From Camboja: Your Grace must have already heard of events in this kingdom of Camboja, from my arrival until the captain withdrew the fleet. These accounts will undoubtedly vary according to what each man thought fit to say in order to gild his own affairs: some according to their bent and opinion, and others according to their passion. Although the matter has been witnessed and thoroughly known by many persons, I am about to relate it as well as possible to your Grace, as to a person who can weld all the facts together and give to each circumstance the weight which it may possess and deserve. I shall also give an account among other things of all that happened to Captain Diego Belloso and myself on the journey to Lao, and the vicissitudes and wars in this kingdom, from our arrival until the condition of affairs now in force. Since Spaniards have taken part in all these events it will please your Grace to know the manner and retirement with which I have lived in this kingdom ever since my arrival here from Manila, sustaining the soldiers and other men whom I brought in my ship at my own expense, keeping them in a state of discipline and honor, and never allowing them to abandon themselves to sensual pleasures; although I had no credentials for this, for Gallinato had those which the governor was to give me. I shall not discuss the why and wherefore of most of the Chinese matters, because Fray Alonso Ximenez and Fray Diego [97] witnessed some of the events and heard of others and will have informed your Grace of everything, including the war against the usurper, and Gallinato's abandonment of this kingdom when affairs had practically been settled. Had he continued to follow up matters, half of the kingdom would today justly belong to his Majesty, and the whole of it would be in the power and under the rule of the Spaniards; and perhaps the king himself with most of his people would have embraced Christianity. As to Chinese matters which require most explanation I only ask your Grace to consider the kingdom which we came to help, that the Chinese had no more right there than we had, and that we had to try to gain reputation, not to lose it. Since we came with a warlike attitude, and it was the first time that an armed Spanish force set foot on the mainland, was it right for us to endure insults, abuse, contempt, and open affronts from a so vile race as they are, and before all these pagans? [Was it right to endure] the further action of their arguments before the usurping king, to induce him to kill us; their many evil and infamous reports to him concerning us, in order to induce him to grant their request; and above all their impudence in killing and disarming Spaniards and going out in the streets to spear them? All this I endured very patiently in order not to disturb the land by breaking with them, until one day when they actually tried to kill some of our men in their Parián, and the