Having been employed in the army of the king, which was in Brittany, under Messieurs the Maréchal d'Aumont de St. Luc, and the Maréchal de Brissac, during some years in the quality of maréchal de logis, until his majesty, in the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-eight, had reduced the said country of Brittany to obedience, and dismissed his army; and finding myself by this means without any charge or employment, I resolved, in order not to remain idle, to find means of making a voyage to Spain, and, being there, to acquire and cultivate acquaintance, in order, by their favour and interposition, to arrange so as to be able to embark in one of the ships of the fleet, which the king of Spain sends every year to the western Indies; to the end, in so embarking, to be able at my return to make a true report to his majesty (Henry IV) of the particularities which could not be known to any Frenchman, for the reason that they have not free access there.

In order, then, to accomplish my design, I went to Blavet, where at that time was a garrison of Spaniards, in which place I found an uncle of mine called “the Provençal captain,” considered to be one of the good mariners of France, and who, in that year, had been engaged by the king of Spain as Pilot-General of his sea armies.