Loss of the Naval Power of Spain and Portugal.—The seizure of Portugal by Philip II. in 1580 was disastrous in its consequences to both Portugal and Spain. For Portugal it was humiliation and loss of colonial power. Spain was unequal to the task of defending the Portuguese possessions, and her jealousy of their prosperity seems to have caused her deliberately to neglect their interests and permit their decline. In one day Portugal lost possession of that splendid and daring navy which had first found a way to the Indies. Several hundred Portuguese ships, thousands of guns, and large sums of money were appropriated by Spain upon the annexation of Portugal.1 Most of these ill-fated ships went down in the English Channel with the Great Armada.

When the terrible news of the destruction of this powerful armament, on which rested Spanish hopes for the conquest and humiliation of England, was brought to the Escorial, the magnificent palace where the years of the king were passed, Philip II., that strange man, whose countenance never changed at tidings of either defeat or victory, is reported to have simply said, “I thank God that I have the power to replace the loss.” He was fatuously mistaken. The loss could never be made good. The navies of Spain and Portugal were never fully rebuilt. In that year (1588), preëminence on the sea passed to the English and the Dutch.

The Netherlands Become an Independent Country.—Who were these Dutch, or Hollanders? How came they to wrest from Spain and Portugal a colonial empire, which they hold to-day without loss of prosperity or evidence of decline? In the north of Europe, facing the North Sea, is a low, rich land, intersected by rivers and washed far into its interior by the tides, known as Holland, the Low Countries, or the Netherlands. Its people have ever been famed for their industry and hardihood. In manufacture and trade in the latter Middle Age, they stood far in the lead in northern Europe, Their towns and cities were the thriftiest, most prosperous, and most cleanly.

We have already explained the curious facts of succession by which these countries became a possession of the Spanish king, Emperor Charles the Fifth. The Low Countries were always greatly prized by Charles, and in spite of the severities of his rule he held their affection and loyalty until his death. It was in the city of Antwerp that he formally abdicated in favor of his son, Philip II., and, as described by contemporary historians, this solemn and imposing ceremony was witnessed with every mark of loyalty by the assembly.

The Rebellion.—But the oppressions and persecutions of Philip’s reign drove the people to rebellion. The Netherlands had embraced the Protestant religion, and when, in addition to plunder, intimidation, the quartering of Spanish soldiery, and the violation of sovereign promises, Philip imposed that terrible and merciless institution, the Spanish Inquisition, the Low Countries faced the tyrant in a passion of rebellion.

War, begun in 1556, dragged on for years. There was pitiless cruelty, and the sacking of cities was accompanied by fearful butchery. In 1575 the seven Dutch counties declared their independence, and formed the republic of the Netherlands. Although the efforts of Spain to reconquer the territory continued until the end of the century, practical independence was gained some years before.

Trade between Portugal and the Netherlands Forbidden.—A large portion of the commerce of the Low Countries had been with Lisbon. The Portuguese did not distribute to Europe the products which their navies brought from the Indies. Foreign merchants purchased in Lisbon and carried these wares to other lands, and to a very large degree this service had been performed by the Dutch. But on the annexation of Portugal, Philip forbade all commerce and trade between the two countries. By this act the Dutch, deprived of their Lisbon trade, had to face the alternative of commercial ruin or the gaining of those Eastern products for themselves. They chose the latter course with all its risks. It was soon made possible by the destruction of the Armada.

The Dutch Expeditions to the Indies.—In 1595 their first expedition, led by one Cornelius Houtman, who had sailed in Portuguese galleons, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian domain. The objective point was Java, where an alliance was formed with the native princes and a cargo of pepper secured. Two things were shown by the safe return of this fleet,—the great wealth and profit of the Indian trade, and the inability of Spain and Portugal to maintain their monopoly.

In 1598 the merchants of Amsterdam defeated a combined Spanish and Portuguese fleet in the East, and trading settlements were secured in Java and Johore. In 1605 they carried their factories to Amboina and Tidor.

Effect of the Success of the Dutch.—The exclusive monopoly over the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which Portugal and Spain had maintained for a century, was broken. With the concurrence of the Roman See, they had tried to divide the New World and the Orient between them. That effort was now passed. They had claimed the right to exclude from the vast oceans they had discovered the vessels of every other nation but their own.

This doctrine in the History of International Law is known as that of mare clausum, or “closed sea.” The death-blow to this domination was given by the entrance of the Dutch into the Indies, and it is not a mere coincidence that we find the doctrine of closed sea itself scientifically assailed, a few years later, by the great Dutch jurist, Grotius, the founder of the system of international law in his work, De Libero Mare.

The Trading Methods of the Dutch.—The Dutch made no attempts in the Indies to found great colonies for political domination and religious conversion. Commerce was their sole object. Their policy was to form alliances with native rulers, promising to assist them against the rule of the Portuguese or Spaniard in return for exclusive privileges of trade. In this they were more than successful.

In 1602 they obtained permission to establish a factory at Bantam, on the island of Java. This was even then a considerable trading-point. “Chinese, Arabs, Persians, Moors, Turks, Malabars, Peguans, and merchants from all nations were established there,” the principal object of trade being pepper.2

The character of the treaty made by the Dutch with the king of Bantam is stated by Raffles. “The Dutch stipulated to assist him against foreign invaders, particularly Spaniards and Portuguese; and the king, on his side, agreed to make over to the Dutch a good and strong fort, a free trade, and security for “their persons and property without payment of any duties or taxes, and to allow no other European nation to trade or reside in his territories.”

Spanish Expedition against the Dutch in the Moluccas.—The Spaniards, however, did not relinquish the field to these new foes without a struggle, and the conflict fills the history of the eighteenth century. When the Dutch expelled the Portuguese from Amboina and Tidor in February, 1605, many of the Portuguese came to the Philippines and enlisted in the Spanish forces. The governor, Don Pedro Bravo de Acuña, filled with wrath at the loss of these important possessions, with great activity organized an expedition for their conquest.

In the previous year there had arrived from Spain eight hundred troops, two hundred of them being native Mexicans. Thus Acuña was able to organize a powerful fleet that mounted seventy-five pieces of artillery and carried over fourteen hundred Spaniards and sixteen hundred Indians.3 The fleet sailed in January, 1606. Tidor was taken without resistance and the Dutch factory seized, with a great store of money, goods, and weapons. The Spaniards then assailed Ternate; the fort and plaza were bombarded, and then the town was carried by storm.

Thus, at last was accomplished the adventure which for nearly a century had inspired the ambitions of the Spaniards, which had drawn the fleet of Magellan, which had wrecked the expeditions of Loyasa and Villalobos, for which the Spaniards in the Philippines had prepared expedition after expedition, and for which Governor Dasmariñas had sacrificed his life. At last the Moluccas had been taken by the forces of Spain.

