purposes which his captain-general had ordered him.  Finally, on Thursday, the twentieth of April, a great freight ship was sighted, one of the sort that sail these seas.  The Spaniards attacked it, and although its occupants tried to defend themselves, they were obliged to see that they had no defense against our artillery and musketry.  They surrendered, and it was found to be the ship which was being sought.  It was one which the king of Siam sends every year to Canton with some tribute for the king of China.  It was returning with great wealth of silks and other things, and carried sixty Siamese and sixty Chinese.  Half of the men were placed aboard our patache, and soldiers were transferred from the patache to the said Siamese ship.  The strict vigilance necessary was maintained, as our men were so few, so that they should not be killed some night.  The patache set out in search of the galleons, in the direction that had been set.  But the winds were contrary in that direction, and they were unable to make any distance.  Consequently, they had to sail with a stern wind to Manila.  With their captured reprisal they reached this city on May 14.  The cargo of the Siamese ship was unladed carefully, and it was found that it was worth about one hundred thousand pesos.  It was placed on deposit in a building and excellent treatment is being given to the Siamese.  But I think that they will be sent to their king, so that he may return us what he took from us, in which case we shall return what we captured from him.  If that is not done, then we shall continue to capture their ships.

When the two galleons left Manila, the governor offered to send a patache after them to a certain place, and did so a little later; it was under command of Don Fernando Becerra, with about sixty men.  They had bad weather.  They looked for our galleons, and although they found traces of their having been in certain parts, they did not find the vessels.  They only found a fine ship which was well equipped with artillery, and, thinking it to be one of our galleons, drew near it.  But when quite near they saw that it was a Dutch ship, and consequently began to retire in all haste.  The ship followed our patache, but as the latter was as swift as a bird it made so much headway in a short time that the ship abandoned the chase in despair.  Our patache continued to retire toward Manila, where it arrived June 6, having lost fifteen men, who died of sickness, among them a Franciscan religious who was aboard.  Consequently, our galleons were left without any patache, for one patache came in with the Siamese ship and the other did not find them.  That was a matter of considerable damage; for, as the galleons were so large, they drew much water, and could not well go close to the shore in order to secure the desired results—­as we shall see during the course of their voyage, which was as follows.