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32
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
[Vol. 9

Captain Lope de Llanos kisses your Lordship's hands; he is very ill with quartan ague. He is not writing, because this letter is intended only for the purpose above mentioned. From the realm of Xapon, province of Chaxuma, at the port of Cuxi, November 4, 1592.

Fray Juan Cobos

Addressed to Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, knight of the order of Santiago, and governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands.

Decree

In the city of Manila, on the twenty-fourth day of the month of May, one thousand five hundred and ninety-three, I, Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, knight of the Order of Santiago, and captain-general of these islands, declare in the name of the king, our lord, that whereas last year some letters and an ambassador claiming to come from the king of Xapon were received here, and, moved by suspicion and fearing war, I sent the father Fray Juan Cobos with letters for the emperor; and whereas it is over a year since the said father left here, and, notwithstanding I have received letters from him meanwhile, making known his safe arrival and the prompt execution of his mission, I am anxious because he does not return; three Xaponese vessels having arrived, and in one of them a man by the name of Faranda, a Xaponese who claims to be the ambassador; and as I wish to be informed what sort of a man this Faranda is, and to learn whether Father Cobos arrived there and how he was received and sent away, and the purpose that Faranda has in coming, and what are the intentions and objects of the said emperor, and whatever else it