Capture of a Dutch Fleet at Mariveles.—So far from disposing of their enemies, however, this action simply brought the Dutch into the Philippines. In 1609, Juan de Silva became governor of the Islands and in the same year arrived the Dutch admiral, Wittert, with a squadron. After an unsuccessful attack on Iloilo, the Dutch fleet anchored off Mariveles, to capture vessels arriving for the Manila trade.

At this place, on the 25th of April, 1610, the Spanish fleet, which had been hastily fitted at Cavite, attacked the Dutch, killing the admiral and taking all the ships but one, two hundred and fifty prisoners, and a large amount of silver and merchandise. These prisoners seem to have been treated with more mercy than the captives of Van Noort’s fleet, who were hung at Cavite. The wounded are said to have been cared for, and the friars from all the religious orders vied with one another to convert these “Protestant pirates” from their heresy.

An Expedition against the Dutch in Java.—Spain made a truce of her European wars with Holland in 1609, but this cessation of hostilities was never recognized in the East. The Dutch and Spanish colonists continued to war upon and pillage each other until late in the century. Encouraged by his victory over Wittert, Silva negotiated with the Portuguese allies in Goa, India, to drive the Dutch from Java. A powerful squadron sailed from Cavite in 1616 for this purpose. It was the largest fleet which up to that date had ever been assembled in the Philippines. The expedition, however, failed to unite with their Portuguese allies, and in April, Silva died at Malacca of malignant fever.

The Dutch Fleets.—Battles near Corregidor.—The fleet returned to Cavite to find that the city, while stripped of soldiers and artillery, had been in a fever of anxiety and apprehension over the proximity of Dutch vessels. They were those of Admiral Spilbergen, who had arrived by way of the Straits of Magellan and the Pacific. He has left us a chart of the San Bernadino Straits, which is reproduced here. Spilbergen bombarded Ilolio and then sailed for the Moluccas.

A year later he returned, met a Spanish fleet of seven galleons and two galleras near Manila and suffered a severe defeat.4 The battle began with cannonading on Friday, April 13, and continued throughout the day. On the following day the vessels came to close quarters, the Spaniards boarded the Dutch vessels, and the battle was fought out with the sword.

The Dutch were overwhelmed. Probably their numbers were few. The Relacion states they had fourteen galleons, but other accounts put the number at ten, three vessels of which were destroyed or taken by the Spaniards. One of them, the beautiful ship, “The Sun of Holland,” was burned. This combat is known as the battle of Playa Honda. Another engagement took place in the same waters of Corregidor, late in 1624, when a Dutch fleet was driven away without serious loss to either side.

The Dutch Capture Chinese Junks, and Galleons.—But through the intervening years, fleets of the Hollanders were continually arriving, both by the way of the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan. Those that came across the Pacific almost invariably cruised up the Strait of San Bernadino, securing the fresh provisions so desirable to them after their long voyage.

The prizes which they made of Chinese vessels, passing Corregidor for Manila, give us an idea of how considerably the Spaniards in the Philippines relied upon China for their food. Junks, or “champans,” were continually passing Corregidor, laden with chickens, hogs, rice, sugar, and other comestibles.5

The Mexican galleons were frequently destroyed or captured by these lurking fleets of the Dutch, and for a time the route through the Straits of San Bernadino had to be abandoned, the galleons reaching Manila by way of Cape Engano, or sometimes landing in Cagayan, and more than once going ashore on the Pacific side of the island, at Binangonan de Lampon.

The Dutch in Formosa.—The Dutch also made repeated efforts to wrest from Portugal her settlement and trade in China. As early as 1557 the Portuguese had established a settlement on the island of Macao, one of these numerous islets that fill the estuary of the river of Canton. This is the oldest European settlement in China and has been held continuously by the Portuguese until the present day, when it remains almost the last vestige of the once mighty Portuguese empire of the East. It was much coveted by the Dutch because of its importance in the trade with Canton and Fukien.

In 1622 a fleet from Java brought siege to Macao, and, being repulsed, sailed to the Pescadores Islands, where they built a fort and established a post, which threatened both the Portuguese trade with Japan and the Manila trade with Amoy. Two years later, on the solicitation of the Chinese government, the Dutch removed their settlement to Formosa, where they broke up the Spanish mission stations and held the island for the succeeding thirty-five years. Thus, throughout the century, these European powers harassed and raided one another, but no one of them was sufficiently strong to expel the others from the East.

The Portuguese Colonies.—In 1640 the kingdom of Portugal freed itself from the domination of Spain. With the same blow Spain lost the great colonial possessions that came to her with the attachment of the Portuguese. “All the places,” says Zuñiga, “which the Portuguese had in the Indies, separated themselves from the crown of Castile and recognized as king, Don Juan of Portugal.” “This same year,” he adds, “the Dutch took Malacca.”6

The Moros.—Increase of Moro Piracy.—During all these years the raids of the Moros of Maguindanao and Jolo had never ceased. Their piracies were almost continuous. There was no security; churches were looted, priests killed, people borne away for ransom or for slavery. Obviously, this piracy could only be met by destroying it at its source. Defensive fortifications and protective fleets were of no consequence, when compared with the necessity of subduing the Moro in his own lairs. In 1628 and 1630 punitive expeditions were sent against Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao, which drove the Moros from their forts, burned their towns, and cut down their groves of cocoanut trees. But such expeditions served only to inflame the more the wrathful vengeance of the Moro, and in 1635 the government resolved upon a change of policy and the establishment of a presidio at Zamboanga.

Founding of a Spanish Post at Zamboanga.—This brings us to a new phase in the Moro wars. The governor, Juan Cerezo de Salamanca, was determined upon the conquest and the occupation of Mindanao and Jolo. In taking this step, Salamanca, like Corcuera, who succeeded him, acted under the influence of the Jesuits. Their missions in Bohol and northern Mindanao made them ambitious to reserve for the ministrations of their society all lands that were conquered and occupied, south of the Bisayas.

The Jesuits were the missionaries on Ternate and Siao and wherever in the Moluccas and Celebes the Spanish and Portuguese had established their power. The Jesuits had accompanied the expedition of Rodriguez de Figueroa in 1595, and from that date they never ceased petitioning the government for a military occupation of these islands and for their own return, as the missionaries of these regions. The Jesuits were brilliant and able administrators. For men of their ambition, Mindanao, with its rich soil, attractive productions, and comparatively numerous populations, was a most enticing field for the establishment of such a theocratic commonwealth as the Jesuits had created and administered in America.7

On the other hand, the occupation of Zamboanga was strenuously opposed by the other religious orders; but the Jesuits, ever remarkable for their ascendancy in affairs of state, were able to effect the establishment of Zamboanga, though they could not prevent its abandonment a quarter of a century later.

Erection of the Forts.—The presidio was founded in 1635, by a force under Don Juan de Chaves. His army consisted of three hundred Spaniards and one thousand Bisaya, The end of the peninsula was swept of Moro inhabitants and their towns destroyed by fire. In June the foundations of the stone fort were laid under the direction of the Jesuit, Father Vera, who is described as being experienced in military engineering and architecture.

