place is now open for your Majesty's advantage;[1] and although its chief captain sent me no request for aid, I know that it is necessary to send the same, as well as to pacify the king of Terrenate. It is very important to understand how desirable it is for that stronghold to prosper, as it is of the greatest advantage for all Nueva España. Consequently, I have been exceedingly troubled by the non-arrival of reenforcements from Nueva España during the past two years. A large number of troops I have assigned to several settlements, as I have already written at greater length. In the shortest time possible I will send aid to Maluco; and from time to time I shall advise what is done in this respect.
Your Majesty has already been informed how the English pirate[2] set out for Maluco and the Xabas [Java]. In Maluco he formed a friendship with the king of Terrenate, to whom he promised to return in a short time with more forces. Consequently, I have considered how much more reason there is to believe that they cannot return by the strait of Magallanes—since I know that that strait is well guarded, and because, since they have gone through it, both Piru and Nueva España are warned; they could gain
- ↑ Maluco, the Portuguese post on Ternate, was taken over by Spain with other colonial possessions of Portugal, when Felipe II seized the government of the latter country (September, 1580), after the death of its king, the cardinal Henrique. This union lasted during sixty years. The possession of the Moluccas of course gave to Spain the control of the spice trade.
- ↑ Apparently a reference to the visit of Sir Francis Drake to Ternate, in November, 1578. A full account of this visit, the friendly reception of the English by the Malay ruler, and the expulsion of the Portuguese from the island, may be found in Francis Fletcher's World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake (Hakluyt Soc. pubs. no. xvii, London, 1854), pp. 137-148.
