We finally reached Malaca August twenty-two.  Although it was thought that the monsoon or favorable wind was already ended, we attempted to make the voyage to Manila.  We passed the strait of Sincapura, and on the fifth of September, because of the little progress that we made, called a council, in which we all resolved to winter at Malaca.  However, on the next day, the commander attempted to continue the voyage to Manila, until the soldiers and sailors mutinied and forced him to put in at Malaca, on the nineteenth of the same month.

The fleet was very ill received by the inhabitants there, because of the harm that soldiers generally do.  But our going there was soon seen to have been a providence of God; for within one month the king of Achen came to attack that city with a fleet of one hundred and fifty sail and forty thousand men, and had not he found our galleys there would surely have captured it.  And further, according to rumors (and as was shown in the result), he had agreed with the Dutch to join them, since they came only twenty days apart, as I shall immediately relate.  In my opinion the same thing that had happened to the prophet Abacuc [i.e., Habakkuk] happened to me.  For he having prepared the food for his reapers, the angel bore him by the hair to Babylon, to relieve the necessity of Daniel, who had been locked in the den of lions.  I took that aid from Goa for Manila, and the Lord took us to Malaca, and conveyed us as if by the hair, since we put in with great repugnance; and at last all that reinforcement was consumed in helping Malaca.

A squadron of galleys came ahead to reconnoiter.  Finding our galleons anchored, and taking note of the soldiers in them and in the city, it went ahead to the strait to await (as was heard) the Dutch.  Our men feared lest they should attack the trading ships which generally come at that time from China.  Accordingly it was resolved that four galleons, six galliots, and other oared craft should sail out to drive the enemy from the coast.  They engaged on the fifteenth of November, and fought all that day, and the one following.  The enemy’s force was large.  They burned one galliot and forced the men to desert the others and enter the galleons, which now were in need of men.  The enemy attacked our flagship and surrounded it with twelve large galleys.  It caught fire many times, but our men always extinguished the fire and defended themselves valiantly.  They attacked the galleon of Don Juan de Silveyra, which was a fine vessel, and a fort of twenty-two cannons.  It caught fire and burned so furiously that the flames could not be extinguished; and it was accordingly burned to ashes.  The said Don Juan de Silveyra and Antonio Rodriguez Gamboa—­his brother-in-law, and son of Juan Cayado de Gamboa, commandant of that fortress of Malaca—­leaped overboard.  They and thirty or forty other Portuguese were captured by the people of Achen and taken to their king, who treated them courteously and gave them liberty.