ian. In the allotment of
the offices and positions, the veteran captains and soldiers should
be preferred, and especially the Castilian and Portuguese citizens
of these islands, who have merited it by their loyalty, labors, and
services, both because they have won and kept this land and because
they have had much experience with the country and the people. Besides
they are already acclimated and used to the country, its climate,
heat, and rain; wherefore their help and counsel should be highly
valued, and they deserve recompense and preference in every way.
Fourth: The troops sent should be infantry with arquebuses, corselets,
and pikes; and, besides, a few musketeers.
Fifth: Crews for four galleys should be sent, with skilled boatswains
and foremen for them.
Sixth: There should be sent, as soon as his Majesty comes to a
decision, three or four artillery founders.
Seventh: His Majesty should then order the viceroy of Yndia to send
here, or give to whomsoever may go there for them, five hundred slaves,
because they are so plentiful and cheap there.
Eighth: There should be sent from Espana one or two machinists for
engines of war, and fire-throwing machines, and a few artisans to make
pitch (with some already prepared), as there are materials here for it.
Ninth: There should be some master shipwrights for building galleys
and fragatas with high sides, which are the best kind of craft for
this purpose. In the island of Cuba lives Francisco de Gutierrez,
a neat workman, who built Pero Melendez's boats, that proved the
terror of the French.
Tenth: A captain should be sent ahead with orders from his Majesty,
and with a mandate from the general of the Society of Jesus for
his religious in Japon, that they may receive him and further his
mission. He should bring sufficient money to pay the troops that are to
be brought from that country and take them to an appointed place. They
should be paid a ducat or twelve reals a month, or even less.
Arms and supplies needed
First: Besides the regular arms to be brought by the soldiers from
Espana, there should be, for emergency, a number of coats of mail,
and arquebuses; and, above all, five hundred muskets and three or
four thousand pikes, a thousand corselets, and a thousand Burgundian
morions from Nueva Espana.
Second: Good flints and locks for the arquebuses can be had here
cheaply; but the barrels must be brought from Espana, and should be
all of one bore
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