quintals that must have been hidden away.

This year of seventy-nine, I sent an expedition to pacify the river
of Mindanao. The king ruling there fled; but, as our people carried
orders not to do any harm there also, peace was made, and some of
the natives returned. If we plant a colony there, that king also
will submit--which cannot be effected in any other way, because of
our distance from there.

In August of seventy-eight a galleon and a large galley with five
hundred men, and other necessary supplies for Maluco, passed Borney. It
is said that one hundred were Portuguese and Spaniards, and the rest
_mestizos_ [19] and people from Yndia. According to a Cafre [heathen],
their hulks were in very poor condition. He says they were going to
Maluco to collect the tribute which was lost three years ago. I am
sending the investigations and accounts of this and of everything to
your Majesty's royal Council, and am writing more in detail. I beg your
Majesty to be so good as to favor this other world by examining this
letter. Because of your Majesty's stringent orders not to go to Maluco,
we have not gone thither. However, the compact, as I have advised your
Majesty is not well considered; and Maluco is not comprehended in it,
and is in your Majesty's demarcation. [20] Thirty vessels leaving and
returning to Sevilla could load cargoes of spices--pepper, camphor,
and other drugs and spices. In these vessels, people could be brought
from Espana, and a few fleets would populate this land, and clearly
we could take possession of all of China; for by way of Nueva Espana
the despatch of vessels will always be a trifling matter, and by way
of the strait of Magallanes I do not believe that we can hope for so
good a result. I am writing in detail regarding this to your Majesty's
royal Council. I am writing also of the method which I think we should
employ--namely, to settle in greater Java, whence we should despatch
a vessel to Sevilla to give information of the route, although I
believe that that made by the ship "Victoria" is not forgotten.

I have built a vessel here of six hundred toneladas, which can
make the said voyage, if your Majesty will so order; and I am now
building another. There is an excellent fleet of galleys; and with
what was captured from the Borneans, and in Jolo and Vindanao, and
with that taken from the Portuguese galley which I said was lost,
we have more than two hundred pieces of artillery. From the useless