After Santiago de Vera became governor of the Filipinas, he was especially ordered to equip a fleet to attack Ternate, where the English, from that time forward, were trading with all security.  All nations had established factories there, except the Javanese and the Lascars.  More than two thousand five hundred Moros from Meca were preaching their abominable doctrine.  They did not fear Portugal; all their fear was caused by the Castilians, whom but lately they found pledged to vengeance.  The king of Ternate knew that Sarmiento and Ronquillo would have taken it, had not disease prevented them.  When the new preparation was learned in Tydore, the rumor was taken to Ternate by spies.  That king immediately summoned his vassals, especially the islanders of Maquien and Homero, who, inasmuch as those islands are so densely populated, responded with forty caracoas.  The number would have been greater, but the king would not permit that more should be equipped than he requested, as he could not conceal his dread lest they rebel, as the lands were full of Christians, and the tributes that he had imposed on them were so excessive.  Santiago de Vera made Captain Juan Morones general, who was not lacking in prudence, just as valor was not lacking to the soldiers, or ammunition and artillery to the fleet.  Pablo de Lima assisted in both forces.  But whether caused by natural ambition, or want of harmony in some other way, they were so disunited that one would have prophesied jealousies before they left Manila.  They set sail in good weather, and escaped the greatest hardships of the sea.  But when they considered themselves safe, all the elements were loosed upon the fleet.  Light and reckoning failed them.  The boats were shattered and the most important one sunk, with the loss of all its crew.  That was the galleon called “Santa Helena,” which was carrying the pieces to bombard the fortress, and considerable of the other ammunition and apparatus.  However they persisted, and the king of Bacham assisted them with the men that he had raised under the pretext of sweeping the sea of certain enemies; and, as a baptized Christian, he bewailed the apostasy that he had made, because of persecution, from the glorious confession of our faith, and promised the restitution of his soul.

[The futile operations of the Spaniards at Ternate follow.  Refusing advice, the commander tries to take the main fort instead of attacking in different places with small detachments.  Finally the siege is raised, when the enemy is almost starved out.  Communication with traders from Europe is again free to Ternate, “especially with their new friends, the English.”  But internal disputes and ambitions in Ternate lead to the following letter to Santiago de Vera from Cachil Tulo, uncle of the illegitimate king of Ternate:]