ose. I chose for
this the said sargento-mayor, Christoval de Azqueta, and he left with
his troops. He went about it so skilfully that the undertaking was
successful, and all the Sangleys were left dead except a few whom
he brought for the galleys. Therefore, considering the condition in
which this colony was, and the risk which he ran in this service, it
was one of the most important which have ever been performed in these
islands for your Majesty. I have desired to give the sargento-mayor
some testimonial for his honor and gratification, but I have not done
so because I had not the means to do so. I have therefore offered
him this, to give him a good encomienda; and accordingly it will be
given and allotted to him in the name of your Majesty, at the first
opportunity. He has, moreover, earned it by the services which he
performed long ago. It is fitting that it should be known that your
Majesty favors and honors those who serve him, so that others may
be encouraged to do the same. It has seemed best to me to give an
account of this to your Majesty and to beseech you, as I do, that
you should be pleased to command that the affairs and claims of the
sargento-mayor always be favored, and that honor and grace be done
him; for in this affair I can assure you, the service which he has
done here was greater than appears by this writing.

The punishment of the Sangleys being accomplished, there remains
to us another care no less great, which is the suspicion we have
that within a short time a great fleet is to come from China to take
possession of this country, as I wrote your Majesty last year. This
arises from the coming of the mandarins, and from information that
some of those Chinese who were punished for their guilt in their
uprising were trying to circulate. Accordingly all the people were
persuaded that this rebellion depended upon that; and at one time a
rumor was current to the effect that seven hundred Chinese ships had
been seen not far from here--on which occasion it seemed best to me to
put things in order as thoroughly as if I had certain advice that the
said fleet was on this coast. Among other precautions which I took,
I appointed for the company left vacant by Don Tomas Brabo (my nephew,
whom the Sangleys killed in the uprising), Captain Juan de Villacon,
as he is a soldier who has spent many years in Flandes, and during
that time had been the alferez of Don Luis Brabo de Acuna, my brother;
and because he has