To supply the new site with water, a ditch was built from the river Tumaga, a distance of six or seven miles, which brought a copious stream to the very walls of the fort. The advantage or failure of this expensive fortress is very hard to determine. Its planting was a partisan measure, and it was always subject to partisan praise and partisan blame. Sometimes it seemed to have checked the Moros and sometimes seemed only to be stirring them to fresh anger and aggression.

The same year that saw the establishment of Zamboanga, Hortado de Corcuera became governor of the Philippines. He was much under the influence of the Jesuits and confirmed their policy of conquest.

Defeat of the Moro Pirate Tagal.—A few months later a notable fleet of pirates, recruited from Mindanao, Jolo, and Borneo, and headed by a chieftain named Tagal, a brother of the notorious Correlat, sultan of Maguindanao, went defiantly past the new presidio and northward through the Mindoro Sea. For more than seven months they cruised the Bisayas. The islands of the Camarines especially felt their ravages. In Cuyo they captured the corregidor and three friars. Finally, with 650 captives and rich booty, including the ornaments and services of churches, Tagal turned southward on his return.

The presidio of Zamboanga had prepared to intercept him and a fierce battle took place off the Punta de Flechas, thirty leagues to the northeast of Zamboanga. According to the Spanish writers, this point was one held sacred by Moro superstitions. A deity inhabited these waters, whom the Moros were accustomed to propitiate on the departure and arrival of their expeditions, by throwing into the sea lances and arrows. The victory was a notable one for the Spanish arms. Tagal and more than 300 Moros were killed, and 120 Christian captives were released.

Corcuera’s Expedition against the Moros at Lamítan.—Corcuera had meanwhile been preparing an expedition, which had taken on the character of a holy war. Jesuit and soldier mingled in its company and united in its direction. The Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, was proclaimed patron of the expedition, and mass was celebrated daily on the ships. Corcuera himself accompanied the expedition, and at Zamboanga, where they arrived February 22, 1637, he united a force of 760 Spaniards and many Bisayans and Pampangas.

From Zamboanga the force started for Lamítan, the stronghold of Correlat, and the center of the power of the Maguindanao. It seems to have been situated on the coast, south of the region of Lake Lanao. The fleet encountered rough weather and contrary winds off Punta de Flechas, which they attributed to the influence of the Moro demon.

To rid the locality of this unholy influence, Padre Marcello, the Jesuit superior, occupied himself for two days. Padre Combés has left us an account of the ceremony.8 The demon was dispossessed by exorcism. Mass was celebrated. Various articles, representing Moro infidelity, including arrows, were destroyed and burnt. Holy relics were thrown into the waters, and the place was finally sanctified by baptism in the name of Saint Sebastian.

On the 14th of March the expedition reached Lamítan, fortified and defended by two thousand Moro warriors. The Spanish force, however, was overwhelming, and the city was taken by storm. Here were captured eight bronze cannon, twenty-seven “versos” (a kind of small howitzer), and over a hundred muskets and arquebuses and a great store of Moro weapons. Over one hundred vessels were destroyed, including a fleet of Malay merchant praos from Java. Sixteen villages were burned, and seventy-two Moros were hung. Correlat, though pursued and wounded, was not captured.9

The Conquest of Jolo.—Corcuera returned to Zamboanga and organized an expedition for the conquest of Jolo. Although defended by four thousand Moro warriors and by allies from Basílan and the Celebes, Corcuera took Jolo after some months of siege. The sultan saved himself by flight, but the sultana was taken prisoner. Corcuera reconstructed the fort, established a garrison of two hundred Spaniards and an equal number of Pampangas, left some Jesuit fathers, and, having nominated Major Almonte chief of all the forces in the south, returned in May, 1638, to Manila, with all the triumph of a conqueror.

Almonte continued the work of subjugation. In 1639 he conquered the Moro dato of Buhayen, in the valley of the Rio Grande, where a small presidio was founded. And in the same year the Jesuits prevailed upon him to invade the territory of the Malanao, now known as the Laguna de Lanao. This expedition was made from the north through Iligan, and for a time brought even this warlike and difficult territory under the authority of the governor and the spiritual administration of the Jesuits.

Loss of the Spanish Settlement on Formosa.—The full military success of Corcuera’s governorship was marred by the loss of Macao and the capture of the Spanish settlement on the island of Formosa by the Dutch. In the attempt to hold Macao, Corcuera sent over the encomendero of Pasig, Don Juan Claudio. The populace of Macao, however, rose in tumult, assassinated the governor, Sebastian Lobo, and pronounced in favor of Portugal. Later, by decree of the Portuguese governor of Goa, all the Spanish residents and missionaries were expelled. The Dutch seizure of Formosa, a year later, has already been described.

The Archipelago and the Religious Orders.—During these decades, conflict was almost incessant between the archbishop of Manila and the regular orders. In the Philippines the regulars were the parish curates, and the archbishop desired that all matters of their curacy, touching the administration of the sacraments and other parish duties, should be subject to the direction of the bishops. This question of the “diocesan visit” was fought over for nearly two hundred years.

The Governor and the Archbishop.—Even more serious to the colony were the conflicts that raged between the governor-general and the archbishop. All the points of dissension between Church and State, which vexed the Middle Ages, broke out afresh in the Philippines. The appointment of religious officers; the distribution of revenue; the treatment of the natives; the claim of the church to offer asylum to those fleeing the arm of the law; its claims of jurisdiction, in its ecclesiastical courts, over a large class of civil offenses—these disputes and many others, occasioned almost incessant discord between the heads of civil and ecclesiastical authority.

The “Residencia.”—We have seen that the power of the governor was in fact very large. Theoretically, the Audiencia was a limit upon his authority; but in fact the governor was usually the president of this body, and the oidores were frequently his abettors and rarely his opponents. At the end of each governor’s rule there took place a characteristic Spanish institution, called the “Residencia.” This was a court held by the newly elected governor, for an examination into the conduct of his predecessor. Complaints of every description were received, and often, in the history of the Philippines, one who had ruled the archipelago almost as an independent monarch found himself, at the end of his office, ruined, and in chains.

It was upon the occasion of the Residencia that the ecclesiastical powers, after a governorship stormy with disputes, exercised their power for revenge. Unquestionably many a governor, despite his actual power, facing, as he did, the Residencia at the termination of his rule, made peace with his enemies and yielded to their demands.

Corcuera had continuous troubles with the archbishop and with the religious orders other than the Jesuits. In 1644, when his successor, Fajardo, relieved him, the Franciscans, Augustinians, and Recollects procured his imprisonment and the confiscation of his property. For five years, the conqueror of the Moros lay a prisoner in the fortresses of Santiago and Cavite, when he was pardoned by the Council of the Indies, and appointed governor of the Canaries by the king.

