And if they carry efficient troops and artillery, a quantity of
anchors and cables, capable commanders and sailors, and an order that
the money for their sustenance be provided, they will be very welcome,
whatever may be their fashion and build, as the restoration of this
country will be certain. This is the only remedy hoped for. I have
sent reenforcements of food, money, and other things, to the forts of
Terrenate, with which, according to the advices received from that
island, they are sufficiently provided until the regular time comes
again to send them help, as it is the usual custom to do. When that
time expires, which now is just the opposite of this voyage [i.e. to
Nueva Espana], I shall try, with God's help, to send, together with the
ordinary help, two companies of infantry, with some other soldiers of
those who have come this year from Nueva Espana. If I can increase it
to a greater number, I shall do so, by changing some of the soldiers
who have been there so many years, and leaving those that shall be
necessary for the defense of those forts. I shall also try to send
two galleys, as galleys are more important among those islands than
among any other parts of the islands of this region. I would already
have sent those soldiers, if the season had not hindered, after the
Dutch had left here; and until then it was impossible to divide the
forces which were being collected to oppose them.
I have had many loud complaints from the forts of Terrenate, written
by religious and laymen, of the governor there, Lucas de Bergara
Gaviria--not only of his asperity and harsh government, but of his lack
of balance in other things.
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