previous next


A letter of Frier Alonso new elected Bishop of Mechuacan, to the king of Spaine, written in Peru in the citie de los Reyes the first of March 1590, touching the state of Arica a chiefe Haven in Peru .

UPON Christmas even the yere 1589, I received your majesties commission in Potossi. For which I am and shall be continually bound to pray for your majesties long health, for the great benefits which your majestie hath bestowed upon me, in sending me to Mechuacan: whereby my great travell and paines may be recompenced, which I have taken with that ungrateful and desperate people of the river of Plate, which they have bene the occasion of, in dealing so badly with me their Pastour, which have counselled them, that they should have a great care to serve God, and be dutifull to your majestie, according as every good and true subject ought to do. Now for this gift which your majestie hath bestowed on me, I most humbly kisse your majesties handes a thousand times. Thus presently I departed from Potossi somewhat sickely, to accomplish that which your majestie hath commanded me. So I arrived at Lima in safetie the first of February by the way of Arica , which is an haven towne, where they imbarke all the barres of silver. And there I have seene what is done, & what they have provided against the Englishmen in that haven: which is; That there is a litle fort made hard by the waters side, with certaine small pieces of ordinance in the said fort to offend the enemie, if occasion should serve that they should offer to come into the harbour and offer any violence. But the principall thing of all that we want is to have souldiers, foote men, and horsemen. For according as I am informed, here want 100 men which should keepe the coast, if they should offer to land and march up into the countrey. And likewise the people of this countrey have told me, that if upon an high mount which is here in the harbour neere to the havens mouth, on the Southside of the harbour where the sea doth beat, ther were two or three great Canons planted on the top of the hill, (where very good watch is continually kept) from that place they may reach to doe the enemie great hurt, a league into the sea. The new Vice-roy Don Garcia Urtado de Mendoca, worthy of that dignitie, is in great favour with al those of these realmes : for that he is a great solliciter both by sea and land in all kinde of diligence, not loosing one houre in your service, and that which he hath in charge. With as much speed as may be I will depart from hence to Mechuacan, to serve that church and your majesty: and there I will remaine according to your majesties commandement, with the bulles or indulgences. Our Lord keepe your majesty many yeres in his holy service.

From the city de los Reyes the first of March 1590. Frier Alonso bishop of Mechuacan.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Arica (Chile) (7)
Peru (Peru) (6)
Reyes (New Mexico, United States) (5)
Southside (Ohio, United States) (3)
Lima (3)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
March, 1590 AD (7)
1589 AD (3)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: