[22] Maurice of Nassau, born in 1567, succeeded his father as governor of the United Provinces in 1584, and was for forty years the leader of the Dutch cause; but he did not become Prince of Orange until the death of his elder brother in 1618.  Maurice died in 1625.

[23] This was Jacob Claasz; he was sentenced to be set ashore and abandoned at the Strait of Magellan.  A little bread and wine was given him, and it was expected that “he would die of hunger in a few days, or else be captured and eaten by the savages” (Rec. des voiages, ii, p. 30).  The same record says that Peter de Lint was promoted to Claasz’s post.

[24] This vessel was named “El buen Jesus.”

[25] A corrupt phonetic rendering of the name of Sir Richard Hawkins, son of the noted English freebooter Sir John Hawkins.  The reference in the text is to the fight between Richard Hawkins and the Spanish admiral Beltran de Castro, off the coast of Peru, June 20-22, 1594; after a long and desperate contest, the English were forced to surrender.  Hawkins was taken a prisoner to Spain, but afterward sent back to England; he died soon after 1620.  See his work, Observations ... in his Voyage into the South Sea (London, 1622; reprinted by Hakluyt Society, 1847, and again in 1877), 99. 182-225.

[26] As is shown by another document in the same legajo, this patache was named “San Xacinto;” it came from Malaca some time before the battle with the Dutch, and with news that they had been seen in those waters; it was commanded by Estevan Rodriguez de Paez.  An embargo was laid upon this vessel, in order to secure it for use against the Dutch; but this was removed on November 22, 1600.  The decree releasing the vessel was one of the documents used in a lawsuit brought by Paez in regard to the freight charges for the merchandise carried by the patache.

[27] Screens of canvas, spread along the sides of a vessel to prevent an enemy from seeing what is done on the deck.

[28] Since the independence of the United Provinces was not recognized by Spain until 1609, these Dutch prisoners might have been executed as rebels against their former lord the king of Spain—­an argument doubtless emphasized by the tenor of De Lende’s commission, which follows this account of the battle.

[29] Spanish, le mas perro—­literally, “the most of a dog.”

[30] This descriptive paragraph is found in another copy of De Lende’s commission, preserved in the same legajo with the original of the document just presented.  We use this second copy, partly for the sake of this description, partly because it is more exact in the spelling of proper names.  The estates belonging to the house of Orange were Nassau, Catzenellenbogen, Vianden, Dietz, Veer, and Vlissingue (anglicized to Flushing).

[31] Alluding to the Holy Roman Empire, which, founded by Charlemagne in the year 800, was long the temporal arm of the ecclesiastical power in Europe.  Carlos I of Spain was its head, under the title of Charles V, during his reign as king of Spain.  The Holy Roman Empire came to an end in August, 1806, with the resignation of its head, Francis II of Austria.