Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y Organización de las Antiguas Posesiones Españolas de Ultramar. Tomo 3, De Las Islas Filipinas, II

This volume opens a window onto the earliest days of Spanish contact with the Philippine archipelago, assembling a handful of never‑before‑published letters, reports and testimonies that historians have long sought. The documents capture the practical concerns of 16th‑century navigation—dangerous shoals, unpredictable currents, and the need for a shallow‑draught craft to scout unknown coasts—while also revealing the bureaucratic machinery behind a distant empire’s expansion.

At its heart is the dramatic loss of the patache San Lucas, a tiny cutter that slipped from Miguel Legazpi’s fleet on the night of 1 December 1565. The captain’s insistence that the vessel could not “moor” because its low draft made it “fill with water like a barrel” spurred a heated debate among the fleet’s officers. The account follows the subsequent formal inquiry in Bohol, where pilots, mariners and officials recount their versions of the event, exposing a clash of personalities and the high stakes of early colonial exploration.