All that government of the usurper Don Juan Manuel was very peaceable; for he was a wise and prudent man, and of very excellent intentions. If the desire to command misled him into pushing himself into the government, which did not belong to him, the fault ought not to be attributed to him, but to those who allowed themselves to be deceived because of their passions.... The first thing that he did was to bring from Cebú that great soldier, so often appointed in past years, the commander Don Francisco de Atienza y Báñez--who had retired, and was passing his honorable old age in quiet; and Don Juan availed himself of his counsels for military arrangements. He treated the soldiers very well, and increased their pay, and paid them a sum of money on account of what was due them for their services. In that way he exhausted the royal treasury; and it was this which created most hostility against him in the royal Council. He must have thought that his government would last a longer time, for Don Diego de Salcedo had served five years in his government, and, according to the length of time that his three predecessors had governed, a long time was still left for Don Juan. But this reckoning ended ill; for Governor Don Manuel de León was in Méjico, because authentic information had reached the royal Council of the Indias of the irregularities committed by Don Diego de Salcedo. At that time the bishop of Cebú, Don Fray Juan López, arrived at Manila on matters pertaining to his church concerning the result of the visitation which he had made in the province of Ogtong. But as he found the governor very busy in strengthening his intrusion, while the royal Audiencia was much in need of ministers, he could get nothing done except the issue of some pontifical acts regarding orders and confirmations, and to return to his church. However much Don Juan Manuel de la Peña tried by diligence to please all, he was not without danger of his life through the malice of assassins or the neglect of undisciplined soldiers. For while he was one afternoon watching the marching of the companies which are changed daily as guards at the gates of the city, it happened that when an obsequious military officer was ordering that a general salute to him be fired, a musket ball passed over Don Juan Manuel's right shoulder, and was embedded in a brick wall of the window from which he was leaning. Investigations were instituted in order to get at the cause; but they were all in vain, as those who fired were so many, and it could not be learned who had loaded with ball. The governors have many such dangers because of the carelessness of the undisciplined soldiers. Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara was in danger of being killed in another salute like that; and the ball passed clear through the hand of Licentiate Manuel de Olivera, who was at the governor's side.