Weakening of the Governor’s Power.—This power of private and religious classes to intimidate and overawe the responsible head of the Philippine government was an abuse which continued to the very close of the Spanish rule. This, together with the relatively short term of the governor’s office, his natural desire to avoid trouble, his all too frequent purpose of amassing a fortune rather than maintaining the dignity of his position and advancing the interests of the Islands, combined decade after decade to make the spiritual authority more powerful. In the end the religious orders, with their great body of members, their hold upon the Filipinos, their high influence at the court, and finally their great landed wealth, governed the Islands.

The Educational Work of the Religious Orders.—In any criticism of the evils connected with their administration of the Philippines, one must not fail to recognize the many achievements of the missionary friars that were worthy. To the Dominicans and the Jesuits is due the establishment of institutions of learning. The Jesuits in 1601 had planted their College of San José. The Dominicans, here as in Europe, the champions of orthodox learning, had their own institution, the College of Santo Tomas, inaugurated in 1619, and were the rivals of the Jesuits for the privilege of giving higher instruction.

In 1645 the pope granted to the Dominicans the right to bestow higher degrees, and their college became the “Royal and Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.” This splendid name breathes that very spirit of the Middle Ages which the Dominican order strove to perpetuate in the Philippines down to modern days.10 Dominicans also founded the College of San Juan de Letran, as a preparatory school to the University.

We should not pass over the educational work of the religious orders without mention of the early printing-plants and their publications. The missionary friars were famous printers, and in the Philippines, as well as in America, some noble volumes were produced by their handicraft.

Founding of Hospitals by the Franciscans.—Nor had the Franciscans in the Philippines neglected the fundamental purpose of their foundation,—that of ministration to the sick and unprotected. A narrative of their order, written in 1649, gives a long list of their beneficent foundations.11 Besides the hospital of Manila, they had an infirmary at Cavite for the native mariners and shipbuilders, a hospital at Los Baños, another in the city of Nueva Caceras. Lay brethren were attached to many of the convents as nurses.

In 1633 a curious occurrence led to the founding of the leper hospital of San Lazaro. The emperor of Japan, in a probably ironical mood, sent to Manila a shipload of Japanese afflicted with this unfortunate disease. These people were mercifully received by the Franciscans, and cared for in a home, which became the San Lazaro hospital for lepers.

Life and Progress of the Filipinos.—Few sources exist that can show us the life and progress of the Filipino people during these decades. Christianity, as introduced by the missionary friars, was wonderfully successful, and yet there were relapses into heathenism. Old religious leaders and priestesses roused up from time to time, and incited the natives to rebellion against their new spiritual masters. The payment of tribute and the labor required for the building of churches often drove the people into the mountains.

Religious Revolt at Bohol and Leyte.—In 1621 a somewhat serious revolt took place on Bohol. The Jesuits who administered the island were absent in Cebu, attending the fiestas on the canonization of Saint Francis Xavier. The whisper was raised that the old heathen deity, Diwata, was at hand to assist in the expulsion of the Spaniards. The island rose in revolt, except the two towns of Loboc and Baclayan. Four towns were burned, the churches sacked, and the sacred images speared. The revolt spread to Leyte, where it was headed by the old dato, Bancao of Limasaua, who had sworn friendship with Legaspi. This insurrection was put down by the alcalde mayor of Cebu and the Filipino leaders were hung. On Leyte, Bancao was speared in battle, and one of the heathen priests suffered the penalty, prescribed by the Inquisition for heresy—death by burning.

Revolt of the Pampangas.—The heavy drafting of natives to fell trees and build the ships for the Spanish naval expeditions and the Acapulco trade was also a cause for insurrection. In 1660 a thousand Pampangas were kept cutting in the forests of that province alone. Sullen at their heavy labor and at the harshness of their overseers, these natives rose in revolt. The sedition spread to Pangasinan, Zambales, and Ilocos, and it required the utmost efforts of the Spanish forces on land and water to suppress the rebellion.

Uprising of the Chinese.—In spite of the terrible massacre, that had been visited upon the Chinese at the beginning of the century, they had almost immediately commenced returning not only as merchants, but as colonists. The early restrictions upon their life must have been relaxed, for in 1639 there were more than thirty thousand living in the Islands, many of them cultivating lands at Calamba and at other points on the Laguna de Bay.

In that year a rebellion broke out, in which the Chinese in Manila participated. They seized the church of San Pedro Mecati, on the Pasig, and fortified themselves. From there they were routed by a combined Filipino and Spanish force. The Chinese then broke up into small bands, which scattered through the country, looting and murdering, but being pursued and cut to pieces by the Filipinos. For five months this pillage and massacre went on, until seven thousand Chinese were destroyed. By the loss of these agriculturists and laborers Manila was reduced to great distress.

Activity of the Moro Pirates.—The task of the Spaniards in controlling the Moro datos continued to be immensely difficult. During the years following the successes of Corcuera and Almonte, the Moros were continually plotting. Aid was furnished from Borneo and the Celebes, and they were further incited by the Dutch. In spite of the vigilance of Zamboanga, small piratical excursions continually harassed the Bisayas and the Camarines.

Continued Conflicts with the Dutch.—The Dutch, too, from time to time showed themselves in Manila. In 1646 a squadron attacked Zamboanga, and then came north to Luzon. The Spanish naval strength was quite unprepared; but two galleons, lately arrived from Acapulco, were fitted with heavy guns, Dominican friars took their places among the gunners, and, under the protection of the Virgin of the Rosary, successfully encountered the enemy.

A year later a fleet of twelve vessels entered Manila Bay, and nearly succeeded in taking Cavite. Failing in this, they landed in Bataan province, and for some time held the coast of Manila Bay in the vicinity of Abucay. The narrative of Franciscan missions in 1649, above cited, gives town after town in southern Luzon, where church and convent had been burned by the Moros or the Dutch.

The Abandonment of Zamboanga and the Moluccas.—The threat of the Dutch made the maintenance of the presidio of Zamboanga very burdensome. In 1656 the administration of the Moluccas was united with that of Mindanao, and the governor of the former, Don Francisco de Esteybar, was transferred from Ternate to Zamboanga and made lieutenant-governor and captain-general of all the provinces of the south.

Six years later, the Moluccas, so long coveted by the Spaniards, and so slowly won by them, together with Zamboanga, were wholly abandoned, and to the Spice Islands the Spaniards were never to return. This sudden retirement from their southern possessions was not, however, occasioned by the incessant restlessness of the Moros nor by the plottings of the Dutch. It was due to a threat of danger from the north.

Koxinga the Chinese Adventurer.—In 1644, China was conquered by the Manchus. Pekin capitulated at once and the Ming dynasty was overthrown, but it was only by many years of fighting that the Manchus overcame the Chinese of the central and southern provinces. These were years of turbulence, revolt, and piracy.

More than one Chinese adventurer rose to a romantic position during this disturbed time. One of these adventurers, named It Coan, had been a poor fisherman of Chio. He had lived in Macao, where he had been converted to Christianity, and had been a cargador, or cargo-bearer, in Manila. He afterwards went to Japan, and engaged in trade. From these humble and laborious beginnings, like many another of his persistent countrymen, he gained great wealth, which on the conquest of the Manchus he devoted to piracy.

