was that there was much gold and wealth in the hands of the natives and Spaniards of Manila, and that if they gave him a fleet with men, he offered, as a man who had been in Luzon and knew the country, to capture it and bring the ships back laden with gold and riches. This, together with what some Chinamen had said at the beginning, seemed very much to have more meaning than the mandarins had implied, especially to Don Fray Miguel de Benavides, archbishop-elect of Manila, who knew the language. Thereupon the archbishop and other religious warned the governor and the city, publicly and privately, to look to its defense, because they felt sure of the coming of the Chinese fleet against it shortly. Then the governor dismissed the mandarins and embarked them on their ship, with their prisoner, after giving them some pieces of silver and other things with which they were pleased. Although, in the opinion of the majority of those in the city, it seemed that it was beyond all reason that the Chinese should attack the country, the governor began covertly to prepare ships and other things suitable for defense, and made haste to complete extensive repairs which he had begun to make on the fort of Sanctiago at the point of the river, and for the defense of the fort he built on the inside a wall of great strength, with its wings, facing toward the parade ground. At the end of April of this year six hundred and three, on the eve of Sts. Philip and James [Santiago] a fire started in a little field house [casilla de zacate] used by some Indians and negroes of the native hospital in the city, at three o'clock in the afternoon, and passed to other houses so quickly, with the force of the rather fresh wind, that it could not be stopped, and burned houses of wood and stone, even the monastery of St. Dominic--house and church--the royal hospital for the Spaniards, and the royal warehouses, without leaving a building standing among them. Fourteen people died in the fire, Spaniards, Indians, and negroes, and among them Licentiate Sanz, canon of the cathedral. In all two hundred and sixty houses were burned, with much property which was in them, and it was understood that the damage and loss amounted to more than one million [pesos].