would recompense them by entering into friendly and brotherly relations with them.  He also said that monuments would be set up in the king’s city, and in other public places, with inscriptions describing the heroic feats of the Castilians, who would not come to terms with Limahon, but on the contrary had killed him in order to do the king of China a favor.  This Omocon, when he saw that the corsair was defeated and without any hope of getting ships, and ascertained that Limahon could not engage in a pitched battle, and concluding that the consummation had come, said that he would go to notify the Yncuanton of Chinchiu.  Then he offered to take some of the religious with him, saying that he would take as many as wished to go.  Accordingly the master-of-camp sent him to Manila, and Guido de Lavezares gave him a certain present to take to China.  Fathers Fray Martin de Errada, a native of Navarra, and Fray Geronimo Martin, a native of Mexico, went with him.  A soldier named Miguel de Loarca, and another called Pedro Sarmiento, also accompanied them.  They reached Pangasinan where they took two other soldiers with them, Nicolas de Cuenca and Juan de Triana.  They took also as interpreter a Chinese, named Hernando, who understood Spanish.  The above-mentioned Sinsay also went with them.  A large vessel belonging to Omocon was left in Pangasinan with thirty or forty Chinese; Omocon said that he did so, in order that they might be of service to the camp.  The fathers and soldiers went to China with Omocon, and what they saw there they have since related. [3]

37.  It is believed that it was a mistake to let Omocon go, because with the two ships that he took, and the one that remained there, it might have been possible to close up the passage of the river.  However at the time of the departure of the corsair minor matters should not be classed with errors.

38.  When the friars reached China, they carried letters with them.  They were there four or five months, and might have remained there, but the governors did not agree to that.  Because of their eagerness to see Limahon, the governors despatched a fleet of ten ships, and with it the fathers and Spaniards, on the pretext that, if it were necessary for the Chinese to assist in the war, the latter would lend their aid.  They appointed Sinsay captain, and Omocon a captain of higher rank.  On the way, these men falsified the letters given them by Guido de Lavecares, writing others that said that they were at the front, and fought valiantly, encouraging the Castilians when the latter burned the fleet and demolished the fort; as a reward for which they gave in money, to each one, besides the captaincy, four hundred silver taes, each tae of the value of twelve Castilian reals.  These captains had with them as captain-general another Chinese, named Siaogo, an insignificant, mean-looking, little old man.  It is said that he had been a corsair when young.  When these people came to this island and learned that Limahon had gone, they