proved without further indications? For I do
not know the words of his letter; but the statement
of Antonio Lopez, after having had several shots fired
against him, was not without cause, inasmuch as, having
learned that alien people had a considerable time
previous entered into this our territory, and had
made a settlement and erected a fort therein, knowing
withal but little of his grace, and much of the compact,
good faith, and sincerity of his royal majesty the
king Don Felipe, it seemed proper to lay the blame
upon the captain rather than on the king—of
which, in the judgment of many, his grace was not
so ill-deserving. God forbid that I should reply
to what is said concerning the words of the soldiers,
for I should be very much ashamed to have to give account,
in so sorry a business, for my actions in entering
and remaining in this port; and to make proof of the
great zeal which I have for the service of God and
of the kings our sovereigns, and of my great desire
to preserve peace and amity between us—suffering,
as I have, whatever wrong is done me in this camp.
Let his grace judge me only upon sure grounds, and
not on chimerical accusations of the past, the falsity
of which I prove by good deeds in the present.
With regard to his claim of not having ships in which
to depart from these waters of ours into his own,
during the three or four years in which he has been
settled in this our port of Cebu, I maintain that he
had more than sufficient time and ships in which to
leave; for I know that the flagship could carry two
hundred men, or as many as his grace may then have
had in his camp quite easily (for the return passage
had already been discovered), inasmuch as his grace
intimated to me in a letter which he wrote me at Maluco
that the flagship held even more. And of his
own accord he ordered the patache “San
Joan,” the other small patache, and some
frigates to be run ashore; for as soon as one came
from Nova Spanha the others could easily go thither—a
large fleet, certainly, since it contained more than
a thousand men, together with a camp much larger.
He lacked, therefore, neither supplies, ships, a known
route home, nor time in which to depart from our demarcation,
when he entered there, as is plain; the small patache
and the flagship, also, were not lacking to him.
We offered him everything that he needed from the
fortress and fleet of his highness.
Therefore, from the above and from other things previously written, it remains proved, not by the Portuguese, but by the Spaniards themselves, and not by camp-followers but by his chief men, that his grace is not here through necessity, but with a very definite aim, awaiting more men and a fleet, in order forcibly to wrest Maluco, China, and Japan, from the king our sovereign. This is clearly shown by the words of the foremost men of his company, and by the many questions they put to us concerning our knowledge of these regions; as well as by the letters from Nova Espanha which have fallen into my hands.