Joan de Cuellar

Testimony:  Then, on this said day, an oath was received in due form of law, regarding the aforesaid, from Gregorio de Vargas.  Being in the said city, and questioned about the matter, this witness said that, being three leagues more or less beyond the harbor of Chanpa, the king of Chanpa sent him a message, saying that he was a friend of the Portuguese (ten or twelve of whom he named), who were in his country building a junk.  He also said that since the weather was very unfit to continue his voyage, he would better enter his port until the weather improved.  Upon receiving this message, he entered with his junk, but he found that it was all a lie, for the king immediately took him prisoner, and seized his ship, with all its cargo.  He found out that the statement regarding the Portuguese was all a lie, because there was not one of them there.  He also found out that the king had captured many others by this deception, for many Christians told him that they were taken the same way.  He knows that the king captures ships on the sea, and goes about robbing the neighboring kingdoms, impeding trade, commerce, and free passage, and disturbing the peace on the seas.  He likewise compels the Portuguese Christians to sail on the said ships for the purpose of robbery.  He is a pirate and thief, and a pagan who, in accordance with the teachings of his idolatry, has two hundred men killed, in order to bathe in their bile; and those by whom he has himself washed must be virgins.  There is also a diabolical custom that, when a chief dies, they burn his body; his wife and his women are also burnt in the same fire.  Because of this and other abuses and pernicious idolatries, and, above all, by the general injuries which he inflicts upon all travelers, on a route so general and so necessary as that for Japon, China, Yndia, and many other places, and for Cian, Patan, and Canboja (which is the key to all that region), this witness thinks that it would be a very acceptable service to God to go to attack him and to clear the sea of those tyrannies and robberies, and take from them their land and their harbor, which will be much to his Majesty’s purpose for great designs.  The said witness declares that the king has a great deal of artillery, which he has seen, moreover, with his own eyes.  The other things he has heard said by captives.  This is all that he knows, and it is true, according to the oath which he swore.  His age is thirty-seven.

Signed, Gregorio de Vargas

Before me: 

Jhoan de Cuellar

Testimony:  Then, on this said day, the oath was received, regarding the aforesaid, in due legal form from Diego Belosso, at present in this city, who swore in the name of God and by the sign of the cross, under which charge he promised to tell the truth.  Being questioned regarding the matter, this witness said that he knows it must have been ten years ago that a junk belonging to Don Jhoan de