great sadness and anxiety in this camp, besides the great loss that it occasioned us, both because that ship was very convenient and important for the expedition, and because of its large cargo of cinnamon and other goods which would have given great satisfaction in your Majesty’s kingdoms and seigniories.  It carried, registered for your Majesty, one hundred and fifty quintals of cinnamon; and for private individuals more than two hundred and fifty—­which consignments we allowed to be carried on the register, mindful of the misery and necessity which the people were suffering, and considering that they had nothing else with which to help themselves.  On this account, permission was given to take these goods, and with the idea that if it should seem best in Nueva Espana to take them at a moderate [price] [3] in your Majesty’s name, they would be thus taken; and advices to that effect were sent.  There were also specimens of pieces of [gold], porcelain, and other things, as I have said, which would give great happiness to your Majesty’s vassals and make them desirous to come to these parts to serve God and your Majesty.  As I have said, it pleased God that everything should be lost, and that the men should be saved, although with considerable risk of life.  Moreover, after both privations and shipwreck had happened to them in a land where they had neither refuge nor refreshment, they had to deal with the most brutish and least civilized tribe of people ever seen hitherto.  Our men experienced great difficulty with those people, because of their utter barbarism and their savage manner of fighting.  God, who brought them to this port, protected them, showing them his divine clemency and pity.  May He give us grace to serve Him, and may He keep us in your Majesty’s service.

There arrived at this island, where we had settled in your Majesty’s name, Gonzalo Pereira with the fleet (of which we sent your Majesty news by the patache “San Juan").  He arrived on the second of October of the year five hundred and sixty-eight; and he came thus, with four galleons and six small galleys, which took position near this your Majesty’s camp, after having gone through certain formalities and requisitions, as your Majesty will see by these letters. [4] The said blockade lasted three months, during which they made war on us, not as on Christians, and your Majesty’s vassals, but as against infidels and tyrants.  They uttered all the insults and inflicted on us all the humiliations that they could, taking away from us the entrances to the harbors, whence came our provisions, and burning the houses and possessions of our neighboring friends—­which certainly gave these pagan natives a great notion of cruelty, seeing that with such wicked ways and such cruelty the Portuguese were trying to hurt and annoy us.  And in this way, seeing that by fighting they might lose more than they would gain, they did not care to fight, but resolved to take, on the side