uly 29,
1592. After successfully convincing the Japanese Emperor of the amity
of the Spaniards, he left to come back to Manila, but his ship was
wrecked in November on the coast of Formosa, and there Cobo was killed
by hostile natives. Meanwhile Benavides had gone back to Spain with
Bishop Salazar in 1591, and did not return to the Philippines until
after his appointment as Bishop of Nueva Segovia in 1595.

That left as the only two remaining experts in the Chinese language,
Domingo de Nieva and Juan de San Pedro Martyr, both of whom were at
San Gabriel in 1592. _Moreover, both of them knew Chinese and Tagalog._
A text in Tagalog was available, based on the Talavera-Plasencia-Oliver
model, which had circulated freely, and this, we believe, was further
edited--hence the "corrected by the religious of the orders"--by these
two Dominicans. In their editorial work they may have been helped
by Juan de la Cruz, who, we have noted, was sent to Bataan in 1588,
there learned Tagalog, and "succeeded so perfectly with it that Father
Fr. Francisco San Joseph, who was afterwards the best linguist there,
profited by the papers and labors of P. Fr. Juan de la Cruz." [119]
Juan de Oliver, the pioneer Franciscan Tagalist was still living and
available for consultation, and the polylingual Jesuit, Francisco
Almerique, also was in Manila at the time. A Chinese text had been
written by Juan Cobo, and both Nieva and San Pedro Martyr were capable
of preparing this for publication, again possibly aided by Almerique,
and also Diego Munoz, if as an Augustinian he had been willing to
cooperate with the Dominicans. Nothing remained to be done but have
the blocks cut and the impressions pulled.

THE PRINTING OF THE BOOKS

The stage was set for the production of the Doctrinas. That there
were Chinese xylographic models upon which the books could be based
is evidenced by the account of Mendoza of the considerable number of
Chinese books brought to Manila by Martin de Rada as early as 1575. A
more likely model was a bilingual text in Spanish and Chinese which
Cobo describes in his letter of July 13, 1589, where speaking of the
Jesuits in China he says:

"Moreover the Father of the Company who was in China wrote and
printed in Chinese letters a whole book of the unity of God,
the creation of the world, and the commandments explained;
and in this book has gotten as far as the incarnation of
the Son of God. Concerning th