Now, the General believed that the success of our enterprise depended far less on the skill of his crew or the courage and resource of his troops, than on the purity of their conduct. He tried to lead them to a devout way of living by every possible means and, not content with the customary Ave Maria and Paternoster sung at matins and vespers, had enjoined the Vicar to lengthen these into a service whenever the weather would permit, with a sermon every Saturday evening and great doings on Sundays and the vigils of feasts. Thus, when Doña Ysabel came to complain indignantly that a soldier had tried to force one of her maids, he was scandalized and agreed that the man must be punished with the utmost severity.
The Colonel, at first, tried to make light of the matter, since in effect the rape had been forestalled, and when he learned that it was Doña Ysabel’s pock-marked under-maid, proposed to dismiss the culprit with a caution. In his thoughtless manner he protested to the Ensign: ‘But Don Juan, her lock is common to every key! As for the soldier, he’s a marksman with a fine record, as you yourself testify. Don Alvaro would surely not have him publicly flogged for so venial an offence? Settle the case in private, Ensign, with your rattan and the toe of your shoe. I have no time to waste on trivialities.’
The General sent for the Ensign, and took it very ill indeed that the Colonel should not only have accused his Lady of employing a maid known to be of bad character, but should regard rape as an everyday occurrence, to be sufficiently punished with a few strokes of the rattan and a kick in the buttocks. The Colonel, seeing how the land lay, recanted at once and, to placate Doña Ysabel, ordered an immediate strappado.
The ship’s company were paraded on deck and Raimundo, his hands tied behind him, was marched to the mainmast by two halberdiers. He pleaded for mercy, which was refused him. Father Antonio had been asked to preach a sermon on concupiscence and evil-living, but did so in such general terms that it seemed he knew the true facts and, having once been a soldier himself, regarded the punishment as excessive. When he had done, the drummer beat a long roll, while a rope was tied round the prisoner’s wrists behind his back and then cast over a yard-arm high aloft. He was hoisted slowly by a dozen sailors and then, at a sudden loud double-tap of the drum, released; but the sailors’ end of the rope had been hitched to a belaying-pin, so that instead of crashing to the deck he was pulled up with a dreadful jerk, a foot or so above our heads, and the drop dislocated both his shoulders.
The heavy silence of the soldiers and crew, who laugh and joke on occasions of this sort if they agree that the prisoner has got his just deserts, was not lost on the Colonel. He let it be known that in arranging the hoist he had been obeying the General’s orders, and that he regarded the prisoner as unlucky rather than criminal. Raimundo, groaning horribly, was made to swallow cup after cup of aqua vitae, and when he was thoroughly drunk, the Ensign himself with the aid of a block and tackle wrenched his shoulder-blades back into place—no easy task even for a surgeon; he was then put ashore as no longer fit for service, Juan de Buitrago raising a fund for his keep, to which the Colonel contributed two pesos and almost every soldier in the ship a real. This solicitude for Raimundo, which seemed a deliberate affront to Doña Ysabel, incensed her brothers against the Ensign to such a degree that they ignored his presence, except when on parade, in the rudest manner. He was forced, in self-defence, to cultivate the good will of the Colonel and become a member of his faction.
While we lay at anchor off Santa the General ordered the Chief Pilot to make five charts: one for the Great Cabin, one for the master’s cabin, and one for each of the other vessels; but for fear of meeting with English privateers, who might make ill use of the knowledge, instructed him to include none of the islands in the South Seas, and to trace the coastline of Peru only from Arica upwards to Paita. Two vertical lines, one drawn in seven degrees south, the other in twelve degrees, would serve to indicate the position of the Isles of Solomon, which extended, he said, through five degrees of latitude. They were to be placed fifteen hundred leagues to the west of Lima, because this was the extreme distance to be covered on our voyage; the longitudinal distance of the more northerly Isles being only fourteen hundred and fifty leagues.3 ‘But come, friend Pedro,’ said he, ‘let us make it fifteen hundred, and if we arrive sooner than we expect, so much the better.’
