BOOK FIRST
While Don Luis de Velasco, viceroy and lieutenant for the Catholic king, Don Felipe, our lord, was in charge of the government of the kingdom of Mexico, his Majesty ordered him to fit out a large fleet in the Southern Sea, to levy the soldiers necessary for it, and to send it on a voyage of discovery to the islands of the West. The renowned captain Magallanes (when he circumnavigated the globe in the ship "Victoria") had already given information about these islands. The viceroy obeyed most carefully and assiduously his Majesty's orders. He fitted out the fleet at great cost, and despatched it from Puerto de la Navidad in the year sixty-four. As general of it, and governor of the land to be discovered, he appointed the honorable Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, who died afterward in the same islands with the title of adelantado, one year previous to the entrance into China of Fathers Fray Martin de Herrada, Fray Geronymo Marin,[1] and their associates. The Spaniards explored the said islands, and colonized some of them for his Majesty, especially that of Manila. This island has a circumference of five hundred leagues. The city of Luçon (also called Manila) was settled there. It is, as it were, the metropolis of the island. In this city the governors who have gone to the Felipinas since their discovery have, as a rule, resided. There also a cathedral church has been founded, and a bishopric erected, his Majesty appointing to this
- ↑ In the text, Martin—evidently a misprint; accordingly, we have corrected it to the proper spelling, Marin.
