yance to the
governor might induce him, as he is somewhat hot-tempered, to write
to your Majesty concerning me, seeking to discredit me--which I do
not deserve, considering the desire which I have to accomplish much in
the service of your Majesty, whom I also beseech to be pleased to have
me heard in regard to whatever is imputed to me. May God protect your
Majesty according to His power, with great increase of your kingdoms
and seigniories. Manila, in the Philipinas Islands, July 5, 1603.

The licentiate _Hieronimo de Salazar y Salcedo_

[_Endorsed_: "Manila; to his Majesty, 1603. The fiscal Hieronimo de
Salazar; July 5. Examined on the second of July, 1604. No response
to be given."]

_Copy of a letter which Chanchian, the chief mandarin of the three
who came to this city of Manila from the kingdom of China in the
month of June of the year one thousand six hundred and three, wrote
in the Chinese characters and tongue to Don Pedro de Acuna, governor
and captain-general of the Philipinas Islands for the king our lord,
and his president in the royal Chancilleria thereof, four days before
the said mandarins arrived in the said city; translated from the
original of the said letter by a Dominican religious._

Chanchian, of the lineage of Au, who governs the warriors of the
province of Hoquien, the envoy of the king of the realm of China,
and servant of the eunuch of the lineage of Cou. Because Tio Heng,
who is considered a reputable man, has gone to the king of China [16]
and told him that from this kingdom there could each year be taken for
the king of China a hundred thousand taes of gold and three hundred
thousand taes of silver at his expense, so that his vassals should
not pay tribute or be molested, the king has sent a eunuch who is
called Cochay to take charge of those who have said that there was
gold. This Tio Heng with five companions say that outside of the
boundaries of Hayten in a place called Lician there is a mountain
which is called Heyt Coavite, one lonely mountain in the midst of the
wide-spread sea; and that there is no realm to which it belongs or to
which the inhabitants pay tribute. In that place is collected much
gold and silver. The vassals of that mountain spend gold as freely
as if it were _garbanzos_ [17] and lentils. He has seen that the
vassals of that mountain of Cavite dig and gather it from the earth,
and in every house of Cavite he saw, if it were a poor one, a _medida_
(which is three