The Chief Pilot promised to have the charts ready by the time we left Cherrepé, a port half-way between Santa and Paita, where we were to take in water; and the General then handed him the log of the previous voyage, which had been kept by Hernan Gallego. This he studied attentively; he had known Gallego and could trust his latitudinal reckoning though, as he told me, ‘he may well have mistaken the longitude, which is always a matter of guess-work. Not even in Germany, where the best nautical instruments are made, has any mathematician yet hit upon an exact means of determining longitude by the observation of stars and planets. Latitude is easily enough determined by shooting the sun with back-staff or cross-staff, whichever is most convenient; but we pilots must be content to rely for our longitude upon dead-reckoning, which is difficult to compute, especially at night. However, Hernan Gallego is unlikely to have made any error that we may not ourselves make in the same waters; so perhaps it is all one.’
Since our voyage was now fairly begun, the General summoned a grand council of high officers, masters and pilots and read them a prepared speech. He discoursed piously and at length about chastity, forbearance and brotherly love, but kept the pith of the matter for the close, when he said that on the previous expedition certain malicious persons complained of his refusal to disclose his sailing orders and also accused him of actions conflicting with the royal will and mandate; but that the orders were secret, which prevented him from justifying himself. Fortunately, he continued, this was not the case now, and he had therefore decided to read them the text of the capitulations signed by King Philip II on the 27th day of April, 1574, and witnessed by Don Antonio de Eraso, the then Secretary of State. The gentlemen present would henceforth know where they stood, and if he committed any breach of trust, or assumed any powers not specified in these royal letters patent—errors from which he trusted God would protect him—he begged them to call the matter to his attention, so that he might humbly correct the fault.
***
THE CAPITULATIONS
GENERAL DON ALVARO DE MENDAÑA, OF THE TOWNSHIP OF NEIRA, IN GALICIA, IS COMMISSIONED BY HIS MAJESTY, KING PHILIP II—
(1) To return at his own charge and expense to the Islands of the South Sea discovered by him, as described in the report which he presented on January 31st, 1569, to his uncle, the illustrious Licentiate Castro, Governor and Lord President of the Kingdom of Peru, and which is now filed in the archives of the Indies Council.
(2) To take with him five hundred armed men, fifty of them married, with their lawful wives and children.
(3) To take with him twenty cows in calf, ten mares in foal, ten chargers, twenty goats in kid with the necessary he-goats, twenty ewes in lamb with the necessary rams, also ten sows and two boars; to be used as breeding stock for the said Islands.
(4) To take with him the ships necessary to transport the aforementioned persons and livestock.
(5) To take with him all stores and victuals necessary for the voyage and for the colonization of the said Islands.
(6) To found three cities, one of them to become the capital, each with its own laws and municipality; this task to be concluded within the six years which the settlement of the Islands may be expected to require for its completion.
(7) To pay into His Majesty’s Treasury ten thousand ducats of caution money, in guarantee that he will fulfil the terms of this commission.
In return the King made the following concessions, authorizing the General:
(1) To take title and prerogatives as Prefect of the said Islands for as long as he may live to enjoy them; this title to pass to his son, heir or assign for a single lifetime, but then to become the gift of the King of Spain.
(
2) To take title and prerogatives as Governor and Captain-General of the said Islands so long as he may live; this title to pass similarly to his son, heir or assign for a single lifetime; together with the salary fixed by himself according to the richness of the lands he shall have pacified and settled.
(3) To take title and prerogatives as Lord Chief Justice of the said Islands, so long as he may live; this title to pass, etc., etc.
(4) To export free of duty from His Majesty’s settled possessions overseas, twenty negro slaves, and to carry them to the said Islands, but to no other place.
