Chapter 13

The governor established a shipyard this year in the province of Camarines--which is a part of this island of Manila--in order to build a couple of galleons, two or three galleys, and a like number of brigantines, for there was need of all. For that purpose he sent some Spaniards, and a number of Chinese and Indians, to build the ships; a considerable quantity of iron for nails, much rice for food, four pieces of artillery to garrison themselves, and, in short, all that was necessary. They settled at the said place and began their building. The king of Jolo left his island, which was subject and tributary for a long time, and it was years since he was rebellious. He went out with two thousand men, in more than thirty caracoas, which are called _joangas_ when they are large. He came among our islands, and first captured from us a ship and a quantity of iron (which is an article that they esteem highly). They also captured balls, fuses, and all that the ship was carrying to the shipyard. Then they captured another ship from us with sixty Indians and two Spaniards, who were going to cut wood for the building of the ships. They had interpreters, and found out where the shipyard was located. They went there before dawn, landed seven hundred well-armed men, and commenced to kill and rob. The Spaniards were quite off their guard, and had not fortified themselves and mounted the artillery, as they ought to have done. They quickly seized their arms, and began to fire their arquebuses. The enemy first killed for us two of our Spaniards, whereupon only twelve Spaniards were left. Of the other men the enemy took no account, for many were already captured or killed. Some tried to flee, and some sought the shelter of our arquebuses in a storehouse where the provisions were kept, where the Spaniards had retired, and where they remained fighting, because of their few number, until shortly after midday. By that time five of them were wounded, and only seven were left who could fight. They ran short of ammunition and fuses, because the enemy had taken them, as I have said. Thereupon, they resolved to embark in a large boat which they had, back of the said storehouse on a river, his Majesty's silver, all the arms, the women and children, and the other Indians who had taken shelter there. Immediately the twelve Spaniards, both the wounded and the sound, embarked, and went up the river. Therefore, the camp was left to the king of Jolo and his men. They remained there for some days, eating and drinking as if in their own homes. They embarked the four pieces of artillery which our men could not take, and collected all the iron that they could load into their ships; and even then they did not take all that there was, for there was much of it. Consequently, they left a great part of it ashore. They robbed many things of value, and a great quantity of rice which they found--a matter of about one thousand fanegas--they scattered and threw into the sea, for they had no need of it. They killed and captured many, and among them a Spanish woman, and thereupon they retired triumphant. However they were surprised that so few Castilians, as they say, made front for so long against so many of their men. The king left a letter for the governor; and one of the seigniors of Europa could not apparently write more prudently or in more just manner. He said in the letter that he had made that demonstration because a chief of his named Achen, having been sent as ambassador to Manila, had been ill-treated here. He had been thrust into prison and his possessions taken away from him, among them three exceedingly beautiful pearls of extraordinary size, such as are obtained in that kingdom and island. It is a fact that all the above was done to his ambassador Achen; but the reason for it was because, after he had been honorably despatched from Manila in order that he might return to his country, he sailed out with his vessel, which resembled a beautiful small galley, pillaging all whom he met. Consequently, men were sent against him; and they captured him on his way and took him to Manila, where they took away his possessions and imprisoned him. Although they might have hanged him, they did not do so, but despatched him to his country once more. He returned thence for the second time as ambassador, with a very haughty and arrogant message. They sent him away, and he went to the limits of these Filipinas Islands; and as soon as he thought that he would be safe, began to pillage, and took refuge [with his allies]. Accordingly the king of Jolo was ill informed in what he wrote. The latter, on leaving the shipyard, attacked another of our islands, called Bantayan, where he was resisted by three Spaniards and one secular priest with arquebuses, until their powder was gone. That happened during the night; and then the Spaniards and the ecclesiastic retired, whereupon the Joloans landed. Inasmuch as the island abounds in certain large thorns, which form its greatest defense against a barefooted enemy, such as are the Joloans, they wore as a protection certain wooden shoes resembling coarse leather sandals [_abarca_] with which they landed. They captured many of the natives. Then they attacked Ogonuc, a village in charge of the fathers of the Society, and pillaged it, as well as what our house and church contained, even to the bells. The father was not there, and so they did not capture him. The enemy took heavy spoils in everything; but, what was a cause for greater pain, they captured more than three hundred Indians. They sell them as slaves to heathen kingdoms, and in the end the slaves become like the masters. While the above was happening, as report of it had already gone forth, the commandant of Cebu and lieutenant of the captain-general, Christobal de Lugo, prepared his fleet of caracoas, in order to go out to engage the enemy and take away their booty. He sailed out and sighted the enemy at two in the afternoon. The enemy, seeing him, began to flee; and in order to do so with greater freedom, abandoned astern some eight small boats boats--a matter of small importance. Our fleet continued to pursue them, but they put so much strength into their rowing that they distanced our men. Their craft are extremely swift, and have two prows, so that it is unnecessary to turn about in order to flee. The night descended, and the enemy escaped, to the great grief of our men. They, seeing the so great disaster that was happening to us, and that the enemy had gone away making a jest of us, sent Father Fabricio Sarsali of our Society from the city of Cebu with orders to go to Manila to inform the governor, and get permission from him to go to seek the enemy in their own country. For that purpose they needed food, some silver, and some soldiers, besides those that they had there. The father came, negotiated successfully, and all that he requested was given him; and they were ordered to go to punish the Joloan enemy. However they were not to approach a strong fort that the Joloans had on a hill on top of a steep rock, as that was a very dangerous undertaking, where twice in former years the Spaniards had been defeated. Accordingly, the capture of that fort required a greater force and a more favorable opportunity. The father returned with his despatch. The caracoas of the island of Oton and those of Cebu were prepared, which formed, as it were, two squadrons. Many other caracoas of volunteer Indian chiefs joined them, so that all together they numbered thirty or forty. About two hundred Spaniards and more than one thousand six hundred Indians embarked in them. On April 22, they reached the beach of the island of Jolo. At one o'clock of the day, the commander landed one hundred Spaniards and a number of Indians, leaving the other men behind for the defense of the fleet so that it might come to no hurt. They espied a flourishing settlement, of which they had hitherto had no information; for the king and his men live on top of the hill, for greater safety. But, being desirous of enjoying trade and commerce with other kingdoms, they had built that city. Between it and us was the river. Seeing that this matter was one of quickness and determination, they immediately crossed the river, part in boats, but the majority in water up to their waists. They attacked the settlement, and although the Joloans tried to resist, they were unable; accordingly, they retired, and our men entered the settlement and sacked it. It contained quantities of gold, cloth, and other things, especially in the palaces of the king, which were very rich and beautiful, and curiously carved, as was also the mosque. That island is inhabited by Moros. Our men captured three versos and two falcons, one hundred and fifty muskets and arquebuses, and a flag which the enemy had captured from us in the shipyard. They esteemed the flag very highly, as they had captured it from Spaniards. The Spaniards set fire to the settlement and to a village of Lutaos, who are fishermen, as well as to the alcaicería which the Chinese had there. Everything was burned, including a very large supply of rice which they had gathered, and which will cause them great want. A quantity of powder and sulphur was also burned, besides more than sixty joangas. These were the ships of their fleet, in which they went out to pillage, using besides more than a hundred other small craft, which also were broken up and burned; so that not a single ship was left to them. Then the Spaniards looked for the tombs of the kings, in accordance with the order given from Manila by the governor. The tombs are highly esteemed by the Joloans. They found three wonderful and splendid ones, especially one of them, which was the one for the present king. They also burned these, although the Joloans tried to prevent them. All this was accomplished in the same afternoon when much of the fleet arrived; the men then retired to their ships. Next day, which was Easter Sunday, the Spaniards heard that at a certain point there was a large joanga belonging to the same king, and three versos. Again they disembarked and burned the said joanga and captured the versos. Upon all these occasions the captain-general was the first to disembark, the last to enter the vessel, and the first in all places where they went. With him went Father Fabricio Sarsali, with a banner on which was an image of our father St Francis Javier, who had been taken as patron of that expedition.

