It was necessary to equip two of the said seven galleys so that they
could come to Nueba Espana last year, six hundred and eighteen, with
the usual merchandise. Consequently only five were left--or rather
six, with that in which Don Alonso Fajardo arrived. Since the said
Don Alonso Fajardo has reached Manila and finds himselt with only
six galleons, it becomes necessary to build some more; for, if the
fleet from Espana has not sailed and the enemy learn that Manila has
but six galleons, they will go to the mouth of the port and repeat
their performance of last year, unless they go to El Embocadero
[55] to await the ships from Nueva Espana with the reenforcements,
for, in order that the loss of Manila and Maluco may be completed,
nothing else is wanting.
As above stated, it will be necessary for Governor Don Alonso Fajardo
to devise immediate means for building galleons and to repair the six
at Manila. I regard the present building of ships in that country
as impossible. For with the former ships and fleets, and with the
depredations and deaths caused by the enemy in those districts the
natives are quite exhausted; for, as I said above, in the former
year of six hundred and seventeen the Mindanao enemy captured four
hundred native carpenters and killed more than two hundred others. The
year before that, six hundred and sixteen, in the expedition made by
Don Juan de Silva to the strait of Cincapura, where he died, it was
found from lists that more than seven hundred Indians, of those taken
as common seamen (of whom more than two hundred were carpenters),
died on that expedition.
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