[105] Aduarte says: "The matter was opposed by many difficulties and the great resistance of influential persons in the community, but as it was to be done without expense to the royal treasury, all were overcome."—Rizal.
La Concepción says, vol. iii, p. 234, that the royal officials did not exercise the requisite care in the fitting of Luis Dasmariñas's vessels, as the expedition was not to their taste.
[106] A Chinese vessel, lighter and swifter than the junk, using oars and sails.
[107] Aduarte says that the fleet left the bay on September 17.—Rizal.
La Concepción gives the same date, and adds that Dasmariñas took in his vessel, the flagship, Father Ximinez, while Aduarte sailed in the almiranta. The complement of men, sailors and soldiers was only one hundred and fifty. Aduarte left the expedition by command of the Dominican superior after the almiranta had put in to refit at Nueva Segovia, "as he [i.e., the superior] did not appear very favorable to such extraordinary undertakings." He returned with aid to Dasmariñas, sailing from Manila September 6, almost a year after the original expedition had sailed.
[108] The island of Corregidor, also called Mirabilis.—Rizal.
[109] The almiranta was wrecked because of striking some shoals, while pursuing a Chinese craft with piratical intent. The Spanish ship opened in two places and the crew were thrown into the sea. Some were rescued and arrested by the Chinese authorities.—Rizal.
La Concepción says that the majority of the Spaniards determined to pursue and capture the Chinese vessel contrary to the advice of the pilot and a few others, and were consequently led into the shoals.
[110] This man became a religious later. We present his famous relation of 1621 in a later volume of this series. Hernando de los Rios was accompanied by Aduarte on his mission.
[111] It has been impossible to verify this citation. Of the four generally known histories of the Indias written at the time of Los Rios Coronel's letter, that of Las Casas only contains chapters of the magnitude cited, and those chapters do not treat of the demarcation question. Gonzalez Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés: Historia general y natural de las Indias (Madrid, Imprenta de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1851), edited by Amador de los Rios, discusses the demarcation in book ii, ch. viii, pp. 32, 33, and book xxi, ch. ii, pp. 117, 118; Bartolomé de las Casas: Historia de las Indias (Madrid, 1875), edited by Marquis de la Fuensanta del Valle (vols. 62-66 of Documentos inéditos para la historia de España), in book i, ch. lxxix, pp. 485, 486; Antonio de Herrera: Historia general de los Indios occidentalis (Madrid, 1601), in vol. i, ch. iiii, pp. 50-53, and ch. x, pp. 62-64; Joseph de Acosta: Historia de las Indias (first published in Spanish in Sevilla in 1590) does not discuss the matter. Neither is the reference to Giovanni Pietro Maffei's Historiarum Indicarum (Coloniae Agrippinae, 1590), where the demarcation is slightly mentioned.