After all that had been accomplished, the commander, Don Cristobal de Lugo, sent a letter to the king which had been sent him from Manila by the governor, in reply to that which the king had written him. The governor had ordered that the letter should not be sent until after the punishment had been accomplished. The king replied, as the senate of Venecia might have done, with more courtesies and reasons of state. For writing it he employed as secretary the Spanish woman whom he had captured at the shipyard, who is named Doña Lucia, of whom he is very fond. Consequently, although the Spanish commander tried to ransom her and offered as much as six hundred pesos for her, the king would not surrender her--answering that it was not consistent with his greatness to give her up for money; but that he would send her freely, if they would give him in recompense the falcons and versos which they had captured from him, and one of the slave women who was in our power. The slave woman was sent him, but not the artillery, and a fine thing it would have been to arm the enemy to ransom one woman. Thus did she remain in their power, but made half a queen. Some of the enemy were killed, and others captured. Some of those whom the king had captured from us came to us, but not all, for most of them had been sold in other kingdoms. Great was the booty, and the Indians who went on that expedition were rich and eager for other expeditions. Not a single one of our men was killed or wounded. Thus all of them returned to embark, laden with spoils and happy. The enemy were left chastised and ruined for many years. Then our fleet went to another island near there, called Taguima, whose inhabitants went out to pillage with the Joloans. They had already been advised, and accordingly fled to the mountains. Our men landed, and burned a large village, in which there was nothing but common things. They laid waste all the palm-trees, and did them all the damage possible. Then the fleet went to the island of Mindanao. A letter was despatched from the port of La Caldera to the sultan of that island, notifying him to come to see our commander, but he refused to do so, and made excuses; but the truth was, that he was afraid. He sent an ambassador and wrote a letter to the governor of Manila, in which he begged for fathers of the Society and one hundred infantrymen to build a fort (which is the thing that we desire), from which to destroy the Joloans, who are also his enemy at present.

