me in any service for I shall take great pleasure therein. Will your
Grace do me the favor to protect my affairs, so that they may gain
some merit by your favor. Trusting to this, may our Lord preserve
your Grace, and give you increase in your dignity, as this servant
of your Grace desires in your affairs. From Camboja, July twenty,
one thousand five hundred and ninety-eight.

Your Grace's servant,

BLAS RUYZ DE HERNAN GONCALES

Through this news and despatch from Camboja we learned in Manila of
the good result attained by the stay of Diego Belloso and Blas Ruys in
that land. Don Luys Dasmarinas gaining encouragement in the enterprise
that he had proposed, discussed it with greater warmth. But since
difficulties were still raised as to the justification with which an
entrance could be made into Camboja with armed forces for more than
the protection of, and completion of establishing, Prauncar in his
kingdom, and to leave preachers with him--it was said on Don Luys's
behalf that after accomplishing the above, he would, with the necessary
favor of the same king of Camboja, proceed to the neighboring kingdom
of Champan and take possession of it for his Majesty. He would drive
thence a usurper, the common enemy of all those kingdoms, who lorded
over it, and who, from his fortress near the sea, sallied out against
all navigators, plundering and capturing them. He had committed many
other crimes, murders, and thefts, on the Portuguese and other nations,
who were obliged to pass his coasts in their trading with, and voyages
to, China, Macan, Xapon, and other kingdoms, concerning all of which
sufficient testimony had been given. On account of all these reports,
the theologians and jurists decided that the war against the ruler