His first move was the sending of a messenger to the Spanish general with courteous greetings, advising him of the circumstances of the presence of the English fleet, and desiring him to understand that before he could be suffered to enter the port some order of conditions should pass between them for the safety of the English fleet and the maintenance of peace. This messenger returned with the report that a viceroy was on the fleet (Don Martin Henriques, coming out as a successor of the one at Mexico), who had authority “both in all this Province of Mexico, otherwise Neva Espanna, and in the sea,” and that this official had requested Hawkins’s conditions, promising on his part that they should be “both favourably granted and faithfully performed,” with “many faire wordes,” or compliments, as to favourable things he had heard of Hawkins. These conditions were despatched forthwith: victuals for their money; license to sell as much of their wares as might furnish their wants; twelve gentlemen from either side as hostages for the maintenance of peace; the island to remain in their possession during their stay, for their “better safetie,” with the ordnance they had planted there: eleven brass pieces; and orders issued that no Spaniard should land at the island with any kind of weapon. The viceroy at first “somewhat misliked” the condition as to the guard of the island in the keeping of the Englishmen; but in the end he acceded to them all, with the exception that the number of hostages was cut to ten. The agreement was then put in writing and sealed with the viceroy’s seal: the hostages were received on either side; the orders were duly proclaimed with trumpet blasts; the two generals met and “gave faith ech to other for the performances of the premisses;” and then the Spanish fleet passed into the harbour, each fleet saluting the other “as the maner of the sea doth require.” All went well for nearly three days. Two of the three were spent in “placing the English ships by themselves and the Spanish ships by themselves, the captaines of ech part & inferiour men of their parts promising great amity on al sides.” But with all the show of faithfulness to the agreement the Spaniards were plotting mischief. A thousand men from the mainland were being secretly taken on their ships, and they were proposing, on the third day, at dinner time, suddenly to set upon the Englishmen on all sides.