"Now, many ponderous sermons could be written about the rich pageant of greed and folly that played out over the next days. The correct action would have been to man the pumps and drench everything in the hold with sea-water. But this would have ruined all of the silks, and caused incalculable losses, not only for the merchants but for the ship’s officers, and various of the King’s officials in Manila and Acapulco who had bales of their own in the hold. So the captain delayed, and the fire smoldered on. Men were sent below with buckets of water to find and douse the fire. Some returned saying that the smoke was too thick—others never came back at all. Some argued that the hatches should be opened and bales brought out onto the deck, but others who had more knowledge of fires said that this would allow an in-rush of air that would cause the fire to billow up and consume the Galleon in a moment.