attacking them instead of waiting to be attacked; and try to rejoin our men and assure our lives or end them by fighting. Accordingly we attacked them, and such was our good fortune that we killed the king in the fight. Then we retired to our ships with great difficulty, without the loss of a single Spaniard. We did not allow the king's house to be sacked, so that it might not be said that we had done this to rob him. At this juncture, the captain and sargento-mayor, our leader, arrived. He belittled and censured what we had done, and ridiculed our statement and that of some of the Cambodians, namely, that we had killed the usurper. All that he did was simply to collect whatever silver and gold certain soldiers seized during these troubles, and everything valuable in the ships, and then to burn the latter. Then he drew up a report against us and dispossessed us of our ships and command, thus formulating suspicion and distrust. After that he gave orders for the departure from the kingdom, paying no heed to many Cambodians who came to speak to us when we went ashore, and told us that we might build a fortress there, for they had a legitimate king before, but that he who was their king lately had driven him to Lao, and thus they had no king; that they would gather wherever the most protection could be found; and that we should continue the war. Nor did the captain accept any of our suggestions, when we told him that the usurper had imprisoned a kinsman of the lawful king; that we should go to his rescue; that the latter would raise men in favor of the legitimate king; and that with his support we would take possession of the kingdom, and then go to get the king. But he was deaf to all this and accordingly abandoned the kingdom, and this great opportunity was lost. The only thing that we could obtain from him by great entreaty after putting to sea, was to go to Cochinchina to inquire about the galley, since they had intended to send from Manila for that purpose. I also offered to go to Lao by land at my own expense, in search of the king of Camboja, for I knew that that way led thither. Accordingly, as soon as we arrived in Cochinchina, the captain sent Diego Belloso and myself to Lao, and Captain Gregorio de Vargas to Tunquin. Meanwhile he held an auction among the soldiers of everything valuable from the Chinese ships, and of what else he had taken from the soldiers; but the men were all without a real, and so he had everything bought for himself, at whatever price he was pleased to give. The king of Sinoa, a province of Cochinchina, equipped us for the voyage with a good outfit, by giving us an embassy for that country, and men to accompany us on the road. Thus we made the entire journey well provided and always highly honored and feared and much looked at, as the like had never before been seen in those kingdoms.