Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 02).djvu/34

 Martin de Uriarte. De la Torre prefaces these accounts with a letter in which he asks for aid, "of which we are in sore need." He says "all the captains of the ships, caravels, and the tender, seven in number; the treasurer, accountants, and officials, both general and private, … are dead or lost, until now only the treasurer of one of the ships is left" and he [de la Torre] has been elected captain, "not because they found in me any good qualifications for the office, but only a willing spirit." He gives account to the king "of all that has happened, as I am obliged to do, and because of my office it is more fitting for me than any other to do so." Some notable events mentioned in the log are: the entrance into the Santa Cruz River on January 18, 1526; their arrival on the twenty-fourth at the cape of Las Virgines, near which Juan Sebastian del Cano's ship founders in a storm; and the passage of the strait, beginning March 29, by three ships and the tender, the last-named being lost on Easter Day. A detailed description of the strait follows. On September 4, "we saw land, and it was one of the islands of the Ladrones which the other expedition had discovered," where they find a Spaniard who had fled from the ship of the former expedition. On September 10 they depart from this island for the Moluccas. October 8 they land at an island where the friendly advances of the natives are checked by a native from Malacca, who declares that the Castilians would kill all the inhabitants. On the tenth, "the eleven slaves we had seized in the island of the Ladrones fled in the same canoe that we had seized with them." On the twenty-first they anchor at "Terrenate, one of the Malucos, and the most northern of