"Archbishop Roxo was a capable man for the good management of finances. He was clever in business and very zealous for the service of the king. But he did not understand anything of military affairs. Consequently, the factions which were formed, and which he was unable to resist, were the cause of his not capitulating in time, and those factions caused the misfortune of Manila. "It would be difficult to form an idea of the embarrassment in which this prelate found himself, and of the consternation of the entire village. I have been assured that the name of Arandia, that man whom the friars had, two years previously, dubbed a heretic, and toward whom they had been so hostile that no one could be found who would take charge of his funeral oration, was heard pronounced several times. 'If Arandia were living,' said one, several times during the siege. It was perceived then that they lacked a man to direct. Several times the archbishop wished to capitulate, but he was prevented. Don Andres Roxo has assured me very emphatically, that had the archbishop been alone, and had he not been besieged on one side by the auditors, and on the other by the friars, he would not have waited until the English had mounted to the assault. It was in fine a notorious fact at the time of my stay in Manila, that the fiscal and especially an auditor, who has died since my departure, were the cause of Roxo not capitulating in time. Many councils, indeed, were held, but nothing was determined there. These councils, besides, were very illy made up; for, if the military men were excused from it, what good could come from appealing from the auditors there, who knew nothing in this line, and from fanatic friars. The latter made use of Mother Paula, whom they pretended had had visions of St. Francis. They carried the news of those visions to the archbishop, and did what they could to support him in the flattering idea that St. Francis would work a miracle in favor of the inhabitants of Manila and that one would see him on the breach, with his cord in his hand, defending and sustaining the assault, as he had formerly repulsed the Chinese, who, so they said at Manila, had risen against this city to the number of more than twenty thousand.