has more slaves than any other nation of the world.

July 30 we met two Dutch ships, which were apparently going from
Palliacate [_i.e._, Palicat] to carry aid to Maluco. Our galleon fought
singlehanded with those two ships, because the other galleons were
far to leeward. The enemy had waited two days between us, without our
knowing it, in order to show themselves at a favorable opportunity. So
great is the confidence of the Portuguese that they did not fear
them. They said that they were ships from Cochin, and that, had they
known in time that they were enemies, they could have captured them
easily. In short they remained a cannon-shot from the flagship, and so
fought until night, when they made off badly battered--as we learned
later from the people of Achen, on whose coast one of the ships was
immediately wrecked, having sprung a leak through the effect of our
balls and their own firing. They only killed two of our men. After the
battle, our galleon ran aground on a shoal, on the eve of our Lady of
the Assumption, near Pulo Parcelar. At the first shock, the helm was
shifted seaward, and all that night we tossed up and down dreadfully
until, next morning, we miraculously got off the shoal. We reached
the strait of Sincapura on August 10, where, as the pilots said the
Manila monsoon was over, we determined to run to Malaca.

In Malaca the ships were very inhospitably received, for soldiers are
wont to commit depredations. But within a few days they were made to
see that the landing there of the galleons was for their relief and
the salvation of their city; for a month after their arrival the king
of Achen came with sixty thousand men to besiege it. Information of
this number and of the other things that will be related, was given by
the Portuguese who were captives in Achen and returned to Malaca. They
had three hundred and fifty sail--among them sixty galleys, each with