On the same day that our fleet reached the port of Cavite, which was, as aforesaid, September 6, 1627, a _cho_ (a craft which is used in these waters, whose sails are made of rushes) came from Macan. It warned the Portuguese galliots which had come from that city to this with great wealth of merchandise, and which were about to return with about one million in silver, that they should take note that the Dutch enemy were stationed in the passage of Macan, awaiting them with four ships in order to capture them, and that they should change their direction and course. Thereupon, Governor Don Juan Nino de Tabora, seeing that our fleet was ready, and that it would be a fine thing to effect some stroke with the Dutch, as well as for other ends which will be told later, resolved to send two galleons, to act as escort to the Macan galliots. The Portuguese gave twenty thousand pesos to help the soldiers. On October 13 the said galliots, five in number, left with the flagship "San Yldefonse," in which Don Juan de Alcarazo went as commander; in the other galleon, the "Pena de Francia," Don Pedro de Mendiola went as commander. Each galleon carried about six hundred persons. They were so well equipped that they could fight with any Dutch ships whatever. Father Ygnacio de Muxica of our Society, and a brother, were in the flagship, and a father of St. Francis in the other galleon. Both galleons suffered great troubles from whirlwinds, seas, and storms all the way to Macan. One day our flagship snapped the topmast of its mainmast and it fell down. Another day the mast sprang, and knocked the rudder out of place, and it had to be repaired. Another day they were all but wrecked on the reefs of La Plata. On another occasion they lost their rudder completely, and they had to steer the ship with the sheets of the mizzenmast; on another, they lost their anchors while quite near Macan. They grounded in two and one-half brazas of water, and had not the bottom been sandy they would have been smashed into a thousand pieces. They cut down the mainmast and lightened the ship, and got it out of the sand after the greatest of toil, for it was almost buried. The other galleon had its troubles too, but it was fortunate in making port at Sanchuan on the Chinese coast, where our father St. Francis Javier died, about thirty leguas from Macan. The galliots entered the latter place safely, for the Dutch ships were no longer in the strait, as I shall recount later in order not to interrupt at present the thread of our history of our galleons and their adventures. The latter were very ill received by the Portuguese because of the twenty thousand pesos which they cost, and because it was seen that the Dutch had deserted the strait. They judged the matter by the effect and not by what might have happened had the enemy captured their galliots with so great a sum of silver. Our galleons stayed more than three months at that place refitting, stepping a mast and replacing the