Ironically, bilateral negotiations reached their pinnacle in the year 1609, as a result of an unexpected audience of Vivero y Velasco, retired Governor of the Philippines, one of the fiercest critics of the Japanese in Manila while in the Philippines, with Tokugawa leyasu in Japan. Their talks were only a short-lived blessing in disguise: the Bakufu agreed to tolerate Spanish friars on condition that regular trade would finally be established between New Spain and Japan.