fleet should take the same course as did Saavedra and Villalobos;
"and that the fleet should put in at the Filipinas Islands, which
are friendly islands, with whom we have had trade and friendship,
and where even eight Spaniards of the fleet in which I sailed
remained. They are islands well supplied with all manner of food,
and there is much trade there. They are wealthy and large, and have
the best location of the entire archipelago. Their language is known,
and their ports, and even the names of their principal rulers, with
whom we have contracted friendship.... There are islands among them
with a circuit of three hundred leagues, and so down to fifty. Those
islands that have been seen are eight large ones, without reckoning
the small ones between them. They are within sight of one another,
so that the most distant of them is not more than ten leagues from
another. To the north of them lies the mainland of China, a distance
of about two hundred leagues; at about the same distance to the south
lies Maluco. And since the route from these lands thither is already
known, and we have had experience of it and since it is a land most
abundantly provisioned and has much trade, and is rich, I have been
of the opinion that we should go thither, inasmuch as this navigation
is understood and that we should not seek a new course attended with
so great uncertainty and risk." He recounts that "these islands were
discovered first by Magallanes in the year twenty-one," and afterward
by Villalobos, and their secret discovered. "They are islands that
the Portuguese have never seen, and they are quite out of the way of
their navigation; neither have the latter had any further information
of them beyond our drawing or chart. They have the best situation for
the return voyage, because they are in north latitude." He ascribes
his not being permitted to accompany the expedition to the divergence
of his opinion from that of Urdaneta. The latter has declared that
he will not go on the expedition if it takes Carrión's course;