rnors to equip armed
fleets is a very difficult enterprise; for from that time until the
present people have been bewailing the heavy costs, and regretting
the ruin of the Indians who perished in the shipyards. If this colony
is preserved in its present condition, not displaying our weakness to
the enemies, but rather giving them and all the neighboring peoples to
understand, even with a few ships, that your Majesty is lord of these
seas--except of the strait of Sincapura, where the Dutch keep all their
forces--no little will be accomplished--even if your Majesty do not,
as I said above, send one thousand Spanish soldiers. I do not mention
the money, for neither can your Majesty send it; and I am planning here
how to economize and to maintain myself with the royal duties, a few
encomiendas, and the licenses of the Sangleys for the eight hundred
thousand pesos which are spent in these islands. [_Marginal note_:
"Bring the decree which gave rise to this paragraph, and the plan of
Hermosa Island, and whatever has been written about this matter."]

10. In another decree, dated Madrid, January 30, 35, your Majesty
commands that these ships shall sail from here so that they will
reach Acapulco December first. Your Majesty gave me the same orders
last year by another decree that they should leave this port,
without fail, by June first. Having called a council of all the
pilots, both chiefs and subordinates, they affirm and assert that
the said ships cannot leave until the twelfth or fifteenth of July,
because the vendabals--the winds with which they must sail--do not
begin until that time, nor are they strong until the early days of
August; and the ships waste the said fifteen days in sailing the
eighty leguas which they have to make among the islands to reach
the Embocadero of San Bernardino. For at times when they have sailed
earlier they have been detained, before they could leave the channel,
one or two months, in which time they have consumed a large part of
the supplies for the voyage; and as a result, many of the men have
died, from the hardships of the voyage or from want of food. For all
these and many other reasons, I entreat that your Majesty will be
pleased to believe that I shall not waste time in these despatches,
as best suits the service of your Majesty and the benefit of your
vassals. I have spared the viceroys of Mexico from sending flour, oil,
fodder, and a thousand other things for the equipment of the sold