Friar Sotelo’s arrival in Mexico as the ambassador of the Protector of Christianity in Japan, and with a flock of would-be converts, was regarded as a triumph of the church and particularly of the deservedly much loved Franciscan order. At Acapulco, the town officials determined to honor the members of an embassy to the viceroy, the king and the pope with extraordinary honors, and greeted it with salutes of artillery. Its members were escorted with music to luxuriously appointed lodgings, and the festivities were crowned by a gala bull-fight. The viceroy sent orders that provisions for the journey to the capital were to be provided, and a large mounted and armed escort was to accompany the embassy on its long and somewhat perilous journey. In all villages, towns and cities along their route the travelers were received with military music and triumphal arches. Carpets strewn with pieces of gold were spread on their pathway, and they were lodged and lavishly entertained at the royal houses. In the capital, where they were anxiously expected, they were lodged in a palace near the Convent of San Francisco, where they were at once visited by the archbishop, the judges and officers of the inquisition and the high nobility and gentlemen of Mexico. Having opportunely arrived in Holy Week, the Japanese were able to witness the solemn processions and impressive religious ceremonies held in the cathedral and churches of Mexico, the interiors of which were beautifully decorated with flowers. They were so impressed with what they saw that seventy-eight members of the Japanese ambassador’s suite expressed their desire to be baptized. This sacrament was performed in the Church of San Francisco with great solemnity and the sanction of the archbishop’s presence, members of the highest nobility acting as sponsors. Subsequently the Japanese ambassador expressed his desire to be baptized, but after consultation the archbishop and the commissary-general of the Franciscan order advised him to defer this ceremony until his arrival at the Spanish court. It is recorded that on the day the Japanese ambassador went to “kiss the hand” of the viceroy, he distributed new liveries to his servants and went in state to the palace, with a mounted escort. The viceroy, Don Diego Fernandez de Cordova, Marquis of Guadalcazár, who received him with great delight and courtesy, expressed his satisfaction at the embassy’s having been sent from Japan. He consented to give the Japanese passports allowing them to go to Spain, but informed them that it would be necessary for them to obtain from the King of Spain permission to return to Mexico; a detail which again reveals the existence of an established policy of exclusion.