On the day on which I write this, which is the last of June, when the ships should have sailed days ago for Mexico, because they might encounter a wind which would make it impossible for them to leave this bay for a long time, and the voyage would be lost, or undertaken when the ships would be wrecked--during this time he is entertaining guests and making feasts and gambling. Certainly, Sire, considering the injustice and grievance which he is inflicting on the poor subjects and vassals of your Majesty, and considering him so taken up with these feasts, there occurs to me the history of Nero, when he set fire to Rome, and stood rejoicing while the street was burning and being consumed; or, as a learned and pious man said, it seems parallel with the idea which Nabuchodonosor carried out when he desired that the people should adore his image, and ordered that thenceforth there should be much music and feasting, so that the people, thus deluded, should not even think of him without at once committing an act of idolatry. Just so here all is feasting, so that in this way the people may be prevented from thinking; and that, thus deluded, they should busy themselves with this until the evil record be finished, and the ships depart. How can I tell your Majesty of the affairs of war? Although we are every moment fearing some movement from Japon, this man will not build a single turret to finish the wall. He considers himself safe with a dark retreat which he built to retire to if the enemy should take the city; but if the enemy should take a single house of the city, he is as well fortified there as are the Spaniards in their retreat. For, with the cheap labor of Chinamen, they have built here so that every house is a fortress. God has granted to this country a Spaniard of great genius, good birth, and singular virtue, who came with Don Luis Perez das Mariñas. This Spaniard cast artillery very ingeniously at this post where I am at present, which is on the river in the middle of Manila. During all the time that I have been here I have not seen the governor go to examine this work, or have anything more to do with it than if it were in Constantinople. In short, his God is his belly, and his feasts, and the vices and sins consequent upon this. That his drink may be cold he uses from the warehouses of your Majesty an endless amount of saltpeter, which is difficult to procure. He expends an immense amount of powder in his feasts.