ABSTRACT
Simon Fernandez, a Pilot of Lisbone, told me Richard Hakluyt, before other Portugals in London, the eighteenth of March 1604: that he having been in the Citie of Lima in Peru, did perfectly understand that four ships and barkes departed from the said Citie of Lima about the yeere 1600, in the moneth of Februarie towards the Philippines. Their general was a Mestizo, that is to say, the Sonne of a Spaniard and an Indian woman. And that seeking to make way toward the Philippines, they were driven with strong northern winds to the south of the equinoctiall line, and fell with divers rich countries and islands, as it seemeth, not far from the Iles of Solomon. One chief place they called Monte de Plata, for the great abundance of silver that is like to be there. For they found two crownes worth of silver, as he reporteth, in two handfuls of dust.
