life, with other brief tracts of prayer and meditation, in
preparation for the holy sacraments, of confession and the
sacred communion. He was an enemy of sloth, and so worked
much in Chinese, in which he wrote a practically new grammar
of the Chinese language, a vocabulary, a manual of confession
and many sermons, in order that those who had to learn this
language might find it less difficult." [116]


Medina [117] records these various works as Manila imprints of unknown
date, and to this indefinite information about them we can add nothing
positive. However, it is apparent that some time before 1606, when
Nieva died on his way to Mexico, he had had books printed, and since
they were in Chinese they must have been printed from wood-blocks,
for at that early date it would have been impossible to have cast the
number of characters necessary to print in Chinese with movable type.

With Nieva was Maldonado, or San Pedro Martyr. He had been one of the
first associates of Benavides in the first Chinese mission at Baybay,
but after the arrival of Cobo he had been sent by order of the first
chapter to Pangasinan. When Cobo was appointed acting provincial
San Pedro Martyr was again assigned to the Chinese ministry. He had
learned Tagalog, and after his return to the Parián "he learned more
words of the Chinese language than any other member of the order,
though he was not successful with the pronunciation." [118]

On May 31, 1592, the Governor received a letter from the Emperor of
Japan demanding that an ambassador be sent to offer him the fealty
of the Philippines. Juan Cobo, as the best speaker of Chinese, was
chosen to represent the Spaniards, and he left Manila on July 29,