D. Juan Bautista Muñoz, who died in 1822 or 1823, made a large collection of transcripts from the Simancas and Seville archives, which Navarrete made use of. In 1793 Muñoz published the first volume of his Historia del Nuevo Mundo, which he never finished.
ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED
TO
THE SHIP “TRINITY” AND HER CREW
After she parted company with the “Victoria”.
From Navarrete.
After the Victoria left Tidore, the crew of the Trinity commenced careening their ship, and took out of her and placed in the store-house in Tidore their goods and the guns of the Conception, which they had burned, and of the Santiago, which was lost. Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa determined to leave in charge of these goods and factory the accountant, Juan de Campos, as clerk; the officer, Luis del Molino; the servants, Alonso de Cota, Genoese, and Diego Arias; and Master Pedro, a bombardier.
Taking leave of the King of Tidore, the Trinity sailed thence on the 6th of April 1522, with fifty men on the muster-roll, and a cargo of nine hundred quintals of cloves. The Trinity sailed for forty leagues to an island named Zanufo, in 2 deg. 30 min. N. latitude, belonging to the King of Tidore, thence to the open sea, where they calculated they had two thousand leagues to run to Panama. In 20 deg. they fell in with an island, where they took in a native, and continuing a northerly course to 42 deg., they met with a storm which lasted five days, and they had to cut away the castle at the prow; their poop was broken; their mainmast was broken in two. The crews fell sick, and they returned to seek the island from which they had taken the native; but, not being able to fetch it, they arrived at another twenty leagues distant from it. This island was named Mao, and is to the north of the island Botaha; they are in 12 deg. and 13 deg. This island was three hundred leagues from the Moluccas, and they were a month and a half in getting there; many of the crew died. When they arrived and anchored at the first land, which was Zanufo, a vessel passed by which informed them that a fortnight after the Trinity sailed, five or seven Portuguese sail had arrived at Terrenate, whose captain was Antonio de Brito, and that they were building a fortress there. Barros states that the first stone of this was placed by Antonio de Brito June 24th, 1522. The captain of the Trinity begged the people of this vessel to take a man to Terrenate, who was Bartolome Sanchez, the clerk of the ship, by whom he sent a letter to the Portuguese captain, begging him, on the part of His Majesty, to send him succour to prevent the ship being lost, for his crew was sick and reduced in number. Gonzalo Gomez, seeing that this was delayed, weighed, and came to anchor in the port of Benaconora. Simon Abreu, and Duarte Roger, clerk of the King of Portugal’s factory, came there, with other people, in a caracora, and after that came a fusta and caravel, with other armed Portuguese, who entered the Trinity, and gave to the captain a letter from Antonio de Brito in answer to his, dated October 21st, 1522, which only said that people were going to bring in his ship. By an order which they brought from Antonio Brito, they at once took from Gonzalo Gomez all the letters, astrolabes, quadrants, and log-books which he had made; they took the vessel and anchored her in the port of Talangomi. There were seventeen Castilians of sound and sick in the vessel, and they took those that were well with Gonzalo Gomez to the fortress, and next day took the sick to the hospital.
Gonzalo Gomez complained of the violence done in taking that which belonged to the emperor, and in his country. They replied that he had done what the emperor, his lord, had commanded him; and they, what they ought to do by the instructions from the king, their lord. They asked him to give up the royal standard of Castile, and he answered that he could not do so, neither could he defend it, since he was in their power. Upon which they drew up some documents before a notary; and when they discharged the cargo of the ship, he asked the Portuguese to give him a certificate of what was in it, for him to render an account to His Majesty; and they replied that, if he asked for this often, they would give it him on a yard arm. In the fortress we found Juan de Campos, Diego Arias, and Alonzo, the Genoese, sick, who were three of those who had remained in Tidore with the goods of His Majesty. They said that the Portuguese had knocked down the factory-house and taken the cloves and receipts for cloves which were paid for, and all the rigging and fittings of the ships; Luis del Molino had fled, and Gonzalo Gomez called him to come to the fortress under safe conduct, but when in it they put him in irons; Master Pedro had died.
When the ship was in Tidore, the pilot, Juan Lopez Carvalho, died on the 14th February, 1522; and, between sailing thence and anchoring at Benaconora, there died in August, September, and October, thirty-one individuals, without counting three who ran away in the isle of Mao of the Ladrones.
The twenty-one Castilians of the ship and factory remained about four months as prisoners in Terrenate, until, at the end of February 1523, Captain Antonio de Brito gave them a passage to India, sending them to the island of Banda, which was a hundred leagues off, excepting the carpenter Antonio, and the caulker Antonio Basazaval, whom he said that he required. The clerk of the factory, Juan de Campos, and three other Castilians, went in a junk, of which nothing was known nor what became of those persons. The Castilians remained in Banda about four months; from thence they were conducted to Java, and coasting it they arrived at a city named Agrazue. Agrazue was a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, Mussulmans, of great trade, to which porcelain, silks, and other Chinese goods were brought from Borneo and other parts.
From Agrazue they went to Malacca, two hundred leagues distant, where Jorge de Albuquerque was captain.