ere drowned, also. In
one ship which sank suddenly many people were drowned, among them a
large number of Japanese, who were brought from Japon in the service
of the Hollanders. These ships plundered nothing but three Chinese
vessels of little value, which were coming to this city. A ship and
a patache were sent from this coast of Manila to Maluco. It is well
known that the ship was lost on the same coast by running aground,
although the Hollanders hide the fact. The patache, driven by contrary
winds, soon put into harbor. It reached Firando on the fourteenth of
July; and as soon as it secured munitions, provisions, and people was
sent to wait for the Portuguese galeotas which were going from Macan
to Japon. But it was the Lord's will that it should not find them,
and so it returned to Firando. On October 3, however, it was sent to
Pulocondor [_i.e._, Condor Island], opposite Camboxa, with thirty men,
fourteen pieces of artillery, munitions and provisions, to search
for the crew and artillery of a ship that the Hollanders lost there.

On the twelfth of October of the same year, 619, another ship, greatly
injured and with its crew wounded and crippled, came to the same port
of Firando from Patane, on the further side of Malaca. It, with two
other Dutch ships, had fought, in the port of Patane, two English ships
that were there. Although anchored and unprepared, the latter fought to
the death, over the anchor-ropes. The smaller English vessel, seeing
that it could not defend itself, and that there was no help for it,
blew itself up by setting fire to the powder. The larger ship, when
nearly all the crew were dead, and the general himself had been killed
by a ball, was overcome and boarded by the Hollanders. They say that
they secured two hundred thousand pesos in that ship. It may be true,
but I do not vouch for that. Two Portuguese had gone from the shore,
on the preceding day, to see the English ships. They were seized by the
Hollanders, who carried them to Japon in the ship which I mentioned,
together with some Englishmen. When the prisoners reached Firando
they formed a plot and escaped to land in that kingdom, where all
the world is allowed.

The quantity of munitions and provisions which the Hollanders secure
every year from Japon for supplying all their fortifications is very
great, and therefore if they were not harbored there, it would be a
great injury to them and of much benefit to these islands.

Of the