empires should be separately administered and independent, in fact the Spanish lay and ecclesiastical authorities, operating from Manila, never recognized an exclusive Portuguese sphere of influence east of Malacca. In 1583 Valignano devoted a whole section of his report to the topic 'Why it is not convenient that other religious orders should come to Japan’. So far, he argued, the Christians had had a great advantage in Japan because they were under unitary command, whereas the Buddhists were splintered. Admitting the friars would lead to similar splits among the Christians, since experience showed they always ganged up on the Jesuits (as well as quarrelling among themselves). He particularly feared the Spanish Dominicans and Franciscans, and the conquistador methods they and the Spanish army commanders had employed against the Aztecs and the Filipinos. That would be disastrous with the Japanese: ‘Japan is not a place which can be controlled by foreigners . . . and the King of Spain does not and cannot have any power or jurisdiction here. There is no alternative to relying on training the natives in the way they should go, and then leaving them to manage the churches themselves. For this, a single religious order will suffice.' He added, truthfully: ‘In the past, many of the Japanese lords had a great fear that we [Jesuits] were concocting some evil in Japan, and that if they allowed the conversion of Christians in their fiefs we would afterwards use them to raise a rebellion on behalf of the [Spanish] king who supports us; for they could not understand why these monarchs should spend such vast sums on the mission if it was not with the ultimate intention of seizing their lands. . . .now they know the Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal are united, this existing suspicion will be vastly strengthened by the arrival of new foreign religious. . . . The argument was deployed with passionate conviction. But to outsiders it looked like special pleading. Why should the Jesuits have a monopoly of the profits? In fact, Valignano's request was formally endorsed by both the papal and the Spanish authorities, but from 1592 the Franciscans began to break in with the assistance of disgruntled merchants and adventurers, and they at once began to proselytize and celebrate mass openly. In 1597 a row broke out over the cargo of a wrecked Portuguese ship. The Spanish governor sent a threatening note to ‘the Japanese tyrant, Hideyoshi, pointing out with unbelievable ineptitude that missionaries preceded conquistadors; and in response Hideyoshi promptly crucified six Franciscans, three Jesuit lay brothers, and nineteen Japanese neophytes. What grounds were there for Japanese fears? Valignano himself was sincere in his belief that Japan should retain its political independence. But even he did not see this as unconditional. In response to the 1597 martyrdoms, he urged Philip I] to cancel the ‘great ship’ the next year as a reprisal, in the belief that such a move would provoke economic crisis and unrest in Japan. He was not against force everywhere. Writing of India in 1601, he recalled that Xavier, 'with his customary spirit and prudence, realized how rude and incapable [Indians] are by nature in the things of God, and that reason is not so effective with them as compulsion.. As a group, the Jesuits were not above acting from nationalistic motives. In 1555 Father Balthazar Gago said he taught his Japanese converts to pray for Joao III of Portugal as their potential protector. Father Charlevoix, the Jesuit historian of the Society in Canada says they persuaded their Indian converts to mingle France and Christ together in their affections’. Some Spanish Jesuits actively engaged in Far Eastern power politics. In 1586, Father Alonso Sanchez SJ produced a proposal for the conquest of China and its re-education to Christianity. He calculated that 10,000-12,000 men should be sent from Europe, 9,000-6,000 natives recruited in Manila, and a similar number in Japan. The main invasion force was to set out from Manila, while a concerted attack was to be launched by the Portuguese from Macao and Canton. This project, conceived at almost the same time as the Armada against England, was supported by the governor, bishop and council of Manila, and by a number of Japanese merchants, which lends color to the suspicion that it had been canvassed in Japan. Sanchez was quite sure the Jesuits would cooperate in recruiting the Japanese volunteers. 105