tized, are daily asking for baptism; and there are an infinite number of others to be pacified, who have no knowledge of God—all for lack of ministers; and it is a most serious error that, while this land is so ready, all thought is centered on China, which is wholly averse to the faith, and its doors are closed against it. This is the art of Satan, so that neither the one nor the other may be effected.[1]
THE PROPOSED ENTRY INTO CHINA, IN DETAIL
First: The person who is sent as an eye-witness will give his Majesty a brief relation of the vastness of China, of the abundance of its fruits and provisions, of the richness of its merchandise, and the great quantity of gold and silver, quicksilver, copper, iron, and other metals; of the immensity and certainty of the treasures, and the infinite amount and variety of the products of the handicrafts and of human industry; and, above all, the endless things that may be said about the people and their life, health, peace, and plenty; and how, with and by all this, there is offered to his Majesty the greatest occasion and the grandest beginning that ever in the world was offered to a monarch. Here lies before him all that the human mind can desire or comprehend of riches and eternal fame, and likewise all that a Christian heart, desirous of the honor of God and his faith, can
- ↑ At this point the Sevilla MS. ends, and it lacks any signature; there is reason to fear that the latter half of this copy—apparently, from the marginal notes, the one sent to the Council of the Indias, and used in their deliberations—is lost. The remainder of the document is translated from the Madrid copy, which is fully signed by the notables of the islands.
