and five lorchas, vessels built after the fashion of China and Japon. These are very good with both oar and sail, and have greater capacity and accommodation for carrying provisions than any other kind of vessels with which oars are used.
I expect that this expedition will include the foregoing vessels and galleys on account of your Majesty; and that in addition there will go seven or eight other ships belonging to private encomenderos and other persons. These will be ships of moderate size, with a high freeboard, in which their owners will take a quantity of biscuit, rice, wine, meat, and other supplies; these will be of great assistance, since a number of volunteers will go. This provision made by private persons is of considerable usefulness, and on that account I have had it made. To induce them to go it is absolutely necessary to encourage them to it, and to urge upon them the service which they will render to your Majesty. This I have had to undertake, since in view of the losses and misfortunes which they have suffered, they are poor and discouraged. They finally volunteered to go with a good will, and their going will be an assistance of no little consequence; as a result of it, I am certain that we shall have provisions for more than a year.
I have commanded the whole of this body of vessels to assemble in the island of Panay, at the town and port of Oton, where the infantry is on shore. When they have assembled there they will proceed, and I will leave this city after the day of St. Francis, taking advantage of the north winds. I shall attend to whatever shall be necessary there, and get it all in order by the end of January or the beginning of February. That is the season best suited for the voyage to Maluco. It will then be most likely that we shall have the benefit of the monsoon which is likely to blow with gentle and favorable brisas. In this way I shall not be forced off my course by vessels with a high freeboard; this accident happens very often, because of the great number of currents among these islands. I have no doubt that we shall encounter some vessels from Olanda and Gelanda, and more this year than others, since this is the year of the clove monsoon more than the two previous years; for in the third year the clove-trees bear much more heavily. The fruit is like olives, and the trees resemble olive-trees in their leaves and in their size, as I am told.5 I had further information from Enrique de Castro, a Fleming, a native of Amberes [i.e., Anvers?], a man of good reputation, able to speak several languages, and very sensible; he told me that he came as a soldier in one of the companies brought by the despatch-boat which reached here February 25. He said that he had left Olanda fifteen months before, from the city of Nostradama [i.e., Amsterdam]; and that there, and in another city in the same country of Olanda, they were preparing twelve or thirteen large vessels with the purpose of coming to the Yndias. He was told that they were to seize Ambueno and the Maluca Islands, and that they were carrying a large number of men, besides lime and cut stone in ballast, to make a fortress. I am much afraid that this is true, because of what I have previously written to your Majesty with reference to the advices which I have received from the king of Tidore. He states that the king of Terrenate had sent to invite the Dutch, offering to permit them to build a fort and a factory in his country, in order to make them willing to assist him against the said king of Tidore, against the Portuguese, and against us. Accordingly the forts there and in Ambueno are in danger. The one at Tidore is a matter for jest; and the commandants, as well as the commanders of galleons, think of nothing but merchandise and of making their fortunes. The same thing is true throughout the whole of Yndia. If this news should prove true, there would be much difficulty in this enterprise. May God turn all things well for His cause.
The forces of the regiment of the master-of-camp, Esquibel, have received their pay for a year in advance, as the viceroy informs me by his letter. At the present time more than half the year has passed, and by the time they leave Oton the whole year will have been completed. Inasmuch as in the order for this expedition which your Majesty commanded to be given, I noticed that the Marques de Montes Claros was directed, in case the forces should be retained in the service of your Majesty for a longer period than the said year, to send me money to pay them in case I advised him thereof, it seemed well to me to advise him of this matter immediately, and to tell him that during the coming year he should send me what is needed for a thousand men in addition to the sea force. It is plain that this will be necessary for by the time that the fleet leaves these islands the [soldiers’] year will be at an end. I therefore beseech your Majesty to be pleased to give him imperative commands to fulfil this requirement; since soldiers in a country of enemies, and so far from their own country, serve badly if they are in need. Thus many important opportunities might be lost, and even considerable disadvantages might be experienced without there being any possibility of remedying them. If the enterprise turns out prosperously—as by the grace of God I hope it will—I expect that it will provide the means for maintaining the conquest, for paying all the expenses which have been and shall be incurred, and for affording a large quantity of cash surplus in addition to the expenses, besides repairing the losses incident to this affair. In particular, I think that to drive the enemy from the Maluca Islands and from the inlands of Banda will be of great advantage for our affairs in Flandes, since the rebels of Olanda and Gelanda harvest the product of these islands and draw from them great wealth, by means of which they carry on war and become rich. I, therefore, again beseech you to be pleased to give commands that this expedition may be adequately provided with supplies. I also beg that what is necessary for the expenses of the fleet and for other requisite objects may likewise be sent. I further request that for the regular expenses of the government a liberal supply may be placed in the treasury of the islands on a separate account, since the treasury is so needy and so heavily burdened with obligations.
