. If the ships that I am awaiting with the reenforcements arrive,
by God's help, I shall not care when the enemy comes.

[_Marginal note_: "It is well. Through your diligence and zeal for
the affairs of my service, I hope that our Lord will grant very good
results in everything, since the expense and care incurred by those
regions are known."]

11th. That ship that I bought at Macan has come, with some freight
charges and duties on goods that it carried. That goes a good
way toward aiding the cost of its purchase and the expense [of
maintaining it]. The price was eleven thousand pesos, with sails,
rigging, seven anchors, and four good cables. I am satisfied with it;
and it appears at least to be made of better woods than those here. It
was made in India, and its burden is more than six hundred toneladas
of the Northern Sea. [24]

Contract and agreement have been made to build another ship in Sasima
[_i.e._, Satsuma?] a province of Japon near here. I am assured that
it can be built there very well, and it will be strong and of good
timber, and very well-proportioned and suitable as is needed for this
line and trade with Nueva Espana.

[_Marginal note_: "Since the counsel that you have taken in this matter
is very prudent; and since you have been advised in your despatches
(which you have already received) as to what you shall do; and since
the benefit to the royal treasury and the quality of the vessels is so
well known: you shall continue the same plan for the vessels that must
be built, since, as you have seen in other despatches, the vexations
to the natives occupied in this shipbuilding and the heavy expenses
incurred by that construction, are thus avoided. Since you already
have plans for the factory at Terrenate and for the cloves and drugs
that you may get at Terrenate and its adjacent islands, it will be
a very efficacious means, in order that the vessels may be cheaper,
to send the cloves and drugs where they may have greatest value, so
that with that profit the vessels may be built more cheaply. After
you shall have more fully established that advantage to the royal
treasury, you shall endeavor to put into practice the building of
some boats for the service of the South Sea in Callao, Panama, and
the other ports of Tierra Firme. This alone I refer to you, so that
you may endeavor from now on to lessen as much as possible the profit
[made by others] in this, both in material and construction."]

12th. The