The infantry was taken on the ship “Sancta Potenciana,” and on the fragatas “Santo Anton,” “San Sebastian,” “San Buenaventura,” and “San Francisco.”  The fleet left the port of Yloilo January twenty, one thousand six hundred and three, and reached La Caldera in Mindanao the twenty-fifth.  They remained there until the twenty-eighth, as they had some information concerning those enemies.  Then they sailed toward Maluco, and sighted the island of Siao February seven, and at dawn of the next day that of Taolan, four leguas from Siao.  There the fragata “Sant Anton” was wrecked on a shoal of the island, which gave greater anxiety to the fleet.  Gallinato made efforts so that the men should not perish.  He sent Captain Villagra, who saved them, as well as the weapons and the pieces of artillery; the rest was left in the sea.  They continued their voyage and sighted the island of Ternate February thirteen.  On the fourteenth they entered that of Tydore, where they heard of Andres Furtado’s arrival.  There they rested but little, in order to join him sooner.  Sailing thence with a good breeze they reached Ternate, and made harbor at Talangame, one legua from the fortress, on the sixteenth of the same month.  The fleets saluted one another with tokens of friendly regard, and the generals did the same....

[The active campaign soon begins, and notwithstanding some few successes in the siege of Ternate by Furtado and Gallinato, sickness, and want of ammunition and provisions, compel the Portuguese commander to withdraw before the superior forces and equipment of the Ternatans.  Thereupon Gallinato and his men return to the Philippines via Tidore, while Furtado intends going to Amboina and perhaps to Malaca.  About April of this same year the Jesuit brother, Gaspar Gomez, reaches Spain, to argue before the Council of the Indias the necessity of an effective expedition from the Philippines.  There it is agreed that Acuna shall undertake one in person.  The following year a letter received from Acuna by the council describes the ill-success of Furtado’s expedition and the necessity for an effective expedition from the Philippines, a synopsis of the letter being given by our author.]

Conquest of the Malucas Islands Book Ninth

[The action of the council finally secured the king’s assent to the Molucca expedition, and the following decree was sent to Acuna:]

...  Don Pedro de Acuna, my governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands, and president of my royal Audiencia therein.  On September twenty of the past year, six hundred and three, I wrote you by an advice-boat on which Gaspar Gomez, of the Society of Jesus, took passage for Nueva Espana, my resolution in regard to what you wrote me from Nueva Espana, when you went to take charge of that office, about the Ternate expedition.  In accordance with that resolution, I have ordered a contingent of five hundred men to be collected in these kingdoms, which are to