(5) To export free of duty from Spain, Portugal, the Cape Verde Islands or the Guinea Coast, as many as eighty slaves in addition to the twenty already mentioned.
(6) To convey from Spain one ship, not exceeding three hundred tons burden, fully laden with Spanish merchandise.
(7) Once a year to send back from the said Islands to the settled parts of His Majesty’s possessions overseas one ship, fully armed and provisioned.
(8) To commandeer stores and provisions from merchants unwilling to deliver them, but at current prices, and this only on the occasion of the first voyage to the said Islands.
This eighth concession he read twice, very slowly, to justify himself against possible charges of piracy; but this was ill-considered because, as it turned out, his captains misunderstood his intention and thought that he was covertly prompting them to commit fresh acts of violence.
(9) To pay into His Majesty’s Treasury no more than a tenth part of the gold, silver and pearls that he may find in the said Islands, or in others that he may discover.
(10) To be exempt from sales-tax for a period of twenty years from his arrival in the said Islands.
(11) To be exempt from export duty on all goods brought to the said Islands by himself or his companions for the first ten years; this exemption to be extended to twenty years in the case of himself or his successor in the Prefectship.
(12) To retain for himself and his heirs in perpetuity the fishing rights of the said Islands, including the right to fish for pearls.
(13) To grant estates in the said Islands, and allot native serfs to each of these.
(14) To grant land and building sites to pioneers of good repute who may apply for them; but if they need native serfs they must pay tax according to the number employed.
(15) To construct three fortresses, and fix the payment of the garrisons.
(16) To take and enjoy without payment during his own lifetime, and to bequeath to the heirs of his body for the period of two lifetimes, or to his widow if he should die childless, for her lifetime, one only of the estates mentioned in the thirteenth of these present concessions; the remaining estates there specified being allotted to settlers of good repute at the Prefect’s discretion, and the tax fixed according to the number of serfs employed upon these.
(17) To continue to enjoy the rights and privileges of any estate he may hold elsewhere in His Majesty’s possessions, notwithstanding that he remain domiciled in the said Islands.
(18) To assay and stamp with a distinctive mark all gold and silver found in the said Islands, or in others that he may discover.
(19) To nominate the officers of a Customs Service, for whose actions he will be answerable to His Majesty.
(20) To suppress armed rebellion, or any attempt to alter the form of government which these present articles shall have entitled him to set up.
(21) To issue regulations for the opening and working of mines.
(22) To be free to grant or refuse any appeal made against decisions of a Court of Law appointed by himself, whether the case be a civil or criminal one, and whether it has been judged by a mayor, a justice of the peace, a lord-mayor, or by the Prefect’s own lieutenant.
(23) To be answerable for his acts, laws and decisions only to His Majesty’s Indies Council.
(24) To share his supreme judicial rights in the said Islands with no other person whatsoever.
(25) To convey five hundred men to Spain or Peru from the said Islands, without hindrance from the justices at the ports where they are disembarked.
The document concluded with the Royal wish that when the said General Alvaro de Mendaña, in fulfilment of his commission, reached the Isles of Solomon, he should be granted the hereditary title of Marquis. Three later codicils were appended; one clarified the concession about the three fortresses, where it had not been stated whether the payment of the garrisons should be met by the Treasury or by local taxation; another amplified the General’s dignity as Prefect, which was made equal to that of other South Sea Prefectships; the third further defined his authority as Lord Chief Justice.
His audience listened in deep silence to this recital, astonished and not a little dismayed at the wide powers which he had been granted. Later, the Colonel went to Miguel Llano and demanded a copy of the capitulations, which was given to him. He studied it intently, until he knew it by rote, and seems to have pointed out many weaknesses to his room-mates.
Chapter 5
WHAT HAPPENED AT CHERREPÉ
Whenever I read a chronicle of ancient Greece, Rome or my own country, which is often, I first ask myself how the author looked, and until his likeness takes clear form in my mind I cannot know how much credence to give him. For this reason, rather than from a desire to thrust Andres Serrano forward as a person of consideration, I shall describe myself without ambiguity for the benefit of curious readers.
