At dawn on Saturday, March sixteen, 1521, we came upon a high land at a distance of three hundred leagues from the islands of Latroni—an island named Zamal [i.e., Samar], The following day, the captain-general desired to land on another island which was uninhabited and lay to the right side of the above- mentioned island, in order to be more secure, and to get water and have some rest. He had two tents set up on the shore 'for the sick and had a sow killed for them. On Monday afternoon, March 18, we saw a boat coming toward us with nine men in it. Therefore, the captain-general ordered that no one should move or say a word without his permission. When those men reached the shore, their chief went immediately to the captain-general... seeing that they were reasonable men, ordered food to be set before them, and gave them red caps, mirrors, combs, bells, ivory, bocasine, and other things. When they saw the captain's courtesy, they presented fish, a jar of palm wine which they call uraca [i.e., arrack], figs more than one palmo long [i.e., bananas], and others which were smaller and more delicate, and two cocoanuts [coconuts]. They had nothing else then...but rice, and cocoanuts and many articles of food within four days.
On Friday, April twenty-six, Zula, chief of the island of Matan, sent one of his sons to present two goats to the captain-general, and to say that he would send him all that he had promised, but that he had not been able to send it to him because of the other chief, Cilapulapu, who refused to obey the king of Spagnia. He requested the captain to send him only one boatload of men on the next night, so that they might help him and fight against the other chief. The captain-general decided to thither with three boatloads. We begged him repeatedly not to go, but he, like a good shepherd, refused to abandon his flock. At midnight, sixty men of us set out armed with corselets and helmets, together with the Christian king, the prince, some of the chief men, and twenty or thirty balanghais. We reached Matan * three hours before dawn. The captain did not wish to fight then, but he sent a message to the natives by the Moro to the effect that if they would obey the king of Spagnia, recognize the Christian king as their sovereign, pay us our tribute, he would be their friend; but that if they wished otherwise, they should wait to see how our lances wounded. They replied that if we had lances they had lances of bamboo and stakes hardened with fire. [They asked us] not to proceed to attack them at once, but to wait until morning, so that they might have more men. They said that in order to induce us to go in search of them; for they had dug certain pitholes between the houses in order that we might fall into them
They shot so many arrows at us and hurled so many bamboo spears (some of them tipped with iron) at the captain-general, besides pointed stakes hardened with fire, stones, and mud, that we could scarcely defend ourselves. Seeing that, the captain general sent some men to burn their houses in order to terrify them. When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury. Two of our men were killed near the houses, while we burned twenty or thirty houses. So many of them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, hut the men took to flight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain. The natives shot only at our legs, for the latter were hare; and so many were the spears and stones hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance.
The mortars in the boats could not aid us as they were too far away. So we continued to retire for more than a good crossbow flight from the shore, always fighting up to our knees in the water. The natives continued to pursue us, and picking up the same spear four or six times, hurled it at us again and again. Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice, but he always stood firmly like a good knight, together with some others. Thus, did we fight for more than one hour, refusing to retire farther [further]. An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out halfway because he had been wounded in the arm with [by] a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned hack many times to see whether we were all in the boats.
There upon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best as we could to the boats which were already pulling off. The Christian king would have aided us, hut the captain charged him before we landed, not to leave his balanghai, hut to stay to see how we fought. When the king learned that the captain was dead, he wept. Had it not been for that unfortunate captain, not a single one of us would have been saved in the boats, for while he was fighting, the others retired to the boats. I hope through [the efforts of] your illustrious Lordship that the fame of so noble a captain will not become effaced in our times. Among other virtues which he possessed; he was more constant than ever in the greatest of adversity. He endured hunger better than all the others, and more accurately than any man in the world did he understand sea charts and navigation. And that this was the truth seen openly, for no other had had so much natural talent nor the boldness to learn how to circumnavigate the world, as he had almost done. That [The] battle was fought on Saturday, April twenty-seven, 1521. The captain desired to fight on Saturday, because it was the day especially holy to him. Eight of our men were killed with him in that battle, and four Indians, who had become Christians and who had come afterward to aid us, were killed by the mortars of the boats. Of the enemy, only fifteen were killed, while many of us were wounded.