Ninth: There should be some master shipwrights for building galleys and fragatas with high sides, which are the best kind of craft for this purpose. In the island of Cuba lives Francisco de Gutierrez, a neat workman, who built Pero Melendez's boats, that proved the terror of the French.
Tenth: A captain should be sent ahead with orders from his Majesty, and with a mandate from the general of the Society of Jesus for his religious in Japon, that they may receive him and further his mission. He should bring sufficient money to pay the troops that are to be brought from that country and take them to an appointed place. They should be paid a ducat or twelve reals a month, or even less.
Arms and supplies needed
First: Besides the regular arms to be brought by the soldiers from España, there should be, for emergency, a number of coats of mail, and arquebuses; and, above all, five hundred muskets and three or four thousand pikes, a thousand corselets, and a thousand Burgundian morions from Nueva España.
Second: Good flints and locks for the arquebuses can be had here cheaply; but the barrels must be brought from España, and should be all of one bore, so that the same bullets may be furnished for them.
Third: From China we can procure very cheaply copper, saltpeter, and bullets; and in this island are ample mines of copper and sulphur,[1] and all the requisites can be bought cheaply at various places. It is said that the necessary tin and saltpeter can be obtained cheaply and in abundance.
- ↑ For mention of the localities where these minerals are found in the Philippines, see U. S. Philippine Gazetteer, pp. 83–85.
