If your Majesty prefers the spices, I think that it would be better to break the agreement, since it is for so small an amount, that three hundred and fifty thousand ducats [71] would be gained in two ships going from Nueba Espana to those regions.  When this is done, your Majesty’s domains will extend as far as Maluco, according to what was told me by the Augustinian friar, by name Fray Martin de Herrada, a native of Navarra, who was prior at the time when I left the Western Islands.  He is a great arithmetician, geometrician, and astrologer [—­one of the very greatest in the world].  He has measured this, and told me so.  He has also written a book on navigation and the measurement of the earth and the sea, east and west.  I believe that he will send the book by Fray Diego de Herrera, prior of the aforesaid islands of your Majesty.  Then we shall be able to trade in spices with the whole world; for as I have said before, cloves cannot be found save in the five islands of Maluco.

I have written all that can be said on this subject; and I say this because I have seen other accounts both in print and in manuscript, which depart very much from the truth.  In order that your Majesty may not be deceived, I sign this account with my name.

If your Majesty should desire to know especial details about that land, I will, at your command, give oral information.

[Endorsed on Sevilla MS:  “Superb!  Excellent!  Relation of the route to the Western Islands.” And in a more modern hand:  “By Captain Juan de la Ysla.  Islands of the West.”]

Letter from the Viceroy of New Spain to Felipe II

Royal Catholic Majesty: 

On the fifteenth of November there arrived at the port of Acapulco one of two ships, which sailed from the Philipinas islands on the first of July.  The second, the flagship, entered on the twenty-fourth, for it was leaking so badly that they succeeded in making port only with great difficulty.  On account of this danger, knowing the nearness of the land, the flagship had determined to keep off shore, thinking this course possible because of its better sailing qualities.  Ultimately they availed themselves of the land only for the purpose of taking aboard water because their supply was failing.  They entered harbor without having lost either any people or any of their cargo.  Don Pedro de Luna, the captain, died of illness two hundred leagues away from land, as did a few sailors also.

Fray Diego de Herrera had taken passage in one of these vessels.  It was his intention to continue the journey to Spana to give your Majesty an account of the wrongs committed in those islands, because of the lack of justice; and to tell you that the soldiers, inasmuch as they are unpaid and receive no rations, are being supported at the Indians’ expense, and that on this account many extortions are practiced.  The factor Andres de Mirandaola, Captain Juan Pacheco,