Passing from spiritual affairs to those temporal affairs of Japon that concern these islands, let me say that on the twelfth of July, 619, there arrived at Firando, a port of Japon designated for the trade of the Hollanders, four of their ships, which, as I informed you last year, have been off the coast of Manila.  When our fleet prepared to sally out, the Dutch ships withdrew in good order, carrying with them a great many sick, beside the large number who had died from disease and from an infection which they say was given them in Bigan, a village on the coast of Manila.  Since this is not known here, it must be their own imagination.  Many of their people were drowned, also.  In one ship which sank suddenly many people were drowned, among them a large number of Japanese, who were brought from Japon in the service of the Hollanders.  These ships plundered nothing but three Chinese vessels of little value, which were coming to this city.  A ship and a patache were sent from this coast of Manila to Maluco.  It is well known that the ship was lost on the same coast by running aground, although the Hollanders hide the fact.  The patache, driven by contrary winds, soon put into harbor.  It reached Firando on the fourteenth of July; and as soon as it secured munitions, provisions, and people was sent to wait for the Portuguese galeotas which were going from Macan to Japon.  But it was the Lord’s will that it should not find them, and so it returned to Firando.  On October 3, however, it was sent to Pulocondor [i.e., Condor Island], opposite Camboxa, with thirty men, fourteen pieces of artillery, munitions and provisions, to search for the crew and artillery of a ship that the Hollanders lost there.

On the twelfth of October of the same year, 619, another ship, greatly injured and with its crew wounded and crippled, came to the same port of Firando from Patane, on the further side of Malaca.  It, with two other Dutch ships, had fought, in the port of Patane, two English ships that were there.  Although anchored and unprepared, the latter fought to the death, over the anchor-ropes.  The smaller English vessel, seeing that it could not defend itself, and that there was no help for it, blew itself up by setting fire to the powder.  The larger ship, when nearly all the crew were dead, and the general himself had been killed by a ball, was overcome and boarded by the Hollanders.  They say that they secured two hundred thousand pesos in that ship.  It may be true, but I do not vouch for that.  Two Portuguese had gone from the shore, on the preceding day, to see the English ships.  They were seized by the Hollanders, who carried them to Japon in the ship which I mentioned, together with some Englishmen.  When the prisoners reached Firando they formed a plot and escaped to land in that kingdom, where all the world is allowed.

The quantity of munitions and provisions which the Hollanders secure every year from Japon for supplying all their fortifications is very great, and therefore if they were not harbored there, it would be a great injury to them and of much benefit to these islands.