"While the English were pressing Manila, the auditors were besieging the archbishop, and prevented any one from approaching to speak with him. Monsieur Fayette, more experienced than the other officers, seeing the evident danger which was threatening the city, tried, in spite of the difficulty in penetrating thither, into the presence of the archbishop, to leap the barrier. Auditor ---- was performing constant guard duty in the anti-chamber. It was impossible for Monsieur Fayette to get nearer. He told the auditor what brought him. The latter sent him back very roughly, giving him to understand that he was an ignoramus in the trade; that the governor was better informed than he; that the ministers of the king, who were there to assist the governor by their counsels, knew all that was to be done. 'Do you take us,' said he in wrath, 'do you take us for traitors to our fatherland? Do we not know our obligations?' "Monsieur Fayette retired. That same afternoon, the archbishop desired to go in person to view the breach (a fact that has been attested to me) but Auditor ---- and the fiscal prevented him. They did not wish, they said, to have his most illustrious Lordship expose himself to so evident a danger. It is true that, since they were near his person in order to assist him with their counsels, it would have been necessary for the two auditors to have accompanied him in his visit. "Don Andres Roxo has shown me a copy of one of the letters written to the king by this prelate, when he was near death, in which he gave his Majesty an account of his conduct, and asked his pardon for the errors which he had committed. When speaking of the matter that we have just seen concerning the visit to the breach, he says 'Would to God that a cannon ball had then shortened my days.' "Next morning bout six o'clock, the same officer (Monsieur Fayette) returned to make a second attempt. He succeeded finally in getting quite into the apartment of the archbishop, but it was after he had deceived and thrown the watchful auditor off his guard. It was then too late to deliberate. A messenger announced that the enemy were at the breach, in possession of the bastion of the foundry. "The English were divided into three columns. The one which was to mount the breach was preceded by thirty volunteers and pioneers who were the first to mount, but who probably well knew that they would find but very little or no opposition.