ich are offered
to them, they embark personally. And, in this respect, they are very
attentive in all other things that concern year Majesty's service and
the public welfare. With the protection which they promise themselves
from the piety of your Majesty, they will continue successfully
in this care. May our Lord preserve your Majesty many years, as is
necessary to Christendom. Manila, July twenty-nine, one thousand six
hundred and thirty.

_Don Juan Nino de Tavora_
Licentiate _Geronimo de Legaspi_
Licentiate _Don Mathias Flores_
Licentiate _Marcos Zapata de Galvez_"

[64] La Concepcion relates this occurrence _(Hist. de Philipinas,_
v, pp. 139-145), and its effect on the archbishop, Serrano; he was
so horrified and grieved that he fell into a profound melancholy,
which ended his life on June 14, 1629. The disposal of the stolen
articles was finally made known in the confessional by one of the
accomplices in the theft.

[65] The Portuguese commander Albuquerque had in 1508 seized the
more important ports on the eastern coast of 'Oman, which were
then tributary to the ruler of Hormuz--a petty principality on the
southern coast of Persia, afterward removed (about 1300 A.D.) to
the island now called Hormuz (or Ormuz). The Portuguese exacted
tribute from these towns, and from the ruler of Hormuz; and later
cooeperated with him in enforcing his authority over his tributaries,
and defending him from foreign foes. They were expelled from 'Oman by
its imam, Nasir-bin-Murshid (who reigned from 1624 to 1649)--except
from Maskat and el-Matrah, which was accomplished by his successor,
Sultan-bin-Seif, by 1652. See George P. Badger's _Imams and Seyyids of
'Oman_ (Hakluyt Society's publications, London, 1871), pp. xxii, 4,
46, 66-69, 74, 78-90.

[66] i.e., "We have passed through fire and water, and thou hast
brought us out into a refreshment." (Psalm lxv, v. 12, Douay Bible;
lxvi in Protestant versions.)

[67] Many of these exiles went to Formosa and other neighboring
islands.

[68] Thus in original (_la mucha Plata qe_ tomaron a los dichos
Religiosos, q_e_ dicen serian dos mil sacos de hazienda); but one
would hardly expert that so large an amount of silver could have been
borrowed, as the context would indicate, from the merchants of Manila
(apparently for an investment in Japanese goods, from the proceeds of
which the friars in charge of it might aid their persecuted brethren
in Japan) for conveyance by two friars o