ABSTRACT
After this victory Don Alonso ordered him to take his company to what they call Magan's road, there to build a fort, because he had information leading him to suspect that the enemy might return that way. Accordingly he went thither and stayed there many days, until the enemy set sail. [He asks that the reward of an annuity of 400 pesos already granted to him by the viceroy for this service should be raised to one of 2,000 pesos, or to 3 ,ooo if a mining concession granted him for former service should prove unprofitable.]
My Good Sir, I have received all your letters, and with them more aid and
comfort than I know how to express. The bullets you made and blessed with your hands must have been well made, for we have had great success in punishing those accursed men. Yesterday, which was Wednesday the day of St Paul, three brigades of Englishmen attacked us, each containing 200 men, all musketeers, harquebusiers and pikemen. They engaged me and my company so violently that if we had not by the grace of God been reasonably fortified, and myself granted the strength and courage to resist so powerful a force, I do not know what would have become of us or
1 A. de 1., Indiferente General, 2988. Extract from an informacion made in 1604 for Bartolome de la Barrera y Castroverde, a dominican friar who served as chaplain to the troops at V enta de Chagre in January I 596. The petitioner claimed he had played a vital part in the battle of San Pablo by supplying the Spaniards with bullets and by persuading Juan Endq uez to go up to the pass earlier than he would otherwise have done. The translated text is one of several letters produced in evidence.
