“In regard to everything else contained in this petition and report from father Fray Diego Aduarte, let that be decreed which is fitting to the service of God and his Majesty.”]

(Most Powerful Sire:  I, Fray Gabriel de San Antonio [14], vicar of the religious who by order of your Highness are to go this year to the Philippinas, declare that father Fray Diego Aduarte, who conducted the religious who last went to the said islands, found, in spite of the liberal grant made by your Majesty to him, some difficulties which greatly hindered his voyage, as appears from his report herewith enclosed.  Of all these difficulties the gravest are three.  The first is, that the officials of the House of Trade at Sevilla are unwilling to pay to the commissioner or vicar who conducts the religious the money which your Highness commands to be given for their voyage, unless he first gives good and sufficient bonds that he will return the money in case the religious do not embark; the second is, that the convent of San Pablo at Sevilla and that of Santo Domingo at Sanlucar, where the religious are entertained, demand from them three reals a day, although your Highness grants only a real and a half; the third is, that the registry clerks are unwilling to record the grants to the religious unless they receive three reals for each person.  As a result, since that which your Highness grants for the voyage is but little, they put so much difficulty in the way that the religious are unable to go on, and the commissary or vicar who conducts them is prevented, to that extent, from fulfilling his obligations and the service of your Highness.

He prays your Highness, in view of the service which he has done for your Highness in the Philippinas, in Eastern Indias, and in sending out the religious whom he, father Fray Diego Aduarte, conducted, and in that which he is now about to undertake in his own person, and considering how small is the allowance granted to the religious for their voyage, that your Majesty will be pleased to make an allowance for additional expense for himself and for the religious whom he conducts with him; and he prays your Majesty that, in order to relieve the difficulties referred to, you will decree that which is most suitable to your royal service and to the prompt despatch of the religious.

Fray Gabriel de San Antonio)

The Dutch Factory at Tidore

Testimony of a Dutchman named Juan who was taken in the factory at Tidore

In the port of Tidore, on the sixteenth day of the month of March, in the year one thousand six hundred and six, the captain and sargento-mayor Christoval Asqueta Minchaca of the regiment of the master-of-camp Joan de Esquibel, the royal commander of this fleet, declares that the said master-of-camp, Joan de Esquibel, sent to him in his ship a foreigner, whom he found with others in the factory [15] at Tidore, that he might undergo examination.