Gregory XIII. seeing what progress the Jesuits were making, and realizing how fatal to success any conflict between rival brotherhoods would be, issued a brief in A.D. 1585, that no religious teachers except Jesuits should be allowed in Japan. This regulation was exceedingly distasteful to both the Dominicans and the Franciscans, especially after the visit of the Japanese embassy to Lisbon, Madrid, and Rome had directed the attention of the whole religious world to the triumphs which the Jesuits were making in Japan. Envy against the Portuguese merchants for their monopoly of the Japanese trade had also its place in stirring up the Spaniards at Manila to seek an entrance to the island empire. The opposition with which Christianity had met was represented as due to the character and behavior of the missioners. In view of these circumstances the Spanish governor of Manila sent a letter to Hideyoshi, asking for permission to open trade with some of the ports of Japan. Four Franciscans attached themselves to the bearer of this letter and in this way were introduced into the interior of Japan. Among the valuable presents sent to Hideyoshi by the governor of Manila was a fine Spanish horse(171) with all its equipments. These Franciscans who came in this indirect way were permitted to establish themselves in Kyōto and Nagasaki. They were at once met by the protest of the Jesuits who urged that the brief of the pope excluded them. But these wily Franciscans replied that they had entered Japan as ambassadors and not as religious fathers, and that now when they were in Japan the brief of the pope did not require them to leave.