Bigan, situated in Ylocos,
about thirty-five days' journey from Cagayan. As he sailed out,
he encountered a Chinese pirate, who very soon surrendered. He put
seventeen soldiers aboard of her and continued his course. While
rounding Cape Borgador near Cagayan one fair morning at dawn, they
found themselves near a Japanese ship, which Juan Pablo engaged with
the admiral's galley in which he himself was. With his artillery he
shot away their mainmast, and killed several men. The Japanese put
out grappling-irons and poured two hundred men aboard the galley,
armed with pikes and breastplates. There remained sixty arquebusiers
firing at our men. Finally, the enemy conquered the galley as far
as the mainmast. There our people also made a stand in their extreme
necessity, and made the Japanese retreat to their ship. They dropped
their grappling-irons, and set their foresail, which still remained
to them. At this moment the ship "Sant Jusepe" grappled with them,
and with the artillery and forces of the ship overcame the Japanese;
the latter fought valiantly until only eighteen remained, who gave
themselves up, exhausted. Some men on the galley were killed, and
among them its captain, Pero Lucas, fighting valiantly as a good
soldier. Then the captain, Juan Pablo, ascended the Cagayan River,
and found in the opening a fort and eleven Japanese ships. He passed
along the upper shore because the mouth of the river is a league
in width. The ship "Sant Jusepe" was entering the river, and it
happened by bad fortune that some of our soldiers, who were in a
small fragata, called out to the captain, saying to him: "Return,
return to Manila! Set the whole fleet to return, because there are a
thousand Japanese on the river with a great deal of artillery, and
we are few." Whereupon Captain Luys de Callejo directed his course
seaward; and although Juan Pablos fired a piece of artillery he did
not and could not enter, and continued to tack back and forth. In
the morning he anchored in a bay, where such a tempest overtook them
that it broke three cables out of four that he had, and one used
for weighing anchor. He sent these six soldiers in a small vessel to
see if there was on an islet any water, of which they were in great
need. The men lost their way, without finding any water; and when they
returned where they had left their ship they could not find it. They
met with some of those Indians who were in the galley with Juan Pablos,
from whom it