The governor placed on the stocks the frame of the galleon "Santa Rosa," the work of that accredited master of this important and useful art, Juan Bautista Nicolá; and it came from them one of the finest and largest galleons that had been built in the port of Cavite and made very successful voyages, sometimes being driven back to port. The governor commanded Juan Canosa Raguses, a very able builder of vessels with lateen sails, to build two galleys; these proved to be very suitable and swift, and rendered much service in driving away the Camucones, very crafty and troublesome pirates, who almost every year infest the Pintados Islands, plundering and taking captive. This is a barbarous people, cruel, and cowardly; indeed, they could not be the one without being also the other. They inhabit a chain of small islands, which extends from Paragua to Borney; some of them are Mahometans, and others heathen. But they [all] cause much damage to the Bisayan Islands, which they ravage without opposition--going so far as to carry away, in the year 1672, the alcalde-mayor Don José de San Miguel, as we have related in another place. They have a great advantage in the exceeding swiftness of their vessels, which enables them to find their defense in flight. Their confidence and boldness reached such a height that they even dared to infest the coasts of the island of Manila. The provincial of that time (of whom this chapter treats), Fray José Duque, while on his way to visit the islands of Pintados, came very near being made a captive, with his companion Fray Alvaro de Benavente; for they were attacked by a squadron of these pirates near the island of Marinduque, where they would have been a prey to their cruelty if they had not been protected by divine kindness, through the valor of Captain Francisco Ponce--a veteran soldier, who killed the captain and another of the pirates--and also the coming of a high wind, which gave wings to the champan to place itself in safety.