before stated,
he had treated with favors) and twenty converted Japanese, in the
neighborhood of Nangasaqui, to which place the galleon resorts, which
ordinarily goes each year from Macao for the Japanese trade. It was
there, with one hundred and fifty Portuguese; and the bishop of Japon
then officiated publicly, and there were more than twenty thousand
Christian Japanese and a principal college of the Society--whence
it is supposed that the reason was greed, under color of a reason
of state. For if the intention of the tyrant was to exclude at all
points Christianity and its ministers from Japon, he would not have
permitted so great a number of fathers of the Society as were residing
in that country, with their prelate (several of whom were known to
him), and hundreds of thousands of Christian Japanese, contenting
himself with the persecution of these few. This is especially so as,
in the year following this martyrdom, the conversion of more than
60,000 Japanese was affirmed, a greater number than for many years
past taken together. It may be believed that God worked this miracle
through the blood shed by those martyrs and their intercession. Since
that event, on various occasions religious have entered Japon in the
ships of the Japanese themselves, who go to the Philipinas to trade,
and express a desire that some religious from the orders there should
go. The same Dayfusama, who is now reigning, sent an embassy to the
Philipinas seeking friars in order that one of the ports of his island,
called Quanto, might be settled by Spaniards. To further this claim, he
sent later Fray Jeronimo de Jesus,--a discalced friar who had survived
his companions the martyrs, for the consolation of the converted,
and who had been hidden; accordingly the Audiencia of your Majesty
which resides in Manila ordered religious to be sent.

To the second reason, it is answered that thus far it is not known in
the Council that there has been any trade from Nueva Espana or from
the Philipinas to Japon, nor does it even appear that those who are
occupied in trade have any need thereof; for to the Philipinas Islands
themselves there come so great a number of junks and ships belonging
to the Chinese from Chincheo, that there is always a superabundance
of merchandise, and to limit this trade your Majesty has already
decreed what appears most expedient for his service.

What is known is that the fathers of the Society do not desire other
orders than