His son was the notorious Kue-Sing, or Koxinga, who for years resisted the armies of the Manchus, and maintained an independent power over the coasts of Fukien and Chekiang. About 1660 the forces of the Manchus became too formidable for him to longer resist them upon the mainland, and Koxinga determined upon the capture of Formosa and the transference of his kingdom to that island.

For thirty-eight years this island had been dominated by the Dutch, whose fortresses commanded the channel of the Pescadores. The colony was regarded as an important one by the Dutch colonial government at Batavia. The city of Tai-wan, on the west coast, was a considerable center of trade. It was strongly protected by the fortress of Zealand, and had a garrison of twenty-two hundred Dutch soldiers. After months of fighting, Koxinga, with an overpowering force of Chinese, compelled the surrender of the Hollanders and the beautiful island passed into his power.

A Threatened Invasion of the Philippines.—Exalted by his success against European arms, Koxinga resolved upon the conquest of the Philippines. He summoned to his service the Italian Dominican missionary, Ricci, who had been living in the province of Fukien, and in the spring of 1662 dispatched him as an ambassador to the governor of the Philippines to demand the submission of the archipelago.

Manila was thrown into a terrible panic by this demand, and indeed no such danger had threatened the Spanish in the Philippines since the invasion of Limahong. The Chinese conqueror had an innumerable army, and his armament, stores, and navy had been greatly augmented by the surrender of the Dutch. The Spaniards, however, were united on resistance. The governor, Don Sabiano Manrique de Lara, returned a defiant answer to Koxinga, and the most radical measures were adopted to place the colony in a state of defense.

All Chinese were ordered immediately to leave the Islands. Fearful of massacre, these wretched people again broke out in rebellion, and assaulted the city. Many were slain, and other bands wandered off into the mountains, where they perished at the hands of the natives. Others, escaping by frail boats, joined the Chinese colonists on Formosa. Churches and convents in the suburbs of Manila, which might afford shelter to the assailant, were razed to the ground. More than all this, the Moluccas were forsaken, never again to be recovered by Spaniards; and the presidios of Zamboanga and Cuyo, which served as a kind of bridle on the Moros of Jolo and Mindanao, were abandoned. All Spanish troops were concentrated in Manila, fortifications were rebuilt, and the population waited anxiously for the attack. But the blow never fell. Before Ricci arrived at Tai-wan, Koxinga was dead, and the peril of Chinese invasion had passed.

Effects of These Events.—But the Philippines had suffered irretrievable loss. Spanish prestige was gone. Manila was no longer, as she had been at the commencement of the century, the capital of the East. Spanish sovereignty was again confined to Luzon and the Bisayas. The Chinese trade, on which rested the economic prosperity of Manila, had once again been ruined. For a hundred years the history of the Philippines is a dull monotony, quite unrelieved by any heroic activity or the presence of noble character.12

Political Decline of the Philippines.—For the hundred years succeeding the abandonment of the Moluccas, the Philippines lost all political significance as a colony. From almost every standpoint they were profitless to Spain. There were continued deficits, which had to be made good from the Mexican treasury. The part of Spain in the conquest of the East was over, and the Philippines became little more than a great missionary establishment, presided over by the religious orders.

Death of Governor Salcedo by the Inquisition.—In 1663, Lara was succeeded by Don Diego de Salcedo. On his arrival, Manila had high hopes of him, which were speedily disappointed. He loaded the Acapulco galleon with his own private merchandise, and then dispatched it earlier than was usual, before the cargoes of the merchants were ready. He engaged in a wearisome strife with the archbishop, and seems to have worried the ecclesiastic, who was aged and feeble, into his grave. At the end of a few years he was hated by every one, and a conspiracy against him was formed which embraced the religious, the army, the civil officials, and the merchants. Beyond the reach of the power of ordinary plotters, he fell a victim to the commissioner of the Inquisition.

The Spanish Inquisition, which wrought such cruelty and misery in the Peninsula, was carried also to the Spanish colonies. As we have seen, it was primarily the function of the Dominican order to administer the institution. The powers exercised by an inquisitor can scarcely be understood at the present day. His methods were secret, the charges were not made public, the whole proceedings were closeted, and yet so great were the powers of this court that none could resist its authority, or inquire into its actions. Spain forbade any heretics, Jews, or Moors going to the colonies, and did the utmost to prevent heresy abroad. She also established in America the Inquisition itself. Fortunately, it never attained the importance in the Philippines that it had in Spain. In the Philippines there was no “Tribunal,” the institution being represented solely by a commissioner.

Death of the Governor.—In 1667, when the unpopularity of Governor Salcedo was at its height, this commissioner professed to discover in him grounds of heresy from the fact that he had been born in Flanders, and decided to avenge the Church by encompassing his ruin. By secret arrangement, the master of the camp withdrew the guard from the palace, and the commissioner, with several confederates, gained admission. The door of the governor’s room was opened by an old woman, who had been terrified into complicity, and the governor was seized sleeping, with his arms lying at the head of his bed.

The commissioner informed the governor that he was a prisoner of the Holy Office. He was taken to the convent of the Augustinians. Here he was kept in chains until he could be sent to Mexico, to appear before the Tribunal there. The government in Mexico annulled the arrest of the commissioner, but Salcedo died at sea on the return of the vessel to the Philippines in 1669.

Colonization of the Ladrone Islands.—In 1668 a Jesuit mission under Padre Diego Luis de Sanvítores was established on the Ladrones, the first of the many mission stations, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, in the South Pacific. The islands at that time were well populated and fertile, and had drawn the enthusiasm of Padre Sanvítores in 1662 when he first sailed to the Philippines.

The hostility of the Manchus in China, the Japanese persecutions, and the abandonment of Mindanao had closed many mission fields, and explains the eagerness with which the Jesuits sought the royal permission to Christianize these islands, which had been so constantly visited by Spanish ships but never before colonized. With Padre Sanvítores and his five Jesuit associates were a number of Christian Filipino catechists.

Settlement of Guam.—The mission landed at Guam, and was favorably received. Society among these islanders was divided into castes. The chiefs were known as chamorri, which has led to the natives of the Ladrones being called “Chamorros.” A piece of ground was given the Jesuits for a church at the principal town called Agadna (Agaña), and here also a seminary was built for the instruction of young men. The queen regent of Spain, Maria of Austria, gave an annual sum to this school, and in her honor the Jesuits changed the name of the islands to the Marianas. The Jesuits preached on eleven inhabited islands of the group, and in a year’s time had baptized thirteen thousand islanders and given instruction to twenty thousand.

Troubles with the Natives at Guam.—This first year was the most successful in the history of the mission. Almost immediately after, the Jesuits angered the islanders by compulsory conversions. There were quarrels in several places, and priests, trying to baptize children against the wishes of their parents, were killed. In 1670 the Spaniards were attacked, and obliged to fortify themselves at Agaña.

