All that fleet departed, then, from the port of Dapitan on March 17. Dapitan is the port nearest to the enemy, and the island of Jolo was reached in [_blank space in the Ventura del Arco MS_.] days. At dawn our men were landed, and began the ascent to the stronghold. The master-of-camp, Don Lorenzo de Olaso, who was commander-in-chief of the fleet, preceded the men. The Joloans defended their stronghold with valor. They killed some of our men and wounded eight, among them the master-of-camp himself. He was overthrown, as if dead, and went rolling down the hill. However, he was not dead, but only wounded, nothing more. Our men retired on the run, and to speak plainly, such terror entered into them that they did not dare to attack again. They skirted the island in their craft, entered the villages, burned, wrecked, destroyed them, and killed a few people. They brought back some captives with them whom the Joloans had taken from us. A violent storm overtook them, which compelled them to weigh anchor, and they retired stealthily. Thus so powerful a fleet as that was lost. It was such a fleet that never has one like it been made for the Yndias in these islands. The Joloan enemy were left triumphant, and so insolent that we fear that they will make an end of the islands of the Pintados--which are the nearest ones to them, and which they infest and pillage with great facility. "A greater force than ever attacked Malaca from Achen--two hundred and twenty craft; and among them thirty-three were of stupendous size and resembled galleys with topsails, while others were medium-sized and smaller; and they carried a force of nineteen thousand men of the best picked soldiers, who were all ordered not to return alive without taking Malaca. They disembarked at a river one-half legua from here. Then they began to march with great trenches, ramparts, and other devices until they neared the walls. After taking the mount of San Francisco, they fortified themselves on it, and for the space of four months they continued to batter the walls of the city. Our artillery harassed them from the ramparts also although the trenches and terrepleins did not allow us to do them much harm. They destroyed all the side of Yben, Bocachina, and San Lorenzo, and did not leave a house, palm-tree, or church. Then they attempted to pass to the Malaca side in order to destroy its suburbs, and to attack the walls on all sides. In order to make use of all their men, they beached all their ships in the mire of the river. That was their total destruction, for the reenforcements arrived on October 21, from Yndia, with Nuno Alvarez Botello--who succeeded in the government to the bishop who was governing and died; he had thirty-three oared vessels and one thousand Portuguese soldiers, the flower of the nobility and soldiery of Yndia. Thereupon the enemy retired to the river where their fleet was stationed. The governor, without disembarking, took his station in the