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1521–1569]
RESUME OF DOCUMENTS
149

sent with a number of men to attempt the ransom of Juanes from the natives, with orders to stop on the way at Eleyti to ascertain the cause of the delay of a certain Pedro de Herrera who had been sent thither to obtain resin for pitching the ships. When this latter returned he bore a letter from the master-of-camp to the effect that Herrera had gone beyond his instructions. The latter was thereupon arrested and tried. This man brought news of three Spaniards who were held in the island of Tandaya who had been captured from a vessel within fourteen or fifteen months. Legazpi immediately sent this information to the master-of-camp, in order that he might ransom those men as well as Juanes, but the messengers failed to find that officer. Juanes proved to be not a Spaniard, but a Mexican Indian who had accompanied Villalobos. This Indian declared the three men to be of the same expedition, and Herrera had made a mistake in the time, which should be years, not months. The men despatched under Juan de la Isla to take the information of Herrera to the master-of-camp, fell in with the ship "San Gerónimo" which had been sent from New Spain with aid to Legazpi. The ship itself arrived at Cebú on October 15, 1566, with a doleful story of "bad management, mutinies, want of harmony, deaths, hardships, and calamities." The captain, by name Pericon, was not a suitable officer for such a voyage, setting sail from "Acapulco with more haste and less prudence than was needful." A conspiracy to mutiny was formed under the leadership of the master, the pilot, Lope Martin—the pilot of the vessel that had deserted Legazpi—and others. After various insubordinations, of which the captain, in his blindness,