eading a report, that the companions of the great European
Bonza cut the throats of little children by night, sucked their blood,
and eat their flesh; that the devil had declared, by the mouth of an
idol, that these two Europeans were his disciples; and that it was
himself who had instructed them in those subtle answers which one of them
had returned in their public disputations. Besides this, some of the
Bonzas made oath, that they had seen a devil darting flakes of fire like
thunder and lightning against the palace of the king, as a judgment, so
they called it, against those who had received into the town these
preachers of an upstart faith. But perceiving that none of these
inventions took place according to their desires, and that the people,
instead of giving credit to their projects, made their sport at them,
partly in revenge, and partly to verify their visions, they engaged in
their interests a lord of the kingdom, who was a great soldier, and a
malecontent; him they wrought to take up arms against the king. This
nobleman, provoked with the sense of his ill usage at court, and farther
heightened by motives of religion and interest, raised an army in less
than three weeks time, by the assistance of the Bonzas, and came pouring
down like a deluge upon Amanguchi.

The king, who was neither in condition to give him battle, nor provided
to sustain a siege, and who feared all things from his subjects, of whom
he was extremely hated, lost his courage to that degree, that lie looked
on death as his only remedy; for, apprehending above all things the
ignominy of falling alive into the power of rebels, pushed on by a
barbarous despair, he first murdered his son, and then ript up his own
belly with a knife, having beforehand left order with one of his faithful
servants to burn their bodies so soon as they were dead, and not to leave
so much as their ashes at the disposal of the enemy.

All was put to fire and sword within the city. During this confusion, the
soldiers, animated by the Bonzas, searched for Torrez and Fernandez, to
have massacred them: And both of them had perished without mercy, if the
wife of Neatondono, of whom formerly we have made mention, and who,
though continuing a Pagan, yet had so great a kindness for Xavier, that,
for his sake, she kept them hidden in her palace till the public
tranquillity was restored; for, as these popular commotions are of the
nature of storms, which pass away, and that so much