The letter which you wrote from Madrid arrived together with that of this place, but no other has arrived. By the same boat also came [news of] the peace, whereupon the English again delivered the place to our governor. [182] It was almost bare of cannon, as the English had taken them. For eighteen months were we under the rule of the heretic, with sufferings greater than can be imagined there. They acted toward us worse than do the victorious Turks toward those whom they conquer. However, Manila well deserved it, not indeed, because of its total lack of all Christian procedure, but singularly because of its cursed neglect of politics, as if the whole world had to respect and fear us because of our boasting that we are Spaniards. Manila is a place, which, by its fortification, by its swampy site, by its location surrounded by a river larger than the Tajo at Toledo, and by a low sea, and because the only time at which it can be attacked is at the time of the fierce winds and heavy and almost continuous rains--it is, I say--for all these reasons, almost invincible, with less than a medium defense of true militia. For no power can place here fifteen or twenty thousand well drilled men. All that would be necessary, in order to oppose a moderate defense by one thousand or one thousand five hundred well-drilled men, established in Manila, and aided by the inhabitants and volunteer Indians. But on the present occasion, when the sole sinews of the English were about one thousand five hundred Europeans, and the rest [of their men] about five thousand, whom they said were ragamuffins from Asia, with the carriages and horses of Manila driven along its beach, the English could not have effected a landing. But our archiepiscopal government, counseled by worthless hearts and by traitors, allowed the English to disembark without opposition. The fifteen ships cannonaded to no purpose; and because a cannon caused the greatest ship to retire, order was given not to fire from the fort without orders, and that it was to be used for the attack by land. Some commanded, others countermanded, because they asserted that they would anger the English more. A reënforcement of drilled Indians came, but they were not allowed to make a sally, for the archbishop-governor said that it was better to seize the enemy without grievously vexing him. In a sally, the Indians reached quite to the artillery abandoned by the English. The enemy rallied, and the Indians not having any disciplined reënforcement, fell back. Four days of heavy rains, and boisterous winds, which God sent, and by which one ship was driven ashore, and the others endeavored only to look out for themselves, gained nothing for the obstruction of the English, neither toward the sea, nor toward [land]. Their powder was used up, and they dead with hunger and with cold, could not resist. It was thus that the traitors arranged it with the worthy archbishop, who