I am well aware that I was very fortunate on that occasion, and if our Lord was pleased to grant me success, still fortune will change and the enemy will have it.  Not only will that which remains to me here be lost, but even the Pintados Islands have been in great danger, having run the risk each year of being harried by these enemies.  But though I knew that God was helping us in a time of such need, yet I had almost lost hope of success.  On the other hand, finding myself puzzled and almost desperate at seeing that at the end of six months there had come no reply from the lord governor, nor in any way any intimation of his will or determination, and that it almost seemed as if he were forgetting us, as if we were a lost people without hope, I resolved to do what I did as one who was destitute of aid, and who must live by his own hands.  The success was such that I may be pardoned.  When I took the site of Buyaen I was so nearly out of supplies that there was not a cannon-ball left for me to use; and on this so important occasion, as I with reason believe it to be—­and I may say that since the Philipinas were discovered there was never a better one in them—­I had no others than what, by my own diligence, I gathered from some fishermen’s cast-nets, and well they did their duty, since they fished so well on land.

When I left that city I told your Grace that, even if I found myself in the utmost need, I should not turn my prow back thither; but first should go to the land of the enemy, and my duty should be well done.  If I have accomplished this against so many difficulties as your Grace may see, I believe there are few men who would not have been moved by the circumstances and the necessity which urged me on.  When I was most pressed and the troops most in want—­so much so that it would bring pity to the heart of anyone who saw it, no matter how hardened he was; for their shirts, shoes, and hose but ill sufficed them, and their food was only a dish of rice with nothing else—­even at such a time, I conquered the island; for we may say that it is already conquered, as the larger part pays or gives tribute; and I hope, God willing, that a year from now the whole island will pay us.  All this occurred in the midst of the winter, in water waist-deep, with no change of clothing, and the men weary from head to foot.  What I think most of is, that I kept the men free from discontent, which seems almost a miracle.  And when it was understood that I must depart for lack of supplies, I put in the warehouse eight hundred sestos of rice of forty gantas each; and I supplied almost the whole camp for a month and a half with the crops; the Spaniards and Indians brought in food enough for another month, and the friendly Indians did the same.  Much more than what was gathered was destroyed and ruined, as it was not the harvest season.