[4] The deposition of Juan Arze de Sadornel, which is very similar to this, contains some further items of information, summarized thus:  “Prices are especially high when ships from Nueva Espana fail to arrive, or when a great number of people come on them.  At such times, a jar of olives may cost eleven or twelve pesos, and a quire of Castilian paper four or five pesos.  The so-called linen cloth is really of cotton, and is very warm and quite worthless.  The Sangleys do not bring flour made of pure wheat.  Three or four years ago, the pork, fowls, rice, and other produce of the country were sold very cheaply; now there is great scarcity (and has been for two years) of rice in the market, and its price has advanced from four tomins for six fanegas to a toston for one fanega.  Consequently the poor inhabitants are suffering great distress, and cannot support themselves.  Formerly a soldier could live on 15 or 20 pesos a year; now that sum will maintain him only one month.  Many of the natives have died in the expeditions made to Maluco, Borneo, and elsewhere; and a plague of locusts has added to the distress in the islands.  Sadornel is thirty-one years of age, and has spent thirteen years in this country.”

[5] The “old style” calendar authorized by the Council of Nice (A.D. 325) was based on erroneous conclusions, and consequently contained an error which, steadily increasing, amounted to ten days at the time of its correction.  This was done by Gregory XIII, in a brief issued in March, 1582; he reformed the calendar, directing that the fifth day of October in that year be reckoned as the fifteenth.  The vernal equinox, which in the old calendar had receded to March 11, was thus restored to its true place, March 21.  The “new style” calendar is also known as the Gregorian, from its founder; the system adopted by Gregory was calculated by Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi, a learned astronomer of Naples.

[6] “And he shall be a wild man; his hand will be against all men, and all men’s hands against him.”

[7] Joao de Barros, an official in the India House at Lisbon, wrote a history of Portuguese achievements in the Orient, entitled Dos feitos que os Portugueses fixerao no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente (Lisbon, 1552), decadas i-iv (incomplete).  The other historian here mentioned is Jeronimo Osorio da Fonseca, bishop of Silves in Algarve; the book referred to is De rebus Emmanuelis regis Lusitaniae (Olysippone, 1571).

[8] Afonso de Albuquerque (born in 1453, died in 1515) was perhaps the most celebrated among the Portuguese conquerors of India; he was the second viceroy of the Portuguese possessions there, and founded its capital, Goa.  From his letters and reports to King Manoel of Portugal a book was compiled by his son Afonso, entitled Commentarios do Grande Afonso Dalbuquerque (Lisboa, 1557); see also W.D.  Birch’s English translation, Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque (Hakluyt Society, London, nos. 53, 55, 62, 69, of first series).  Therein may be found a history of the events mentioned in our text.