Perhaps your Excellency will be told that, if we break with the Sangleys, they will go to live in the island of Formosa, or in some other place among the Dutch, and will carry to them the trade that they have with us; and that, having enjoyed the trade of Japon as conveniently as we have that of the Western Indias, they will still carry their merchandise to Nangazaki, the chief port of Japon, from which they will also obtain silver. To that I will reply that the kingdom of China is so full of merchandise, and the Sangleys are so shrewd in commerce, and so keen after gain, that they know what quantity of that merchandise is needed by the English, how much by the Dutch, and what quantity ought to be sold in all of Japon--and that with so great exactness that a tailor, after once seeing the figure of a person, decides how much goods is necessary to clothe him. They do the same in regard to us, and, knowing that only two ships sail annually to Nueva España, they generally have in the Parian the quantity necessary to lade those ships. If the inhabitants of the Manilas had trade with Japon, they would derive great profit from it; but a secret judgment of God has broken the communication that we had with those islanders, and has given it into the hands of the heretics, after having permitted them to destroy our churches there, and their having put to fire and sword all the Spaniards or Japanese Christians there. Hence we do not believe that a single religious is now left in all the country; and the people are compelled, under pain of death, to come to denounce those whom they know to be Christians. Our religious go there no longer, for it means certain death to them to go to Japon. The following is the manner in which that persecution was reported.