less cost to the royal exchequer. By this arrangement he was to be
governor of the Filipinas for life and was to take six hundred married
and single men from the kingdoms of Castilla to the Filipinas. His
Majesty granted him certain assistance and facilities for this purpose,
together with other favors as a reward for this service.

Don Gonzalo prepared for the voyage, raised his people, and embarked
them in the port of San Lucas Barremeda, but, as the fleet left the
bar, one of his ships was wrecked. He returned in order to repair his
losses, and, although he took less than at first, he made his journey
to the mainland, and at Panama, embarked his people in the South Sea,
and set sail for the Filipinas, where he arrived and took over the
government, in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty.

Don Gonzalo Ronquillo founded a Spanish town in the island of Panay,
in Oton, which he named Arevalo. During his term, the trade with
the Chinese increased, and he built a market-place and Parian for
them within the city, where the Chinese could bring and sell their
merchandise. He tried to discover a return passage from the islands
to Nueva Espana, by way of the south, for which purpose he sent his
cousin, Captain Don Juan Ronquillo del Castillo. The latter could not
effect this, for after sailing for some time, until finding himself
near Nueva Guinea, he could go no farther, on account of many severe
storms, and returned to the Filipinas. In like manner, Don Gonzalo sent
another ship, under command of Don Gonzalo Ronquillo de Vallesteros,
to Peru, with some merchandise, in order to obtain certain goods from
those provinces which he said that the Filipinas needed. This vessel
returned from Peru after the death of the governor. The latter imposed
the two per cent duty on the merchandise exported to Nueva Espana,
and the three per cent duty on the goods imported by the Chinese to