A few days having passed in peace and rest, there came certain Indians who told the governor that in the province of Capanpanga there were many densely-populated rivers; and that most of the people thereon did not desire to have friendly relations with the Spaniards. The master-of-camp had to go therefore upon this conquest with one hundred soldiers. When he had entered the said province, some of the natives retired to forts which they had built, and tried to resist him. He routed them, and took from them some culverins in their possession and they were left pacified. While he was subjugating this province, there came news that two ships had arrived from Nueva España, sent by the viceroy Don Martín Enrriquez, with a reënforcement of one hundred soldiers, under the captaincy of Juan López de Aguirre. The governor thereupon ordered the master-of-camp to go to Panay, to send the said ships to this port of Manilla, and to bring back his wife, who was in Çubú. In consideration of this service the first _repartimiento_ in this island and a river called Bonbón was allotted to him.

At this same time of which we have spoken, there came down from up the river which flows by Manilla, several chiefs of a village named Caynta, to proclaim themselves friends of the governor. This said village had about a thousand inhabitants, and was surrounded by very tall and very dense bamboo thickets, and fortified with a wall and a few small culverins. The same river as that of Manilla circles around the village and a branch of it passes through the middle dividing it in two sections. Now when they had made their declarations of friendship to the Spaniards, and saw our situation and condition in Manilla, they came to think lightly of us; and, after their departure to their village, sent word that they did not care to be friends, but would rather fight with the governor and his men. They said that, if the Spaniards would come up the river for this purpose, they would see how the people of Caynta would hurl them from their lands. The governor gave them a month or two to return to their allegiance, and sent certain friendly Indians to treat with them; but no conclusion could be reached until the governor sent his nephew Juan de Sauzedo with one hundred soldiers to conquer them, or rather to destroy them. During this interim there arrived the two ships coming from Nueva España, which had been lying in port in the island of Panay. I have already told above how the master-of-camp had gone to order them to come to this port of Manilla. On the fifteenth of August, the day of the Assumption of our Lady, they arrived; and on the same day Captain Juan de Sauzedo embarked in a galley, with his hundred soldiers and three pieces of heavy artillery, to go to the fort of Caynta. He ascended the river for three days before he reached the fort. After his arrival, the captain, following out the orders of the governor, waited three days longer, summoning them to return to the terms of peace and friendship with the Spaniards which had been arranged with the governor at Manilla. The ill-fated creatures were intractable, on account of the confidence which they had in their miserable fort; and for response told the captain that they desired to fight. They called upon their hearers as witnesses of the fact, saying that on the day of the battle it would be seen that their God was better than the one worshiped by the Castilians. This latter statement was shown to be a falsehood; for God our Lord was vindicated, and they and their demons, whom they call gods, and worship, were proved liars. Thus on the third day, when the period set for summoning them had passed, the captain prepared his men; and, leaving the galley and the three pieces of artillery in a bend in the river with sufficient men, made a detour with the rest, and, on the side where the fort appeared the weakest, they entered. As they were entering, the enemy killed two men with a very small culverin which they had; and another man they pierced through his coat of mail and all with a lance of fire-hardened palm-wood, so that there were three dead. I have already said at the beginning of this relation that the lances of palm-wood are harder than iron. The fort having been entered, as I have told, the enemy made no resistance after the Spaniards were within. Whoever was able to flee to save his life fled, and of the Indians there were slain, men and women, four hundred persons. The rest who had escaped came thereupon, and made terms of peace and friendship. The fort and all the bamboo thickets surrounding it were destroyed, and the people are today very humble and submissive. There were found in this fort but four culverins.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Part 56