In the year 1637, when I was about to set out as admiral of the vessels that were to take the reënforcements to those islands, I went to the port of Acapulco. There I found the vessel "San Juan Bautista," which had come that year from those islands, and which had lost its mast on the way. I endeavored to get Don Pedro de Quiroga to advise the marqués de Cadereta of the poor condition of the masts and other rigging of the vessel. He refused to permit it, and compelled me to embark, telling me that if we failed to embark by the first day of the month of April, we would run the risk of losing our voyage. While at sea, I asked the boatswain's mate for an inventory of the sails and rigging. I found that there were no spare sails, but one single cable, and one other old cable, which was used to make fast the pieces of artillery that were rolling about the ship. Ordering him to bring me also the inventory of what there was when they left the islands, I found that it had been equipped with three spare sails, five cables, and a quantity of rigging. He answered me that the sea had carried away the sails and that the ship had lost its cables as they left San Bernardino. Without pressing him further, he confessed to me that he had used the money that had been given him for that purpose in buying merchandise, in order to discharge a debt of three thousand escudos that he had paid for his post of boatswain, but that he had not found his account in that merchandise. I endeavored to punish him. He appealed to the commander-in-chief, and the latter ordered me not to prosecute him until I should have arrived at the Manilas. At the Manilas he was excused, because they said that he had paid three thousand escudos, although he had made the king lose more than sixty thousand. Those who furnish the provisions for the crew put in food of poor quality. The pilots cram their room at the stern with merchandise, thus endangering the vessel. Had I encountered a capful of wind during that voyage, I could scarcely have finished it. I had to take a capstan at Maribeles to lift my anchor, and to make the port of Cabite, which is three leguas from that place. Thus for the twenty thousand escudos that is drawn from the sale of those offices, thirty thousand are lost, and the fleet is in danger of being lost--which means, of losing those islands. It is not sufficient to give the offices to sailors who deserve them; it is not at all necessary to compel them to perform the functions of soldiers when they have no inclination for it, or to punish them when they gamble, as is done.