A royal decree of May 14, 1790, ordained that the Chinese should pay a capitation tax of six pesos a year. In the same year the regiments of Pampanga and Zambales and Bataán were formed, in order to increase the disciplined militia of the provinces. In July the governor received a letter from the king of Cochinchina, asking that two of his ships, then at Canton, might be aided on their arrival at Manila, with money to make needed repairs and buy a quantity of sulphur, [38] on the king's account; this was done, and afterward approved by the Spanish government. In October, the curacies of Ilocos--which, formerly held by the Dominicans, had remained vacant since Santa Justa's effort to enforce the diocesan visitation--were placed in the hands of the Augustinians, with the provision that the royal right of patronage should be observed in the appointments to these new ministries. The death of Carlos III occurred on December 14, 1788, but the official notification (despatched a fortnight later) did not reach Manila until July, 1790. In the following November the solemn proclamation of the accession of Carlos IV, and the oaths of allegiance to him, were celebrated at Manila with fiestas which lasted from the third to the twenty-first of that month. A description of these festivities was published (1791) by the Dominican Fray Manuel Barrios, a lecturer in Santo Thomás university, from which Montero y Vidal quotes liberally (pp. 329-338). They included, besides the splendid and solemn character of the ceremonies themselves, "a general illumination of the city during three consecutive nights, pontifical mass and Te Deum in the cathedral, levees at the palace, dances in the cabildo buildings, masquerades, banquets, fireworks, comedies, and even a bullfight." The Filipino natives and the Chinese [39] also contributed to the festivities, with devices or entertainments peculiar to their customs. Thus says Barrios: "It ought to be understood that the taste of the Chinese, in the matter of spectacles and public diversions, is based on ideas that are very different from, or rather quite contrary to, our own. As proof of this, is sufficient the spectacle which they presented on this night, the first sight of which might astonish any European who might not have seen beforehand some diversion of this people. A lion spitting fire, more terrible than those which grow up in the deserts of Zaara [i.e., Sahara], was followed by an enormous serpent, more than fifty cubits long, which made extraordinary movements and contortions on account of swallowing a globe of fire which floated before it through the air; and behind the serpent came another lion, no less fierce than the first. This spectacle was made even more terrible by the confused din of the gongs, which the Chinese beat without ceasing. The lions fought each other, with the greatest ardor and pertinacity; and the serpent performed many pleasing movements and evolutions, causing