and with as little fear and mistrust, as was clearly seen later on.  They were hospitably received in this district, for our people supplied them with abundance of rice, with which to satisfy their need.  They paid well for it, in order to relieve their necessity—­they could not, had they wished, pay for more—­for the purpose of assuring the natives that they had not come to harm them.  They told the natives that they were vassals of the king Don Phelipe, our sovereign, in whose service and by whose permission they were coming.  As is proved by those selfsame papers, the general showed the natives some counterfeit decrees, with which they ought to be satisfied.  A messenger was sent to Manila to give information of the vessels that had arrived there.  The news reached here on the nineteenth of October, when Captain Xiron reported that he was in the Camarines, and that he had boarded the general’s ship, which was coming well-supplied with munitions, arms, and artillery.  He gave information also concerning the number of men who, in his opinion, were carried by the two vessels—­about ninety men, of whom some were sick; and of his dealings with them, and that they claimed to be vassals of the king our sovereign.  As soon as news of the enemy reached this city, Don Francisco Tello, governor of these islands, sent soldiers as scouts along the Camarines coast, with orders to hide all the provisions, as he was unaware of the generous supply that the enemy had.  It is quite true, as the English themselves said, that they could have had as much as they wanted, by paying for it.

Captain Pedro de Arseo and Captain Christobal de Arseo Etaminchaca, both of the infantry, were also ordered to go with a command of men along the coast to form ambushes, should the enemy land.  But this was all to no purpose, for the enemy, in little more than a month, came out of the bay and sailed away on one course or another—­which seemed quite impossible to the people here, because they were confident that the enemy could not get out of the bay in which they lay.  But it finally turned out quite to the contrary; for, as I say, they departed and laid their course to Capul, until they cast anchor in a harbor, where they are said to have cleaned the ships and sent men ashore to burn a small native village.  One of the English was left behind there among the Indians, who seized and brought him to this city.  They took his deposition, in which he told some of the things related above.

Toward the last of November, one of the negroes, named Salvador, who had escaped by swimming one night near Capul, arrived here.  He reported that the enemy were directing their course toward Maluco, and that meanwhile they were trying to discover if there were any plunder among these islands.  He said that the capture of the enemy would be greatly facilitated by attacking them with a fleet; and his advice was not bad.  All this time the enemy were coming nearer, until they anchored in the port of El Frayle, near