attack and capture, as he did. So great was our misfortune that, at the
time when the two captains were debating as to who should take command,
the pirate was near Puerto de la Navidad, which is not very far from
Acapulco, repairing his ships. Had they attacked him, it would have
been impossible for him to escape; but God chose to blind our men,
so that we might be punished by this pirate. The punishment of God
did not stop here; for, having set fire to the ship "Santa Ana," they
left it half burnt, set sail, and came to these islands. With more than
human courage, they passed through the midst of them with a ship of one
hundred toneladas, where the natives venture with trembling in very
light boats; but this infidel dared not only to come into our midst,
but to collect tributes from your Majesty's vassals. A Spaniard was
captured, and after having told him what they wished him to say to us,
they put him ashore. What they said was in boast that they had left
the coasts of Peru and Nueva España utterly ruined; and that they had
robbed and burned the ship "Santa Ana," and hanged a canon who was
on his way from this city to Mexico. In testimony of his prowess and
our misfortune he displayed the silks, brocades, and cloths of gold
which he had seized as plunder. Not content with this, he went away
threatening us that he is to return soon to drive us all hence, and
to destroy the nest that we have made here--meaning thereby the stone
fortress built here. The grief that afflicts me is not because this
barbarian infidel has robbed us of the ship "Santa Ana," and destroyed
thereby the property of almost all the citizens; but because an English
youth of about twenty-two years, with a wretched little vessel of
a hundred toneladas and forty or fifty companions, should dare to
come to my own place of residence, defy us, and boast of the damage
that he had wrought. As your Majesty has here an army of captains,
who, as I understand, are certainly as many as the companions of the
Lutheran, he went from our midst laughing, without anyone molesting