I expect that this expedition will include the foregoing vessels and galleys on account of your Majesty; and that in addition there will go seven or eight other ships belonging to private encomenderos and other persons.  These will be ships of moderate size, with a high freeboard, in which their owners will take a quantity of biscuit, rice, wine, meat, and other supplies; these will be of great assistance, since a number of volunteers will go.  This provision made by private persons is of considerable usefulness, and on that account I have had it made.  To induce them to go it is absolutely necessary to encourage them to it, and to urge upon them the service which they will render to your Majesty.  This I have had to undertake, since in view of the losses and misfortunes which they have suffered, they are poor and discouraged.  They finally volunteered to go with a good will, and their going will be an assistance of no little consequence; as a result of it, I am certain that we shall have provisions for more than a year.

I have commanded the whole of this body of vessels to assemble in the island of Panay, at the town and port of Oton, where the infantry is on shore.  When they have assembled there they will proceed, and I will leave this city after the day of St. Francis, taking advantage of the north winds.  I shall attend to whatever shall be necessary there, and get it all in order by the end of January or the beginning of February.  That is the season best suited for the voyage to Maluco.  It will then be most likely that we shall have the benefit of the monsoon which is likely to blow with gentle and favorable brisas.  In this way I shall not be forced off my course by vessels with a high freeboard; this accident happens very often, because of the great number of currents among these islands.  I have no doubt that we shall encounter some vessels from Olanda and Gelanda, and more this year than others, since this is the year of the clove monsoon more than the two previous years; for in the third year the clove-trees bear much more heavily.  The fruit is like olives, and the trees resemble olive-trees in their leaves and in their size, as I am told. [5] I had further information from Enrique de Castro, a Fleming, a native of Amberes [i.e., Anvers?], a man of good reputation, able to speak several languages, and very sensible; he told me that he came as a soldier in one of the companies brought by the despatch-boat which reached here February 25.  He said that he had left Olanda fifteen months before, from the city of Nostradama [i.e., Amsterdam]; and that there, and in another city in the same country of Olanda, they were preparing twelve or thirteen large vessels with the purpose of coming to the Yndias.  He was told that they were to seize Ambueno and the Maluca Islands, and that they were carrying a large number of men, besides lime and cut stone in ballast, to make a fortress.  I am much afraid that this is true, because of what I have previously written