of April of the year 98.  The said Don Francisco Tello and the said Doctor Morga, seeing the great error which they had committed, attempted to exonerate themselves before the said Don Joan Rronquillo should arrive in this city.  They arrested him, charging him with having taken away the protection of the said island of Mindanao, without their having sent him any strict order which would oblige him to do it.  In order to give color to this—­as they were aware that, in the voyage which the said Don Joan Rronquillo made while returning, his ship was partly wrecked, and they supposed that the said order which they had sent him had been lost, they intrigued with the government notary, and had him produce in the prosecution against the said Don Joan the order which had been given to dismantle the fortresses of Mindanao, omitting therefrom those words which made it obligatory for him to do so—­namely, that he should do so under penalty of being contumacious and liable to punishment.  In this way they were released from responsibility for their act, and the said Don Joan Ronquillo was inculpated without excuse, since in so serious an affair he, being on the spot, should not have done so for a simple command.  The case having been continued, and he having presented the original order which they thought had been lost, and having given other explanations, he was even by them acquitted of that charge.  All this appears sufficiently by the record of the case, which remains in these islands.  Your Majesty having been made aware of the abandonment of the said islands during the last year, there arrived here your royal decree directing the investigation and punishment of whomsoever was responsible.  As they were to blame in the affair, as can be seen by this relation, they remained silent, and have taken no action.  From the abandonment of what was already gained, through the said order, it has followed that the Indians who are natives of the said islands of Ufanos, which the Spaniards had left, considering that this was due to fear, assembled, with others from other neighboring kingdoms, to come to work havoc in the lands of your Majesty.  Accordingly, in the past year of 1600 they came with a fleet of many vessels to the Pintados provinces, which are subject to your Majesty; and in the region known as Bantayan they burned the village and the church, killed many, and took captive more than eight hundred persons.  Thence they came to the river of Panay, an encomienda assigned to the royal crown, and killed a great many more, taking six hundred more prisoners from the said encomiendas.  They burned the church and the image of our Lady which was in it, which a few days before that had for a considerable time miraculously sweated out many drops of water, as if in premonition of the impending event.  They drank out of the chalice in their feasts, scoffing at the consecration of it, after the fashion of Mahometan people, whereby the natives and Spaniards of those regions were greatly afflicted and terrorized, as may be imagined.