I write from Manila, in the year of Our Lord 1615, and my age is now forty-three, but I am little changed in appearance or habits since the day we sailed from Callao; so that the present account will serve equally well for 1595 as for today. I am short, plump, pale of face and inclined to indolence, with a small nose, scanty beard and wide mouth; my voice is flat and precise; my habits, orderly. I have never been a prey to the more violent passions, but I love food and drink, and am happier to watch and record events than to take part in them. I write verses, rather because rhyming comes easy to me than because I fancy myself touched by Apollo’s fire; I wear a sword not to provoke quarrels but to remind the world that I am of good family. So far I have refrained from marriage, fearing to place a halter round my neck, though more women than one or two have been kind to me in my day. If I have enemies, they have never yet revealed themselves, and I am greatly blessed in friends. The worst I have ever heard said of me, and I own it rankled, was when later in the voyage the veteran Juarez was estimating how many men of the afterguard were capable of bearing arms, and included my name. His comrade Matia burst into a guffaw: ‘What, our little Cupid? You count him a man? You might as well include Dona Ysabel’s brindled calf!’ Being a person of this sort—‘more like a singing eunuch than a human being,’ as my colleague Miguel Llano used to say of me, rather testily—and because, when I drink, I grow silent rather than talkative, men who feared to confess to a priest, or found none at hand, have often confided their troubles to me.
***
At dawn, on the 17th of April, after another good run, we put in at Cherrepé, the port of Santiago de Miraflores, where we found the Santa Ysabel at anchor. Captain Lope de Vega came aboard the flagship to report that he had got together a fine body of settlers, all respectable married couples, with their children, and that they had paid for their passages by contributing salt pork, biscuit, wine and other stores to the victualling of his ship, and had brought with them the tools of their various trades. The General showed great pleasure and relief at the news, and at once fulfilled his part of the bargain that had been struck between them: he conferred on Don Lope the title of Admiral, that is to say Second-in-Command of the flotilla, and married him then and there to his sister-in-law, Doña Mariana. Yet he made it a condition that the wedding should not be celebrated with feasting and dancing, and that, for chastity’s sake, the bride should not be bedded until the Isles were reached but remain with her sister in the flagship.
The Colonel, when he heard that Don Lope had accepted this condition, raised his hands to
Heaven. ‘God’s passion!’ he said to the Ensign-Royal. ‘What have we come to? Is a man to be forbidden to company with his lawful wife on his bridal night? It sticks in my mind that Saint Augustine, or some other saint of repute, laid it down that “whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder.” Mark my word, before this voyage is over the Purser will be issuing a hair-shirt to every common seaman, and the Master-gunner ramming incense down the barrels of our falcons!’
Doña Mariana, who was a lively woman, had no intention of being widowed a second time if anything could be done to prevent it. She remarked to her sister that afternoon as they sat under the poop-awning: ‘Ysabel, my dear, that looks to me a very fine ship—the galleon lying over there, beyond the San Felipe. Pray ask the Chief Pilot what he knows about her.’
Pedro Fernandez was summoned. He knew the vessel by repute, he said, having sailed in convoy with her several times: she was the Tres Reyes Magos, of Panama, homeward bound with a cargo of flour and timber. He described her as sound and commodious.
‘Then do you not agree,’ asked Doña Mariana, ‘that it is the greatest of pities to see such a large, fine ship wasted in coastal trade, when my poor husband must cross thousands of leagues of uncharted seas in a patched and leaking tub that the very rats have long ago deserted?’
‘Why not ask Don Alvaro to make the exchange?’ broke in Doña Ysabel, before the Chief Pilot had time to reply. ‘I agree that this would be very much to the King’s advantage.’
The Islands of Unwisdom Page 7