fields, or to sow, believing that by this stratagem they could drive
us from their land. Consequently they and ours have endured very
great extremities, because the same thing was done in other islands
where the Spaniards went to find food--so much so that many times the
natives have taken the food more than four leagues inland, carrying
it upon their shoulders, and crossing creeks and rivers with it,
with great risk of their lives. Then too another cause of so great
distress has been the lack there of boats with oars; and the fact
that, up to the present, no one has ventured to seek richer and more
abundant lands--which are very near, as Lequios, Japan, and Jaba
[Java], therein fulfilling your Majesty's commands. After all that,
came the Portuguese fleet, arriving about the end of September of last
year (1569), under command of Gonzalo Pereira. That man, although we
made every possible effort for peace with him, would agree to nothing
except that, in any case, we must leave these islands, or else go
with him. The first could not be done, because we had no ships; nor
the second, because that was very ignominious for us. Therefore as we
came to no agreement, he determined to begin hostilities, and make
war on us, trusting to his numerous ships--although afterward it
did not turn out as happily as he thought, as your Majesty will see
by the relation which the viceroy sends from this Nueva España. [20]
The blockade being so long and rations so scant, the poor soldiers were
in such distress that they took to hunting rats, of which there are
great numbers in that land, and which are much larger than those of
España. With all this privation, and the allurements and abundance in
the Portuguese fleet, they served your Majesty with as great loyalty
and cheerfulness in this war, and in all the rest, as I believe any
men in the world have ever displayed in their king's service. There
was nothing which gave them so great pleasure as being ordered to
do things wherein they risked their lives. Therefore it seems to me