well that your Majesty should know
of this affair--of which you will find full details in the information
of which I speak--I have thought it best to give an account thereof to
your Majesty, so that your Majesty may be pleased to command that the
procedure be established in the case of mandarins coming from China
to this city, and direct in what state they are to go through the
streets; for the tokens of authority which those mandarins bore were
excessive. I have even gone so far, in order that this may be better
investigated, as to have a picture made of the style in which they
went about, a copy of which will go with this, since the brief time
prevents me from having another copy made. I have also had placed
upon it what each figure signifies, the explanations being in the
petition which I placed before the Audiencia, a copy of which goes
with the documents above mentioned.

On the twenty-ninth of April of this year it was God's will that there
should be so great a fire in this city that, within two hours, there
were burned one hundred and fifty houses, among them the best of the
city, and the thirty-two built of masonry, one of which was mine. [15]
Not having any people to help me, I could not save its contents, and
only with the greatest difficulty did I save my library. The cause
of the lack of people to aid in putting out the fire, and taking out
from several of the houses what they could, was that the governor had
ordered the gates of the cities locked so that no Chinese or Indians
could enter--although they would have been of much use, as they have
been in other fires which we have had. In the passion of my grief,
for I had lost more than six thousand pesos, I said that my house had
been burned through the lack of people and the order to shut the gates
of the city. This coming to the ears of the governor, he became angry
about this also, although he has never said anything to me about it;
for the resolution which he adopted of locking the gates could only be
based on the idea that the Chinese should not enter, lest they might
possess themselves of the city. This could have been guarded against
by letting what seemed to be a safe number of Chinese enter--as they
never carry arms, and are a wretched and miserable people--and by
then shutting the gates of the city and having soldiers to guard
the Sangleys who were going about on the inside; and so everything
would have been provided against. These occasions of anno