The Jesuits had a guard of a Spanish captain and about thirty Spanish and Filipino soldiers, who, after some slaughter of the natives, compelled them to sue for peace. The conditions imposed by the Jesuits were that the natives should attend mass and festivals, have their children baptized, and send them to be catechised. The hatred of the natives was unabated, however, and in 1672 Sanvítores was killed by them. His biographer claims that at his death he had baptized nearly fifty thousand of these islanders.1

Depopulation of the Ladrone Islands.—About 1680 a governor was sent to the islands, and they were organized as a dependency of Spain. The policy of the governors and the Jesuits was conversion by the sword. The natives were persecuted from island to island, and in the history of European settlements there is hardly one that had more miserable consequences to the inhabitants. Disease was introduced and swept off large numbers. Others fell resisting the Spaniards, and an entire island was frequently depopulated by order of the governor, or the desire of the Jesuits to have the natives brought to Guam. Many, with little doubt, fled to other archipelagoes.

If we can trust the Jesuit accounts, there were in the whole group one hundred thousand inhabitants when the Spaniards arrived. A generation saw them almost extinct. Dampier, who touched at Guam in 1686, says then that on the island, where the Spaniards had found thirty thousand people, there were not above one hundred natives. In 1716 and 1721 other voyagers announced the number of inhabitants on Guam at two thousand, but only one other island of the group was populated. When Anson in 1742 visited Guam, the number had risen to four thousand, and there were a few hundred inhabitants on Rota; but these seem to have been the whole population. The original native population certainly very nearly touched extinction. The islands were from time to time colonized from the Philippines, and the present population is very largely of Filipino blood.

Conflicts between Governor and Archbishop.—Meanwhile, in the Philippines the conflict of the governor with the archbishop and the friars continued. The conduct of both sides was selfish and outrageous. In 1683 the actions of Archbishop Pardo became so violent and seditious that the Audiencia decreed his banishment to Pangasinan or Cagayan. He was taken by force to Lingayan, where he was well accommodated but kept under surveillance. The Dominicans retaliated by excommunication, and the Audiencia thereupon banished the provincial of the order from the Islands, and sent several other friars to Mariveles.

But the year following, Governor Vargas was relieved by the arrival of his successor, who was favorable to the ecclesiastical side of the controversy. The archbishop returned and assumed a high hand. He suspended and excommunicated on all sides. The oidores were banished from the city, and all died in exile in remote portions of the archipelago. The ex-governor-general, Vargas, being placed under the spiritual ban, sued for pardon and begged that his repentance be recognized.

The archbishop sentenced him to stand daily for the space of four months at the entrances to the churches of the city and of the Parian, and in the thronged quarter of Binondo, attired in the habit of a penitent, with a rope about his neck and carrying a lighted candle in his hand. He was, however, able to secure a mitigation of this sentence, but was required to live absolutely alone in a hut on an island in the Pasig River. He was sent a prisoner to Mexico in 1689, but died upon the voyage.

The various deans and canons who had concurred in the archbishop’s banishment, as well as other religious with whom the prelate had had dissensions, were imprisoned or exiled. The bodies of two oidores were, on their death and after their burial, disinterred and their bones profaned.

Degeneration of the Colony under Church Rule.—Archbishop Pardo died in 1689, but the strife and confusion which had been engendered continued. There were quarrels between the archbishop and the friars, between the prelate and the governor. All classes seem to have shared the bitterness and the hatred of these unhappy dissensions.

The moral tone of the whole colony during the latter part of the seventeenth century was lowered. Corruption flourished everywhere, and the vigor of the administration decayed. Violence went unrebuked, and the way was open for the deplorable tragedy in which this strife of parties culminated. Certainly no governor could have been more supine, and shown greater incapacity and weakness of character, than the one who ruled in the time of Archbishop Pardo and those that succeeded him.

Improvements Made by Governor Bustamante.—Enrichment of the Treasury.—In the year 1717, however, came a governor of a different type, Fernando Manuel de Bustamante. He was an old soldier, stern of character and severe in his measures. He found the treasury robbed and exhausted. Nearly the whole population of Manila were in debt to the public funds. Bustamante ordered these amounts paid, and to compel their collection he attached the cargo of silver arriving by the galleon from Acapulco. This cargo was owned by the religious companies, officials, and merchants, all of whom were indebted to the government. In one year of his vigorous administration he raised the sum of three hundred thousand pesos for the treasury.

With sums of money again at the disposal of the state, Bustamante attempted to revive the decayed prestige and commerce of the Islands.

Refounding of Zamboanga.—In 1718 he refounded and rebuilt the presidio of Zamboanga. Not a year had passed, since its abandonment years before, that the pirates from Borneo and Mindanao had failed to ravage the Bisayas. The Jesuits had petitioned regularly for its reëstablishment, and in 1712 the king had decreed its reoccupation. The citadel was rebuilt on an elaborate plan under the direction of the engineer, Don Juan Sicarra. Besides the usual barracks, storehouses, and arsenals, there were, within the walls, a church, hospital, and cuartel for the Pampangan soldiers. Sixty-one cannon were mounted upon the defenses. Upon the petition of the Recollects, Bustamante also established a presidio at Labo, at the southern point of the island of Paragua, whose coasts were attacked by the Moros from Sulu and Borneo.

Treaty with Siam.—In the same year he sent an embassy to Siam, with the idea of stimulating the commerce which had flourished a century before. The reception of this embassy was most flattering; a treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce was made, and on ground ceded to the Spaniards was begun the erection of a factory.

Improvements in the City of Manila.—How far this brave and determined man might have revived the colony it is impossible to say. The population of Manila, both ecclesiastical and civil, was at this time so sunk in corruption and so degenerate as to make almost impossible any recuperation except under the rule of a man equally determined as Bustamante, but ruling for a long period of time. He had not hesitated to order investigations into the finances of the Islands, which disclosed defalcations amounting to seven hundred thousand pesos. He fearlessly arrested the defaulters, no matter what their station. The whole city was concerned in these peculations, consequently the utmost fear and apprehension existed on all sides; and Bustamante, hated as well as dreaded, was compelled to enforce his reforms single-handed.

His Murder.—He was opposed by the friars and defied by the archbishop, but, notwithstanding ecclesiastical condemnation, he went to the point of ordering the arrest of the prelate. The city rose in sedition, and a mob, headed by friars, proceeded to the palace of the governor, broke in upon him, and, as he faced them alone and without support, killed him in cold blood (October 11, 1719).

The archbishop proclaimed himself governor and president of the Audiencia. The oidores and officials who had been placed under arrest by Bustamante were released, and his work overthrown. The new government had neither the courage nor the inclination to continue Bustamante’s policy, and in 1720 the archbishop called a council of war, which decreed the abandonment of the fort at Labo.

When the news of this murder reached Spain, the king ordered an investigation and the punishment of the guilty, and in 1721 Governor Torre Campo arrived to put these mandates into execution. The culprits, however, were so high and so influential that the governor did not dare proceed against them; and although the commands of the king were reiterated in 1724, the assassins of Bustamante were never brought to justice.

