I am well aware that I was very fortunate on that occasion, and if
our Lord was pleased to grant me success, still fortune will change
and the enemy will have it. Not only will that which remains to me
here be lost, but even the Pintados Islands have been in great danger,
having run the risk each year of being harried by these enemies. But
though I knew that God was helping us in a time of such need, yet I
had almost lost hope of success. On the other hand, finding myself
puzzled and almost desperate at seeing that at the end of six months
there had come no reply from the lord governor, nor in any way any
intimation of his will or determination, and that it almost seemed
as if he were forgetting us, as if we were a lost people without
hope, I resolved to do what I did as one who was destitute of aid,
and who must live by his own hands. The success was such that I may
be pardoned. When I took the site of Buyaen I was so nearly out of
supplies that there was not a cannon-ball left for me to use; and on
this so important occasion, as I with reason believe it to be--and I
may say that since the Philipinas were discovered there was never a
better one in them--I had no others than what, by my own diligence,
I gathered from some fishermen's cast-nets, and well they did their
duty, since they fished so well on land.

When I left that city I told your Grace that, even if I found myself
in the utmost need, I should not turn my prow back thither; but first
should go to the land of the enemy, and my duty should be well done. If
I have accomplished this against so many difficulties as your Grace
may see, I believe there are few men who would not have been moved by
the circumstances and the necessity which urged me on. When I was most
pressed and the troops most in want--so much so that it would bring
pity to the heart of anyone who saw it, no matter how hardened he was;