"Though I comforted myself with the hope that God would not allow a matter which tended so much to the exaltation of his church to be left imperfect, when I had through so much opposition and trouble brought it almost to perfection; yet I considered that it might be his will that I should not be permitted to obtain such honour in this world, because of my demerits. In this perplexity, I remembered your highnesses good fortune; which, though I were dead and the ship lost, might yet find some means that a conquest so nearly achieved should not be lost, and that possibly the success of my voyage might come to your knowledge by some means or other. With this view, as briefly as the time would permit, I wrote upon parchment that I had discovered the lands which I had promised; likewise how many days were employed on the voyage, the direction in which I had sailed, the goodness of the country, the nature of the inhabitants, and how some of your highnesses subjects were left in possession of my discoveries. Which writing I folded and sealed up and superscribed to your highnesses, promising a reward of 1000 ducats to whoever might deliver it sealed into your hands; that, in case it might be found by a foreigner, the promised reward might induce him not to communicate the intelligence. I then caused a great cask to be brought to me, and having wrapped the writing in oiled cloth, which I surrounded with a cake of wax, I placed the whole in the cask: I then carefully closed up the bung-hole and threw the cask into the sea, all the people fancying that it was some act of devotion. Apprehending that this might never be taken up, and the ship coming still nearer to Spain, I made another packet like the first, which I placed on the poop, that when the ship sunk the cask might float upon the water, and take its chance of being found."