Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 03).djvu/74

 stratagem they could drive us from their land. Consequently they and ours have endured very great extremities, because the same thing was done in other islands where the Spaniards went to find food—so much so that many times the natives have taken the food more than four leagues inland, carrying it upon their shoulders, and crossing creeks and rivers with it, with great risk of their lives. Then too another cause of so great distress has been the lack there of boats with oars; and the fact that, up to the present, no one has ventured to seek richer and more abundant lands—which are very near, as Lequios, Japan, and Jaba [Java], therein fulfilling your Majesty's commands. After all that, came the Portuguese fleet, arriving about the end of September of last year (1569), under command of Gonzalo Pereira. That man, although we made every possible effort for peace with him, would agree to nothing except that, in any case, we must leave these islands, or else go with him. The first could not be done, because we had no ships; nor the second, because that was very ignominious for us. Therefore as we came to no agreement, he determined to begin hostilities, and make war on us, trusting to his numerous ships—although afterward it did not turn out as happily as he thought, as your Majesty will see by the relation which the viceroy sends from this Nueva España. The blockade being so long and rations so scant, the poor soldiers were in such distress that they took to hunting rats, of which there are great numbers in that land, and which are much larger than those of