some present were given to them;
but the city was put in readiness for whatever might happen. This
year they have begun again to send ships to trade and traffic, and
asked that our ships should go to Japon. But we are holding back
here, because what they wish to do is to seize the property which
might be in the vessels, and put the Castilians to the sword. They
sent in these ships a hundred or more Christian lepers, who, whatever
they did with them, would not abandon the faith; and in order not to
stain their catans, as they said, with such people, they left them
alive and exiled them to the Philipinas. Here they were very kindly
received--as was required by Christian piety, and by the cause for
which they had been exiled--without considering the affront which the
Japanese thought to put upon us by sending the dregs of that kingdom.

The persecution there was very severe, as will be seen by a letter
which Father Christoval Ferreyra [91] writes from Nangasaqui to the
father provincial of this province--which, being translated from the
Portuguese into Castilian, reads as follows:

"By the last ship, I wrote to your Reverence the state of the
Christian church here. I shall now continue with what has happened
since then; and it may all be summed up as new persecutions, labors,
and hardships. I will commence with the five religious who, in the year
twenty-nine, were taken prisoners on account of the faith. These are
fathers Fray Bartolome Gutierrez, Fray Francisco de Jesus, Fray Vicente
de San Antonio, all three Augustinians; Father Antonio Yxida, of our
Society; and brother Fray Gabriel de Magdalena, a Franciscan. The
governor of Nangasaqui, named Uneme, attempted to make them deny the
faith, and in this way to discredit our holy faith and its ministers,
and to break the spirit of the Christians, so that with the example of
these they might more easily leave the faith, and thus he would gain
credit and honor before Xongun [_i.e._, the Shogun], emperor of Japon.

"With this diabolical intention--which, it appears, he had already
discussed in the court--he ordered them to be taken from the prison
of Omura and brought to Nangasaqui, on the twenty-fifth of November
last. As he did not say for what purpose, they were persuaded that it
was to burn them alive for the faith which they professed and taught;
therefore they all went very joyfully, as men who were sighing for such
a happy death. But contrary to what they expected, th