The English and Dutch being on the point of settling their quarrel by fighting a pitched battle off Bantan near China in which both parties must have been destroyed, chance would have it that two despatch-boats arrived, one from Ynglaterra and the other from Olanda, bringing the news of the confederation which had been formed between those two states, [5] so that their quarrel was converted to rejoicing and merriment.  Then they sent off sixteen English vessels and ten Dutch ships.  One English ship was lost on the coast of China, as a result of trying to capture a Portuguese vessel which was on its way from India to Macan.  Nothing was ever heard of three of the Dutch ships; but the others came to lie in wait for the Portuguese galliots loaded with silks which the Portuguese import into Japan.  They followed these as far as Nangasaqui without being able to chase one of them, because they were too light, whereupon the enemy took shelter in their port of Firando.  The agreement of the confederation was as follows:  In order to avoid dissensions on both sides, they were all to come into the English Company, and they should render accounts of what either side had lost in the wars that they had waged; and whatever was over and above, the other side was to pay. Item, that both parties could alike enter the regions conquered by them, with ships, men, and supplies; and that anything that they should acquire by conquest should remain in the form in which the said States [of Holland] and the English Company had there agreed. Item, that the spice trade should be equally divided, each loading as many ships as the other, and that they should go shares in their seizures; finally, that an English captain was to be commander of the whole fleet this first year, and the next a Dutchman, and so on alternately in succeeding years.  This is their plan, which meanwhile is to redound to our injury, since they intend to make themselves masters of the Philipinas, the Malucas Islands, India, and the whole of this archipelago.  There is cause for alarm when they bring one hundred and ten ships into these seas without any means of resistance on our part.

These pirates were fitting out an armada in great haste in Japan.  The report was current that they were going to attack Macan, while others said that they were coming to the Philipinas, of which we had information.  The people at Macan were also warned that trip English and Dutch allies were coming to attack them, whereupon they set about providing supplies, and dug some trenches, which the Chinese quickly dismantled, fearing lest that fortification was made against themselves; for they have never consented to wall the city, cast artillery, or make other preparations for war.  The Portuguese, seeing themselves ill-prepared for defense, decided to send out a ship with Father Geronimo Rodriguez of the Society of Jesus, who had been rector in the college at Macan, to ask our lord governor for some heavy guns for their defense.  He arrived