I, Pedro Muñoz de Herrera, who exercise the office of court clerk of the royal Audiencia and Cnancillería of the Philipinas Islands, at the order of Don Alonso Faxardo de Tença, comendador of Castilla, of the Order of Alcántara, member of his Majesty’s council in the states of Flandes, governor and captain-general of these said islands, and president of the royal Audiencia therein, had this copy made from an original letter. It appears to be signed by a character in letters said to be of Terrenate and of the king of Tidore. It is like others from the said king that I have seen. It is a true and faithful copy, and was corrected and collated with the said original letter, which his Lordship the governor said that the said king of Tidore had written to the governor of these islands. In order that that may be apparent, I gave, at the said order, this copy in the city of Manila, July twenty-eight, one thousand six hundred and eighteen. Witnesses at its transcription, correction, and collation were Ambrosio del Corral, Pedro de Belber, and Pedro Muñoz de Herrera, junior.
Pedro Muñoz de Herrera
We, the undersigned notaries, certify and attest that Pedro Muñoz de Herrera, by whom this copy is authorized, enjoys and exercises the office of court clerk of the royal Audiencia and Chancillería of these Philipinas Islands; and is held and considered as faithful and accurate; and entire faith and credit has been and is given to the acts and other despatches that have passed and pass before him, both in and out of court. Given in Manila, July twenty-eight, one thousand six hundred and eighteen.
Alonso Gomez, royal notary.
Joan de Iya Marin, notary public.
Bartolome de Quesada, royal notary.
[1] Achotes [hachotes] para los faroles: A large wax candle, with more than one wick, or a union of three or four candles, which was used for the lanterns.
[2] The bahar (from bahara, a word of Sanscrit origin) has long been in quite general use in the East. The word is found variously spelled, “bahare,” “bare,” and “vare.” Its value varies in different localities, there being two distinct weights—one, the great bahar, used for weighing cloves, other spices, etc.; and the small bahar, about 150 kilos or 400 pounds avoirdupois, used for weighing quicksilver, various metals, certain drugs, etc. John Saris, writing of the commerce of Bantam, says: “A sacke is called a Timbang, and two Timbanges is one Peecull, three Peeculls is a small bahar, and foure Peeculls and an halfe a great Bahar, which is foure hundred fortie fiue Cattees and an halfe.”
At Malacca and Achen, the great bahar is said by an old Dutch voyageur to contain 200 cates, each cate containing 26 taïels or 38½ Portuguese ounces, weak; the small bahar, also 200 cates, but each cate of only 22 taïels or 32½ ounces, strong; while in China the bahar contained 300 cates, which were equivalent to the 200 cates of Malacca. Instructions to François Wittert, commissary at Bantam, gives the following table for weights: 1 picol = 2 Basouts or Basauts = 100 catis; 1 hare = 9 basauts = 4½ picols—which should have amounted to 600 Dutch pounds, but in the equivalent then rendered was only 540 pounds. Dutch annals also give equivalents in Dutch pounds as 380, 525, 550, and 625. Modern English equivalents in pounds avoirdupois for various places are: Amboyna, 597.607; Arabia—(Bet-el-falsi), 815.625, (Jidda), 183.008, (Mocha), 450; Bantam—(ordinary) 396, (for pepper) 406.780; Batavia, 610.170. See Satow’s notes on Voyage of John Saris to Japan (Hakluyt Society’s publications, London, 1900), pp. 212, 213; Recueil des voyages (Amsterdam, 1725); and Clarke’s Weights, Measures, and Money (N.Y., 1888).
[3] Apparently referring to the hostilities in the preceding year between the Dutch and English at Pulovay, a small island near Banda (see ante, note 8). See list of Dutch forts in 1612–1613 in the Moluccas, in Voyage of John Saris.
[4] A court minute of the English East India Company, dated November 12, 1614, has the following in regard to Dutch opposition to the English in the East Indies: “Yett he [i.e., John Saris] found the Dutch very opposite to hinder the English in their proceedings all that ever they might, as well by vndersellinge, contrarye to their promyse, at [sic] by all other means of discouradgement, makeinge shewe of waunte without any occasion.”