Treaty with the Sultan of Jolo.—In spite of the cowardly policy of the successors of Bustamante, the presidio of Zamboanga was not abandoned. So poorly was it administered, however, that it was not effective to prevent Moro piracy, and the attacks upon the Bisaya and Calamianes continued. In 1721 a treaty was formed with the sultan of Jolo providing for trade between Manila and Jolo, the return or ransom of captives, and the restitution to Spain of the island of Basílan.

The Moro Pirates of Tawi Tawi.—To some extent this treaty seems to have prevented assaults from Jolo, but in 1730 the Moros of Tawi Tawi fell upon Paragua and the Calamianes, and in 1731 another expedition from the south spent nearly a whole year cruising and destroying among the Bisayas.

Deplorable State of Spanish Defenses.—The defenses of the Spaniards during these many decades were continually in a deplorable state, their arms were wretched, and, except in moments of great apprehension, no attention was given to fortifications, to the preservation of artillery, nor to the supply of ammunition. Sudden attacks ever found the Spaniards unprepared. Military unreadiness was the normal condition of this archipelago from these early centuries down to the destruction of the Spanish armament by the American fleet.

The Economic Policy of Spain.—Restrictions of Trade.—During the closing years of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, commerce seemed to have been actually paralyzed. That brilliant trade which is described by Morga, and which was at its height about 1605, was a few years later defeated by the miserable economic policy of Spain, pandering to the demands of the merchants of Cadiz and Seville.

Spain’s economic policy had only in view benefits to the Peninsula. “The Laws of the Indies” abound with edicts for the purpose of limiting and crippling colonial commerce and industry, wherever it was imagined that it might be prejudicial to the protected industries of Spain. The manufacturers of Seville wished to preserve the colonies, both of America and of the Indies, as markets for their monopoly wares; and in this policy, for two centuries, they had the support of the crown. The growing trade between Mexico and the Philippines had early been regarded with suspicion, and legislation was framed to reduce it to the lowest point compatible with the existence of the colony.

None of the colonies of America could conduct commerce with the Philippines except Mexico, and here all communication must pass through the port of Acapulco. This trade was limited to the passage of a single vessel a year. In 1605 two galleons were permitted, but their size was reduced to three hundred tons. They were allowed to carry out 500,000 pesos of silver, but no more than 250,000 pesos’ worth of Chinese products could be returned. Neither the Spaniards of Mexico nor any part of America could traffic directly with China, nor could Spanish vessels pass from Manila to the ports of Asia. Only those goods could be bought which Chinese merchants themselves brought to the Philippines.

Selfishness of Merchants in Spain.—Even these restrictions did not satisfy the jealousy of the merchants of Spain. They complained that the royal orders limiting the traffic were not regarded, and they insisted upon so vexatious a supervision of this commerce, and surrounded infractions of the law with such terrible penalties, that the trade was not maintained even to the amount permitted by law. Spanish merchants even went to the point of petitioning for the abandonment of the Philippines, on the ground that the importations from China were prejudicial to the industry of the Peninsula.

The colonists upon the Pacific coast of America suffered from the lack of those commodities demanded by civilized life, which could only reach them as they came from Spain through the port of Porto Bello and the Isthmus of Panama. Without question, an enormous and beneficial commerce could have been conducted by the Philippines with the provinces of western America.2

Trade Between South America and the Philippines Forbidden.—But this traffic was absolutely forbidden, and to prevent Chinese and Philippine goods from entering South America, the trade between Mexico and Peru was in 1636 wholly suppressed by a decree. This decree, as it stands upon the pages of the great Recopilacion, is an epitome of the insane economic policy of the Spaniard. It cites that whereas “it had been permitted that from Peru to New Spain there should go each year two vessels for commerce and traffic to the amount of two hundred thousand ducats [which later had been reduced to one hundred thousand ducats], and because there had increased in Peru to an excessive amount the commerce in the fabrics of China, in spite of the many prohibitions that had been imposed, and in order absolutely to remove the occasion for the future, we order and command the officers of Peru and New Spain that they invariably prohibit and suppress this commerce and traffic between the two kingdoms by all the channels through which it is conducted, maintaining this prohibition firmly and continually for the future.”3

In 1718 the merchants of Seville and Cadiz still complained that their profits were being injured by even the limited importation of Chinese silks into Mexico. Thereupon absolute prohibition of import of Chinese silks, either woven or in thread, was decreed. Only linens, spices, and supplies of such things as were not produced in Spain could be brought into Mexico. This order was reaffirmed in 1720, with the provision that six months would be allowed the people of Mexico to consume the Chinese silks which they had in their possession, and thereafter all such goods must be destroyed.

Ineffectiveness of These Restrictions.—These measures, while ruining the commerce of the Philippines, were as a matter of fact ineffective to accomplish the result desired. Contraband trade between China and America sprang up in violation of the law. Silks to the value of four million pesos were annually smuggled into America.4 In 1734 the folly and uselessness of such laws was somewhat recognized by the Council of the Indies, and a cedula was issued restoring the permission to trade in Chinese silks and raising the value of cargoes destined for Acapulco to five hundred thousand pesos, and the quantity of silver for return to one million pesos. The celebrated traffic of the galleon was resumed and continued until the year 1815.

An Attempt to Colonize the Carolines.—Southeastward of the Philippines, in that part of the Pacific which is known as Micronesia, there is an archipelago of small islands called the Carolines. The westernmost portion of the group also bear the name of the Pelews, or Palaos. Inasmuch as these islands were eventually acquired by Spain and remained in her possession down to the year 1898, it may be well to state something at this time of the attempt made by the Jesuits in 1731 to colonize them.

Certain of these little islands were seen several times by expeditions crossing the Pacific as early as the latter part of the sixteenth century, but after the trade between Mexico and the Philippines had been definitely settled upon, a fixed course was followed westward from Acapulco to Guam, from which there was little variation, and during the seventeenth century these islands passed quite out of mind; but in the year 1696 a party of natives, twenty men and ten women, were driven by storms far from their home in the Carolines upon the eastern coast of Samar. It seems that similar parties of castaways from the Pelew and Caroline Islands had been known to reach Mindanao and other parts of the Philippines at an even earlier date. These last came under the observation of the Jesuit priests on Samar, who baptized them, and, learning from them of the archipelago from which they had been carried, were filled with missionary ambition to visit and Christianize these Pacific islanders.

This idea was agitated by the Jesuits, until about 1730 royal permission was granted to the enterprise. A company of Jesuits in the following year sailed for the Ladrones and thence south until the Carolines were discovered. They landed on a small island not far from Yap. Here they succeeded in baptizing numerous natives and in establishing a mission. Fourteen of their number, headed by the priest, Padre Cantava, remained on the island while the expedition returned to secure reënforcements and supplies. Unfortunately, this succor was delayed for more than a year, and when Spanish vessels with missionary reënforcements on board again reached the Carolines in 1733, the mission had been entirely destroyed and the Spaniards, with Padre Cantava, had been killed. These islands have been frequently called the “New Philippines.”

