of the products of that region, and as you understand its navigation,
and are a good cosmographer." Therefore the king charges him to embark
upon this expedition. (Tomo ii, nos. x and xi, pp. 94-100.)

Mexico, May 28, 1560. Yelasco writes to the king in answer to this
letter, saying that he will do his utmost to fulfil his commands in
regard to the voyage. He says "it is impossible to go to the Filipinas
Islands without infringing the contents of the treaty, because the
latter are no less within the treaty than are the Malucos, as your
majesty can see by the accompanying relation, made solely for myself
by Fray Andres de Urdaneta. This latter possesses the most knowledge
and experience of all those islands, and is the best and most accurate
cosmographer in Nueva España." He asks the king to show this relation
to any living members of Loaysa's expedition in order to verify
it. The king should redeem the Spaniards captured by the natives
in the Philippines and other islands near the Moluccas. To do this
and to reprovision the ships would not be in violation of the treaty
made with Portugal. In case the ships should depart before the king's
answer is received, the viceroy will order them to act in accordance
with the above-mentioned relation. The vessels of the expedition will
consist of two galleys of two hundred and one hundred and seventy
or one hundred and eighty tons respectively, and a _patache_. [37]
Wood, already fitted, is to be sent in the galleys, with which to
make small boats for use among the islands. "The man in charge of
the work, writes me that the cables and rigging necessary for these
vessels will be all ready, by the spring of sixty-one, at Nicaraugua
and Realexo, ports in the province of Guatimala where I have ordered
these articles made, because they can be made better there than in all
the coast of the Southern Sea; and because they can be brought easily
from those ports to Puerto de la Navidad, where the ships must take