one Spaniard, who escaped to relate the news of this tragedy. Whilst this was passing up the country, others came down to plunder the ship, who finding our people in unsuspecting security, possessed themselves of their arms, and destroyed every thing they could not take away. On the 10th of June, 1567, there arrived at Zebu two Portuguese caracoas, with letters from Captain Pereyra to Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, in which he observed, that he supposed they were the Spaniards who had taken refuge in Zebu, in consequence of bad weather, and were unable to return to New Spain, as had happened to those of the other Spanish squadrons which had navigated those seas; and on this supposition he invited them to the Moluccas, where he promised to receive them with every degree of friendship, and furnish them with proper necessaries to prosecute their voyage. Such were the contents of his letter on the occasion, but some invalid Spaniards who came with the messenger, affirmed that Pereyra had been despatched by the Viceroy of India to drive the Spaniards out of Zebu, and not being able last year to effect it, in consequence of the storms they had encountered, they had remained in Tidore with the intention of completing it this year. Our General, aware of the snare which Pereyra was laying for him, answered this specious letter with corresponding dissimulation, and that he had given notice to his court of the capture of these islands, and was in daily expectation of hearing from his sovereign. Surrounded by these interruptions and difficulties, the General sent to Acapulco the patache San Lucas, Captain Juan de la Isla, requesting such assistance as might prevent the threatened suspension of their intercourse with New Spain, and which appeared highly probable. The Augustine friars sent, on this occasion, Friar Pedro de Gamboa to solicit some additional aid for the conversion of these infidels, who had already begun to be baptized, and which, they urged, would securely establish the authority of the Spaniards in the Philippines, but the friar never arrived, having died on the voyage.