Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 02).djvu/321

 the work ceased, although baskets cannot constitute war, and are rather for defense than offense. And on the following day, by a second letter which his Grace wrote, he again reiterated and requested that the baskets should be taken down, and that he should receive either yes or no as an answer, with which he would consider himself to have received a final answer. With the same letter he sent me word by the factor Andrés de Mirandaola and Hernando Riquel, notary-in-chief of this camp, that if the baskets were not taken down by nightfall, he would consider war to have broken out between us. While I was engaged in framing an answer to this, and before the time-limit set by him had expired, he sent his galleys and small boats to attack the defenses and the people who were stationed on the shore. Then our soldiers, seeing that the Portuguese were attacking them and had begun hostilities, determined to complete their defenses, and fought with the Portuguese from about noon-time until sunset, without any cannon-shots being fired at the Portuguese from this camp. And on the morning of the following day, without any new action on our part, the said captain-general sent two galleys and a small boat to seize upon the other entrance to this harbor, and this order was executed. They have been and still are located there, toward the east; and they refuse to allow any person, or supplies, or anything else whatsoever, to come in or go out from this camp—a procedure for which I am at a loss to find the proper designation, unless it be war and the intention to starve us to death, which is not a usual action on the part of Christians. Consequently, he should not be astonished if this causes us to think that his actions do not correspond to his