Meanwhile Gomez Perez, attentive to his preparation, concealed his purpose, while not sparing the expenses pertaining to ships, food, and men. Among other supplies, he built four fine galleys. To man them--as is there reported--he employed a means that was considered severe. He ordered that the number of Indians sufficient to equip the galleys [283] be purchased from those who were the slaves of other Indian chiefs, and that the Spanish encomenderos should pay for these men from their own money. The price assigned for each Indian was two taes of gold--each tae being slightly more than one onza--the value formerly general among them for slaves. He promised that the sum spent by the encomenderos for that purpose would be repaid afterward from the royal exchequer. However, this did not seem any lessening of the severity, for he improperly called those Indians slaves; but [among themselves] their masters treat them and love them as children, feed them at their tables, and marry them to their daughters. Besides, slaves were then valued higher. To the anger of those who were about to be sold, was joined that of the encomenderos, who were obliged to contribute from their property for expenses--which, in their opinion, were not very necessary--and to offend their tributaries by forcibly seizing them; while they themselves would never collect the price they were paying in advance, which was [to them] the most certain thing. The governor gave out that those galleys were to assure the country and defend it from the danger that threatened; for he knew absolutely that the emperor of Japon was going to attack it with a huge war-fleet. Without galleys it could not be defended, and consequently he was forced to man them with those slaves, since other rowers were lacking. These slaves were not to be chained in the galley, or treated as convicts; but would receive so great kindness that they themselves would prefer that treatment to that of their owners, whom they already had as fathers and fathers-in-law. These arguments, and the pressing need for defense, silenced all objections. But they did not silence report, for already it was known that he had come from Espana, pledged to the king, his ministers, relatives, and backers, to the Ternate undertaking; and, although he concealed it, unknown authors divulged it. Yet some tried to persuade him not to entrust the defense of Filipinas to the Chinese or Sangleys, for no bond, natural or civil, had ever bound or attracted them to any love for the islands. They bade him remember the recent example of what those people did on an occasion on which they were employed by his predecessor, and to be on his guard against them. He [_i.e._, Vera], sending a reenforcement of men, ammunition, and food to the fort and settlement of Cagayan--which is on the shore of that island of Luzon, eighty leguas from the city of Manila--inasmuch as he then had no ship in which to send them, and being constrained by his present necessity,