The brother of the ruler of Firando governed that state at this time, because of the absence of the latter, who had gone to court.  He accordingly placed guards upon the Dutch ships as soon as they arrived, and commanded that no one should go to them or buy anything from them until the emperor should know of their arrival, which he reported immediately.  The Hollanders, paying no attention to these orders, began to unload their cloth until they filled the warehouses of their factory, leaving the surplus in the ships.  Much of this cloth was wet, because, as I said above, their vessels [the “Leon Rojo” and the “Fregelingas”] and that of the Chinese had been shipwrecked.  As this was the rainy season, it was impossible to dry it; and thus, to their great sorrow, much was lost.  They secretly sold everything that they could before there should come from the court any order that might be to their disadvantage.  They made a large sum of money, and then in all haste they loaded a great number of the boxes of silk upon the “Leon Negro,” which they put in readiness for whatever might happen.  They then despatched their messengers to Macao [sc.  Meaco], the court of the emperor, to whom they presented four fine pieces of bronze artillery, which he prized very highly.  They sent also thirty thousand taes of silver, each one equal in weight to ten Spanish reals, and many pieces of various kinds of silk, with which they gained the good will of the emperor and of the courtiers upon whom their prosperity and security in Japon depended.  As a result of this, they were soon very successful in their negotiations, at which they were greatly pleased; for they were given permission to sell their spoils in the kingdom of Japon to whom and wherever they pleased, since they said that the Spaniards were their enemies and that the Chinese were going to trade with them [the Spaniards].  With the matter thus arranged, they returned to Firando, and, as they found themselves in such favor, the first thing that they did was to take back from the poor Chinese the hulk of the ship and some cloth of little value, which they had given them because they had feared that they might not be successful at court.  And they did this in spite of the fact that the Chinese, with their good industry and hard labor, had drawn from the water the ship, which, as has been said, was stranded and submerged.  The Hollanders carried this spoliation to such an extent that they took their very clothes from their bodies.

Having completed this very successful exploit, on the fifteenth of October they despatched for Holanda the “Leon Negro” with sixteen hundred boxes of changeable silk.  Each box contained two picos of silk (each pico equals five arrobas); besides this, they shipped three hundred fardos of black and white mantas—­all of which will yield a great sum of money, if it reaches its destination.  In the ship “Fregelingas” the Dutch general returned to the strongholds of Maluco; he carried