Conditions of the Filipinos during the Eighteenth Century.—During the most of the eighteenth century, data are few upon the condition of the Filipino people. There seems to have been little progress. Conditions certainly were against the social or intellectual advance of the native race. Perhaps, however, their material well-being was quite as great during these years, when little was attempted, as during the governorships of the more ambitious and enterprising Spaniards who had characterized the earlier period of Philippine history.

Provincial Governments.—Provincial administration seems to have fallen almost wholly into the hands of the missionaries. The priests made themselves the local rulers throughout the Christianized portion of the archipelago.

Insurrection in Bohol.—Insurrection seems especially to have troubled the island of Bohol during most of the eighteenth century, and in 1750 an insurrection broke out which practically established the independence of a large portion of the island, and which was not suppressed for thirty-five years. The trouble arose in the town of Inabanga, where the Jesuit priest Morales had greatly antagonized and imbittered the natives by his severity. Some apostasized, and went to the hills. One of these men was killed by the orders of the priest and his body refused Christian burial, and left uncared for and exposed.

A brother of this man, named Dagóhoy, infuriated by this indignity, headed a sedition which shortly included three thousand natives. The priest was killed, and his own body left by the road unburied. In spite of the efforts of the alcalde of Cebu, Dagóhoy was able to maintain himself, and practically established a small native state, which remained until the occupation of the island by the Recollects, after the Jesuits had been expelled from the Spanish dominions.

Activity of the Jesuits.—During the eighteenth century the Jesuits alone of the religious orders seemed to have been active in prosecuting their efforts and seeking new fields for conversion. The sloth and inactivity which overcame the other orders place in greater contrast the ambition and the activities, both secular and spiritual, of the Jesuits.

Conversion of the Sultan Alim ud Din.—In 1747 they established a mission even on Jolo. They were unable to overcome the intense antagonism of the Moro panditas and datos, but they apparently won the young sultan, Alim ud Din, whose strange story and shifting fortunes have been variously told. One of the Jesuits, Padre Villelmi, was skilled in the Arabic language, and this familiarity with the language and literature of Mohammedanism doubtless explains his ascendency over the mind of the sultan. Alim ud Din was not a strong man. His power over the subordinate datos was small, and in 1748 his brother, Bantilan, usurped his place and was proclaimed sultan of Jolo.

Alim ud Din, with his family and numerous escort, came to Zamboanga, seeking the aid of the Spanish against his brother. From Zamboanga he was sent to Manila. On his arrival, January 3, 1749, he was received with all the pomp and honor due to a prince of high rank. A house for his entertainment and his retinue of seventy persons was prepared in Binondo. A public entrance was arranged, which took place some fifteen days after his reaching the city. Triumphal arches were erected across the streets, which were lined with more than two thousand native militia under arms. The sultan was publicly received in the hall of the Audiencia, where the governor promised to lay his case before the king of Spain. The sultan was showered with presents, which included chains of gold, fine garments, precious gems, and gold canes, while the government sustained the expense of his household.5

Following this reception, steps were taken for his conversion. His spiritual advisers cited to him the example of the Emperor Constantine whose conversion enabled him to effect triumphant conquests over his enemies. Under these representations Alim ud Din expressed his desire for baptism. The governor-general, who at this time was a priest, the bishop of Nueva Segovia, was very anxious that the rite should take place; but this was opposed by his spiritual superior, the archbishop of Manila, who, with some others, entertained doubts as to the sincerity of the sultan’s profession.

In order to accomplish his baptism, the governor sent him to his own diocese, where at Paniqui, on the 29th of April, 1750, the ceremony took place with great solemnity. On the return of the party to Manila, the sultan was received with great pomp, and in his honor were held games, theatrical representations, fire-works, and bull-fights. This was the high-water mark of the sultan’s popularity.

Failure to Reinstate Alim ud Din.—Meanwhile the usurper, Bantilan, was giving abundant evidence of his hostility. The Spaniards were driven from Jolo, and the fleets of the Moros again ravaged the Bisayas. In July arrived the new governor, the Marquis of Obando, who determined to restore Alim ud Din and suppress the Moro piracy.

An expedition set sail, with the sultan on board, and went as far as Zamboanga, but accomplished nothing. Here the conduct of the sultan served to confirm the doubts of the Spaniards as to the sincerity of his friendship. He was arrested, and returned to Manila, and imprisoned in the fortress of Santiago. With varying treatment he remained in the hands of the Spaniards until 1763, when he was returned to Jolo by the English.

Great Increase in Moro Piracy.—The year 1754 is stated to have been the bloodiest in the history of Moro piracy. No part of the Bisayas escaped ravaging in this year, while the Camarines, Batangas, and Albay suffered equally with the rest. The conduct of the pirates was more than ordinarily cruel. Priests were slain, towns wholly destroyed, and thousands of captives were carried south into Moro slavery. The condition of the Islands at the end of this year was probably the most deplorable in their history.

Reforms under General Arandía.—The demoralization and misery with which Obando’s rule closed were relieved somewhat by the capable government of Arandía, who succeeded him. Arandía was one of the few men of talent, energy, and integrity who stood at the head of affairs in these islands during two centuries.

He reformed the greatly disorganized military force, establishing what was known as the “Regiment of the King,” made up very largely of Mexican soldiers. He also formed a corps of artillerists composed of Filipinos. These were regular troops, who received from Arandía sufficient pay to enable them to live decently and like an army.

He reformed the arsenal at Cavite, and, in spite of opposition on all sides, did something to infuse efficiency and honesty into the government. At the head of the armament which had been sent against the Moros he placed a Jesuit priest, Father Ducos. A capable officer was also sent to command the presidio at Zamboanga, and while Moro piracy was not stopped, heavy retaliation was visited upon the pirates.

Arandía’s most popular act of government was the expulsion of the Chinese from the provinces, and in large part from the city. They seem to have had in their hands then, perhaps even more than now, the commerce or small trade between Manila and provincial towns. To take over this trade, Arandía founded a commercial company of Spaniards and mestizos, which lasted only for a year. The Christianized Chinese were allowed to remain under license, and for those having shops in Manila Arandía founded the Alcayceria of San Fernando. It consisted of a great square of shops built about an open interior. It stood in Binondo, on the present Calle de San Fernando, in what is still a populous Chinese quarter.

Death of Arandía and Decline of the Colony.—Arandía died in May, 1759, and the government was assumed by the bishop of Cebu, who in turn was forced from his position by the arrival of the archbishop of Manila, Don Manuel Rojo. The archbishop revoked the celebrated orders of good government which Arandía had put into force, and the colony promised to relapse once more into its customary dormant condition. This was, however, prevented by an event which brought to an end the long period of obscurity and inertia under which the colony had been gradually decaying, and introduced, in a way, a new period of its history. This was the capture of the Philippine Islands by the British in 1762.