Weapons and gunpowder are always opportune, and generally the lack of these causes a great deal of trouble. I accordingly beg your Majesty to be pleased to command that as large an amount thereof as possible may be sent, and that the forces at Manila may also be supplied. I suggest that although what is now of most importance, and what must primarily be considered, is merely the regaining of the fort and island of Terrenate, still the care and attention which will be necessary to protect and sustain the conquest, at least for the first few years, will not be small. During that time it will be necessary for us to keep it under control with arms in our hands. We shall have contests every day with the natives of the country, and likewise with the Dutch, who will not at once be willing to abandon it without testing the defense which it can offer, for the reasons which they publish there and in the other Maluca Islands, and in the islands of Banda. With regard to this matter I have written to your Majesty. We must be on the watch everywhere, making Terrenate our center.
By the first section of the orders which your Majesty was pleased to command to have sent to me for this expedition, it appears that the captains who come on the expedition receive sixty ducados a month and the privates eight, whether they were recruited in Hespaña or in Nueva Hespaña. I was commanded that if this rate of payment for the soldiers might be moderated in view of what is paid the soldiers here who are of the same rank, I should reduce it, but with fairness. I have to state that the pay of a private in this garrison is six pesos a month. This is little, in view of the fact that the country is incomparably more expensive than when their rate of pay was fixed, as I have previously written your Majesty. The eight ducados which the soldiers of the expedition receive is high pay; and accordingly, in my judgment, it would be well to pay the infantry in both forces at the rate of eight pesos (of eight reals) a month, in addition to the thirty ducados of extra pay which are allowed every company in Hespaña and other regions. I should advise that the captains of both forces should be paid at the rate of fifty pesos, the ensigns at twenty pesos, and the sergeants at the rate of ten, as they are now paid here. The captains here receive only thirty-five pesos, while those of the expedition are paid sixty ducados, which amount to eighty-two pesos and six reals. Your Majesty will give such commands as you shall be pleased to issue. Until we receive the decision of your royal will in this matter, the accounts of the members of the expedition will not be closed. May our Lord keep the Catholic and royal person of your Majesty, as Christendom has need. Manila, July 1, 1605.
Don Pedro de Acuña
[Endorsed: “The requests in this letter were honored, in virtue of advice given to his Majesty by the council, August 5, 1606.”]
Sire:
In
The botanical name of the clove is Caryophyllus aromaticus. See Crawfurd’s excellent account, both descriptive and historical, of this valued product, in his Dict. of Indian Islands, pp. 101–105. Cf. the account by Duarte Barbosa, in East Africa and Malabar (Hakluyt Soc. publications No. 35, London, 1866), pp. 201, 219, 227; he says, among other things: “And the trees from which they do not gather it for three years after that become wild, so that their cloves are worth nothing.” Crawfurd says: “It is only in its native localities, the five small islets [Moluccas] on the western coast of the large island of Gilolo, that it is easily grown, and attains the highest perfection. There, it bears in its seventh or eighth year, and lives to the age of 130 or 150.” He also states that the Dutch, in their attempt to secure the monopoly of the clove trade, exterminated the clove trees from the Moluccas, and endeavored to limit their growth to the five Amboyna islands, in which they had introduced the clove.
