previous next


A letter of Hieronymo de Nabares to the licenciat John Alonso dwelling in Valladolid , written from Panama to Sivil the 24. day of August 1590. touching the gainefulnes of the trade to the Philippinas, and the extreme feare they have of the Englishmen.

NOT long agone I wrote to your worship from Panama by the way of Havana : giving you to understand of my being here, & of the state of these countreys. After I departed from Spaine, in 37. dayes wee arrived at Cartagena : and from thence I tooke shipping to goe to Nombre de Dios, which is 80. leagues from Cartagena : and in 4. dayes wee got thither. And from thence I went to Panama: where I have remained these 20. dayes, till the shippes goe for the Philippinas. My meaning is to carie my commodities thither: for it is constantly reported, that for every hundred ducats a man shall get 600. ducats cleerely. Wee must stay here in Panama from August till it be Christmasse. For in August, September, October and November it is winter here, and extreme foule weather upon this coast of Peru , and not navigable to goe to the Philippinas, nor to any place else in the South sea. So that at Christmasse the ships begin to set on their voyage for those places: and then in these parts the summer beginneth with very faire weather, and alwayes we shall have the windes with us. For in July until October here is terrible thundering and lightening with extreme raines, so that it is not possible to go any way in this countrey. Here are in Panama 10. great ships of 500, 400, 300, & 200. tuns apiece, & some 15. barkes which use commonly to saile in the South sea to Lima , to the Valles, to Arica , and to the Philippinas. This countrey in the summer is so extreme hotte, that it is not possible to travel in the day time: it standeth in 8. deg. & 1/2. and all this coast is in 9. and 10. deg. Here is great store of adders, snakes and toades, which are in the houses, but they doe but small hurt. Here bread, wine, and bacon are very deere, by reason the countrey doth not yeeld it: for it is brought from Peru . A li. of bread is worth here 2. rials of plate: a quart of wine is solde for 4. rials: for none groweth here. Here are very few sheep, and those extreme deere. The only food here for flesh, are oxen, kine, buls & heffkers: you may buy 20. li. of beefe for one rial of plate. Their smallest money of silver is a rial of plate, & very few of them, but all pieces of 4. & 8. For the silver mines which dayly be found in Peru be wonderfull to bee spoken of. If a man did not see the silver made, hee would never beleeve it: for the very earth which commeth out of the mines, & is afterward washed, being but 3. or 4. yeres on a mount, yeeldeth great store of silver afterwards againe. But as here we get much, so our charge in meat, drinke and apparell doth cost very much. As for fruite here is none that is good, but onely muske melons, and they are sold for 6. or 8. rials apeece. I can certifie your worship of no newes, but only, that all this countrey is in such extreme feare of the Englishmen our enemies, that the like was never scene or heard of: for in seeing a saile, presently here are alarmes in all the countrey. I pray you to write unto me as touching the wars that his Majestie hath with our enemies, and howe his Majestie doth prevaile. And thus I rest.

From Panama in the firme land the 28. of Aug. 1590. HIERONYMO de NABARES.

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.
Peru (Peru) (9)
Cartagena (Spain) (6)
Lima (3)
Havana (Cuba) (3)
Arica (Chile) (3)
Valladolid (Spain) (2)

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.
1590 AD (3)
August, 1590 AD (2)
June, 1591 AD (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: