Don Fernando goes at length into his prowess in going out in a boat to defend a frigate--a frigate was a very small ship in those days--that two English launches had boarded and he says he retook that frigate and made them retire. More, he sent Captain Sebastian Gonzalez--there is a swagger in his name--with troops by land to Port Negrillo, there “to wait till the Captain of the English corsair should go to obtain water and capture him; and they lay in wait for him and killed those who landed and brought back their ears, broke the jars to pieces and burnt the boat.” And so the story of Jamaica goes on in the Seville archives, a tale of a small people with stocks of horses and cattle and pigs, a tale of struggles to build churches, and to hold the island, because though no gold or silver had been found, it was yet too central to allow any other nation to settle there. But it rose in value, for the next Governor, Alonzo de Miranda, had his salary increased to close on £400 a year. He was much worried by a Portuguese corsair named Mota, who “with two launches and a tender was going along the whole coast sacking and plundering the ranches and seizing the inhabitants and doing many other injuries, to remedy which I was obliged to assemble a fleet by sea, and go myself by land with soldiers to defeat the design of the enemies and they went away from the coast. With all that, I have had information that in the remote cattle hunting places they land, and with some of the cow catchers who have run away from Espanola, whom they bring, they dress hides and supply themselves with meat.” This, he goes on to say, “cannot be remedied without much cost and expense.”