Chinese for seven
years, when he was sent to the China mission. He was much
favored by the noted Kue-sing (or Ko-xinga), who obliged him to
become his ambassador to Manila (1662). Returning to China,
Ricci found that Kue-sing was dead, and persuaded the latter's
officers that it was to their interest to maintain peace and commerce with the Spaniards - for which purpose they sent him again
to Manila, as here narrated. In 1664 a persecution arose in
China, and the missionaries were summoned to Peking. Fearing to
obey, as he had been on Kue-sing's side, Ricci fled to Formosa, and
afterward (March, I666) returned to Manila- where he was imprisoned for some time. Afterward he held various important offices in his order, and aided in the compilation of Santa Cruz's continuation of Aduarte's history. He died at the Parian, February
17, 1685. See Resena biogrdfica, ii, pp. 46I-464.
43 The letter of Kue-sing, and the governor's reply, may be
found in Diaz's Conquistas, pp. 625, 626, 629-631; and Murillo
Velarde's Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 271, 274.