I shall close at this point, acknowledging the receipt
of only one letter that has come to me from your Majesty in these
vessels that have just arrived. It is dated El Pardo, November twenty,
one thousand six hundred and seventeen. Consequently with what I have
written, I have nothing more to reply to it than that I shall do all
in my power, as I ought and as I am obliged to do in fulfilment of
its commands, and in all that concerns your Majesty's service. May
God preserve the Catholic and royal person of your Majesty, as is
needed by Christendom. Manila, August 10, 1619.
_Don Alonso Faxardo de Tenca_
[Appended to this letter is the following, to which the clause of the
letter speaking of the fleet to be sent from Spain evidently refers.]
On August third, one thousand six hundred and nineteen, Secretary Juan
Ruiz de Contreras ordered that Licentiate Antonio Moreno, cosmographer,
and Captain Juan Media, be summoned to confer with Pedro Miguel, alias
Dubal, a pilot, sent by his Highness, the most serene Archduke Alberto,
[89] to make a voyage to the Filipinas Islands in his Majesty's
service by way of the cape of Buena Esperanza or by the new strait
of Mayre. [90] In the presence of Don Lorenzo de Cracola, commander
of the fleet, he was asked which of the two routes seemed the most
suitable for the voyage of which they were conferring. He answered
that that by the cape of Buena Esperanza was most suitable, if the
voyage were to be made at the end of this year, because it could not
be made by the new strait, as it was now very late in the year.
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