For almost two years I served with Captain Alatriste on the galleys of Naples. And so now I will speak of skirmishes, of corsairs, of boardings, of killings and plunderings. Your grace will thus know how the name of my homeland was respected, feared, and hated even in the Eastern seas. I will recount that the devil has neither color nor nation nor flag; and that, to create hell on sea or land, all that was needed was a Spaniard and a sword blade. In this, as in almost everything, it would have been better for us to do what others did, who cared more for prosperity than for reputation, to open ourselves to the world we had discovered and expanded, rather than to be trapped in the robes of royal confessors, in the privileges of blood, in the little desire for work, in the cross and the sword, while intelligence, homeland, and soul rotted within us. But no one allowed us to choose. At least, to the astonishment of History, we were able to sell our hides dearly, fighting to the last. Your grace will say that this is bitter consolation and will be right.
But we limited ourselves to doing our job without understanding governments, philosophies, and theologies. By God. We were soldiers