vessel within fourteen or fifteen months. Legazpi immediately sent
this information to the master-of-camp, in order that he might ransom
those men as well as Juanes, but the messengers failed to find that
officer. Juanes proved to be not a Spaniard, but a Mexican Indian who
had accompanied Villalobos. This Indian declared the three men to be
of the same expedition, and Herrera had made a mistake in the time,
which should be years, not months. The men despatched under Juan de la
Isla to take the information of Herrera to the master-of-camp, fell in
with the ship "San Gerónimo," which had been sent from New Spain with
aid to Legazpi. The ship itself arrived at Cebú on October 15, 1566,
with a doleful story of "bad management, mutinies, want of harmony,
deaths, hardships, and calamities." The captain, by name Pericon,
was not a suitable officer for such a voyage, setting sail from
"Acapulco with more haste and less prudence than was needful." A
conspiracy to mutiny was formed under the leadership of the master,
the pilot, Lope Martin--the pilot of the vessel that had deserted
Legazpi--and others. After various insubordinations, of which the
captain, in his blindness, took no notice, the latter and his son
were murdered. Soon afterward the two chief conspirators quarreled;
and the pilot, forestalling the intention of the master to arrest
him, hanged the latter. Then the pilot resolved to return to Spain by
the Strait of Magellan, promising to make rich men of all who would
follow him, but intending to abandon on some island those who were
not favorable to him. Under pretext of wintering at a small islet
near the island of Barbudos, he contrived to have the greater part of
the men disembark. The ecclesiastic Juan de Viveros, who accompanied
the expedition, discovering the pilot's intention to abandon some of
the party, remonstrated with the latter's chief adviser, saying that
"it was inhuman, and he should take them to the Filipinas, and leave
them where there were provisions," but to no purpose. Each man lost