[10] See Candish’s own account of this affair in Hakluyt’s Voyages (Goldsmid ed.). xvi, pp. 43-45.

[11] “The licentiate Palacios, alcalde of court in the Audiencia of Mexico, who in 1581 made official visits to the ports of Guatulco and Acapulco, where he had charge of the construction of ships intended for the Philippine archipelago.” (Cartas de Indias, p. 820.)

[12] The Portuguese admiral Don Duarte de Meneses—­who had been present in the negotiations between Legazpi and Pereira in 1569 (Vol.  II, pp. 295, 298, 310)—­was viceroy of India from November, 1584 until his death, May 15, 1588.  He was succeeded in that office by Manuel de Sousa Coutinho, the writer of this letter.  See Linschoten’s Voyage (Hakluyt Society’s trans., London, 1885), pp. 174, 200-203.

[13] The following table of Chinese weights is given in Clarke’s Weights, Measures, and Money (N.Y., 1888):  10 mace = 1 tael; 16 taels = 1 catty or kan; 2 catties = 1 yin; 50 yin = 1 pecul or tam.  The catty = 1 1/3 lbs., or 604.8 grammes.  Hence the pecul = 133 1/3 lbs.  The shik is a weight of 160 lbs.  In China almost everything is sold by weight.

[14] Orejeras was the name of a fine grade of gold used by the Malays; see Vol.  III, p. 224, and IV, p. 99.

Exile thus inflicted was of two kinds.  The Spanish phrase here is seis anos de destierro precisos—­the last word meaning that the culprit’s residence was prescribed in a certain place.  In the other form of exile, read, for precisos, voluntarios ("at will"), which may be translated “unconditioned”—­that is, he might choose his place of residence.

[15] Span., corte; a now obsolete use of the word, to signify a district of five leagues around the court.  It will be remembered that Sande, in 1577, fixed the boundaries of the city of Manila within this limit. (See Vol.  IV, p. 107.)

[16] As the names of these notaries do not appear on the MS. from which our transcript was made, it was probably one of the duplicate despatches sent to Spain, rather than the first and original document.

[17] Apparently a reference to the law found in Recop. leyes Indias (ed. 1841), lib. viii, tit. xx, ley i, which enumerates the offices that may be sold in the Indias.  Cf. ley i, tit. xxi, which relates to the renunciation of such offices after purchase.

[18] This was a lay brother, Juan Clemente, who came with the first Franciscan mission. (1577).  He devoted himself to the care of the sick among the natives, and was in charge of a hospital for them (founded by himself) for many years.  For an account of this charity, see Santa Ines’s Cronica, i, pp. 379-392.