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 Muñoz, 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