Note 3 — Letters from Juan Cerezo de Salamanca to Felipe IV

On August thirteen of the same year, the said Pedro de Heredia advised me that many soldiers of that presidio were about to mutiny, but that he was making the best of it, as well as he could, until the reënforcements should arrive. This, he said, had happened because Father Manuel Rinto,3 commissary of the Holy Office, had published an edict regarding the sin against nature, in which many had been included. The father had given them two months in which to seek absolution. To this was joined their understanding that the governor would make an examination of those who should be absolved, from which arose their desperation. He also said that, both on this account and because the Dutch had a galleon of great strength in Malayo and were awaiting other galleons from Chacatra, it was advisable that the usual reënforcements come, and be well guarded; for if it came in the usual manner it would infallibly be lost.