Philippines since the year
1564, and the subjection and conversion which has been effected in
them, and their mode of government, and that which during these years
His Majesty has provided and ordered for their good, has been the
cause of innovation in many things, such as are usual to kingdoms and
provinces which charge their faith and sovereign. The first has been
that, besides the name of Philippines, which they took and received
from the beginning of their conquest, all the islands are now a new
kingdom and sovereignty, to which His Majesty Philip the Second,
our sovereign, gave the name of New Kingdom of Castile, of which by
his royal privilege, he made the city of Manila the capital, giving
to it, as a special favor among others, a coat of arms with a crown,
chosen and appointed by his royal person, which is a scutcheon divided
across, and in the upper part a castle on the red field, and in the
lower part a lion of gold, crowned and rampant, with a naked sword
in the dexter hand, and half the body in the shape of a dolphin upon
the waters of the sea, signifying that the Spaniards passed over them
with arms to conquer this kingdom for the crown of Castile.

"The Commander-in-Chief, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, first governor of
the Philippines, founded the city of Manila, in the isle of Luzon,
in the same site in which Rajamora had his town and fort (as has
been said more at length), at the mouth of the river which pours out
into the bay, on a point which is formed between the river and the
sea. He occupied the whole of it with this town and divided it among
the Spaniards in equal building plots, with streets and blocks of
houses regularly laid out, straight and level leaving a great place,
tolerably square, where he erected the cathedral church and municipal
buildings; and another place of arms, in which stood the fort and
there also the royal buildings; he gave sites to the monasteries and
hospital and chapels, which would be built, as this was a city which
would grow and increase every day, as has already happened; because
in the course of time which passed by, it has become as illustrious
as the best cities of all those parts.

"The whole city is surrounded by a wall of hewn stone of more than two
and a half yards in width, and in parts more than three, with small
towers and traverses at intervals; it has a fortress of hewn stone at
the point, which guards the bar and the river, with a ravelin close
to the water