college. According to the wish of your Majesty, this work was changed into a college for natives which they wished to found. The same income of one thousand pesos a year has been assigned them, in addition to the fourth of the tribute paid where there is no instruction, and other sums from similar sources. I think it would be well to further this work; for besides the receiving of a good education by the sons of natives, which would strengthen them greatly in the things of the Christian religion and right living, it would be a hidden blessing to have the sons of the principal natives in this college, for our safety is thereby assured on any occasion whatever. The papers in this matter are sent, in order that your Majesty may have provision made according to your pleasure.
At the beginning of this year, a galleon arrived at these islands from Piru, and later a small fragata in its convoy, wherein it appears that Adelantado Alvaro de Mendaña had set out from Piru in April of last year to discover the western islands in the Southern Sea. This he did not succeed in doing, and lost his flagship and afterward another fragata. He formed a settlement on another island near Nueva Guinea, where the men quarreled among themselves, and the said adelantado died with many of his people.[1] His wife inherited that settlement, and arrived at these islands in great need and after many hardships, where she married Don Fernando de Castro, cousin of the governor, and returned to Piru with her
- ↑ See Discovery of the Solomon Islands (Hakluyt Soc. publications, 2d series, nos. 7, 8; London, 1901); this contains Mendaña's and other narratives of his expeditions in the southern Pacific Ocean.
