That idea would have been very commendable, and the most efficacious means of all, if he could have carried it out as he conceived it.

I believe that, in order to facilitate that, he wrote to your Majesty, whereupon this court was filled with hopes.

But to place it in execution, he had as much foundation as will be seen here.

The forces of India are so few, that, although Silva was told that the viceroy could not send him six ships--and those that could go would be poorly equipped; and that if he did send them, the coasts of India would be left unprotected, which were daily being infested; and, besides, that they knew by experience--the little love that the Portuguese bear to the Castilians and that he should not trust in them--still by sending money to build galleons and for the men, of which at least one-half million [pesos] would be necessary, the viceroy would send that fleet.

Don Juan de Silva was without funds; on the contrary, the royal treasury was deeply in debt from the expedition to Maluco.