the work and trouble necessary to reach those places
would take them to the said port. Besides, they
report that the country is of a mild climate and very
fertile (as is seen by its numerous trees), and very
thickly inhabited with people of very mild and docile
disposition, and whose reduction to the holy gospel
and to my royal crown will be very easy. It maintains
itself, and the food is of many different kinds of
grain and of flesh of game, with which the country
is exceedingly well supplied. The dress of the
Indians of the coast is made of the skins of sea-wolves,
which the Indians tan and dress very well. They
have abundance of thread made from Castilian flax,
hemp, and cotton. By these Indians and by many
others whom the said Sebastian Vizcaino discovered
along the coast in the more than eight hundred leguas
of his voyage, he was everywhere informed that there
were great settlements inland, and silver and gold.
This is considered to be true, because veins of metals
were discovered in some parts of the mountains of
the mainland. If the seasons of the summer were
known, one could enter the interior through this place
and locate those metals, for it promises great wealth.
Also the rest of the coast might be explored from
that port, for it extends past the forty-second degree
where the said Sebastian Vizcayno went, and which
was named as his limit in his instructions. The
coast extends even to Japon and the Chinese coast.
He said that he could not enter the mouth of the [gulf
of the] Californias, on his return and while passing,
as I had sent him orders, because many of his crew
had fallen ill and were dying rapidly, and because
his provisions had suddenly become bad, which obliged
him to hasten his return. After examination of
this in my royal Council of the Indias, together with
the surveys and relations that were sent with the
description of each port, singly, of those discovered
by the said Sebastian Vizcaino, and after having listened
to the cosmographer Andres Garcia de Cespedes, they
advised me; and after considering the great importance,
for the safety and security of the ships coming from
those islands—a navigation of more than
two thousand leguas of open water—of their
having a port on the voyage, wherein to be repaired
and to take in water, wood, and provisions, and that
the said port of Monterrei, lying on the thirty-seventh
degree, will be a half-way station, and that it has
all the good qualities that may be desired, I have
deemed it advisable that all the vessels from those
islands, since they approach that coast, shall enter
that port, and there be repaired and reprovisioned.
In order to initiate this and establish it as a fixed
and well-known practice, I have ordered Marques de
Montesclaros, [33] my present viceroy of the said provinces
of Nueva Espana, by another decree of the date of this
present, to have the said Sebastian Vizcaino, if now
alive, sought with all care and diligence, since he
has made the said exploration, and has coasted from