Perez says (_Catalogo_, p.

21) that Juan de Vascones (Bascones) was minister in the following villages: Calumpit in 1580, Bulacan in 1583, and Hagonoy in 1585; and that he died at the last-named place in 1586.
[20] This friar was originally a soldier, but abandoned military life to enter the Augustinian order.

In 1576, he was appointed by Felipe II, with two other friars, to go as an envoy to the emperor of China; but various obstacles prevented them from going thither until 1584, and the effort proved to be a failure.

Mendoza thereupon collected various narratives written by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries who had visited China, and therefrom compiled (especially from that of Martin de Rada) the _Historia_ here described.

In 1607 Mendoza (then bishop of Lipari) went to Nueva Espana, and was there made bishop of Chiapa, and afterward bishop of Popayan.