uch love and
charity, and prescribing for them his purges and medicines. In short,
it was God who led him thither for the welfare of that hospital, and,
to make the fame thereof more widely spread throughout China. Therefore
I humbly beg your Majesty to be pleased to order that this hospital be
endowed, so that the sick may be cared for. Moreover, if your Majesty
attend to this personally, that fact will be very well received in
China and will be of more benefit than the presents which your Majesty
ordered to be sent to the king.

Doctor Vera, who is now president, on seeing the good will with which
those two Sangley Christians, Don Francisco Canco and Don Tomas Siguan,
offered their services for taking the fathers to China, exempted them,
in the name of your Majesty, from paying taxes for the use of a ship
for six years. I entreat your Majesty to be pleased to confirm this
grant, and to extend it for life; for they certainly performed a great
deed, and one considered of much importance by all the inhabitants
of this city, both Spaniards and Sangleys. They deserve this favor
from your Majesty, even if we should not gain the desired result,
because they for their part have offered what they could.

Fray Juan Cobo, the Dominican religious--who, as I have said before,
knows the language of the Sangleys and their writing, and who is
most esteemed by them--is sending to your Majesty a book, one of a
number brought to him from China. This intercourse which is taking
root between them and ourselves is not a bad beginning for the object
we have in view. The book is in Chinese writing on one half of the
leaf, and Castilian on the other, the two corresponding to each
other. It is a work worthy of your Majesty, and may it be received
as such, not because of its worth, but because it is so rare a work,
never seen before in the Parian, or outside of China. According to
my judgment, it contains things worthy of consideration, by which
is seen the force of the human reason; since without the light
of the faith those things approach so near to those taught us by
the Christian religion. From this your Majesty will see how much in
error is the person who pretends that in kingdoms like that of China,
where such things are taught, we should enter by force of arms to
preach to them our faith. It is clear that with a people like this,
the force of reason has more power than that of arms. May our Lord
direct this affair according to His wil