said provinces of the Pintados, thus leaving
in this city of Manila the four regular captains of infantry, who had
some knowledge of the affair, in idleness and without any troops;
for among all four of the companies there did not remain a hundred
soldiers fit for service. As he was in the said city at the time when
the said enemies came, and received word that they were in the said
village of Bantayan, the alcalde-mayor and commander of the troops
of war, who was in the said city, despatched the said Pedro Cotelo
de Morales with ships and troops against them. Although the journey
from the place where he was to that where the enemies were situated
was two days long, he took four to it. If he had arrived at the time
when he might have done so, he would have found the enemy drawn up
on the land, and would have burned their fleet and taken away their
prizes. When he arrived, sailing on from that place, he again heard
the noise of the engines of war which they had with them, near some
islands; and some of the soldiers, even, climbing up the masts of
the ships, saw those of the enemy. But he would not go against them
either, alleging various excuses--as your Majesty may have seen more
at length by the information which accompanies this.

Besides this, the said Pedro Cotelo Morales, having arrived with
his fleet at the town of Arevalo, a settlement of Spaniards, the
commander and alcalde-mayor there resident gave him more ships and
troops, and ordered him in a council of war (in which Pedro Cotelo
himself took part) to go and seek the enemy; and, if he did not find
him in an island near there, to come back immediately to the said
town of Arevalo on account of the fear lest the enemy should escape
thither. The said Pedro Cotelo, taking no heed of the said order,
as one who held the post of alcalde should, and in order to flee the
battle, did not observe this command, and went into another region
without coming back to the said town. In the meantime the enemy came
there and landed, and the town was almost ruined. They killed the
alcalde-mayor and commander of the troops, and then withdrew. If the
said Pedro Cotelo had come back as had been ordered by the said council
of war, he would have found them fighting there with their ships
in the bays and rivers, in such wise that not a man or a ship could
escape. In this way the enemy left with the two prizes mentioned. And
this year we have even now information that they are coming b