A great portion of the province of Cagayan, which is located in this island of Manila, has been in revolt for some years. An extensive raid was made this year by our Spaniards and two thousand friendly Indians. Some of the enemy were killed, and eight villages burned. The country was laid waste, with the fields that the enemy had there; and thus were they punished for the insolent acts that they had committed. Consequently, these islands have four wars on the tapis at present: in the island of Hermosa, with the natives and the Dutch; in Terrenate and the Malucas Islands, with the Dutch also; in Jolo and other near-by islands whose inhabitants infest our seas; and in Cagayan with the insurgents. For so much war we must have greater aid from España and Nueva España, so that the condition of these islands may not fall lower.

I will conclude this relation with the fires that we have experienced this year, which have been many and important.

The convent of St. Francis, the hospital, and other houses were burned in Maluco. The convent of St. Nicolas (which belongs to the Recollects) in Cebu was burned March 29; and that of St. Augustine and a great portion of the city on April 8. It was a miracle that our residence escaped, for the fire was near it.

Fire caught, at one o'clock at night on March 13, in the Parián or alcaiceria of the Chinese, where more than twelve thousand Chinese live, outside the walls of this city of Manila. Inside of five hours it was all leveled. It naturally seems impossible that so large a settlement, with wooden pillars which two men could not encircle, could have burned in so short a time. But that must have been the fire and punishment of heaven for the so horrible sins by which those heathen Chinese have provoked the wrath of God. The church and convent of St. Dominic, which is one of the most splendid wooden buildings that there can be, escaped from the midst of this fire of Sodom. A house owned there by the Society, which was even yet unfinished, was also unburnt. All the rest was burned to the very foundations. The inhabitants of Manila, who owned many of the houses, lost considerable in that fire. But in the space of four months, most of that alcaicería has been rebuilt in squares and straight streets and uniform houses. It presents a very beautiful appearance, and is as large as the city of Manila itself. It is no wonder that a city should be built entire in so short a time, when more than three thousand men have worked on it. I do not know whether there can be any other part of the world than Manila where there are so many workmen and so abundant materials.

[Volume i of the Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library) contains the following synopsis of another relation for the years 1627-1628.]

_Events in the Filipinas Islands from August, 1627, until June, 1628._

In August, 1627, Governor Don Juan Niño de Tabora left the bay of Manila with the fleet, going toward the island of Hermosa in order to drive away the Dutch who had established themselves there two years before the Spaniards.

The fleet sailed out of season, for the relief ships from Nueva España arrived a month later than they ought. Accordingly, the fleet encountered northerly winds when they reached Cape Bojeador. They remained there for some days, beating to windward, until after several storms they had to put back to Manila.

The galleys joined the fleet at Bangui, which is located at the same cape. The smaller vessels, not being able to withstand the weather, became separated from the fleet; and one of them, with the heavy storm that overtook them, ended its voyage at a port of China, in the province of Fo-chiu, and another at the island of Hermosa. The galleys lost their moorings at Bangui, where the earth and even the sea trembled fourteen times in one day. Hills were toppled over; and one called Los Caraballos, which was on the road to Nueva Segovia, and was inaccessible, sank and became very level. Some of the convents of the Dominican religious (who instruct that province) fell. The hurricane wrecked immense numbers of trees, which covered the beaches of the sea. By the middle of September the weather moderated. The commander of the galleys, not knowing that the galleons had put back, continued his voyage, and reached the point on the island of Hermosa, and entered the Dutch port without knowing it. He went within cannon-shot, reconnoitered the port, and sounded the coast. He observed the fort, and the preparations made by the Dutch, who were fearful of some attack. Then he went to a small island inhabited by Chinese fishermen, who received him cordially; they expressed hatred for the Dutch, and their desire to aid the Spaniards to drive them from the island of Hermosa. They had some Dutch prisoners, who had been shipwrecked from a galleon that had been lost on their coasts, or on the reefs of the said island. The galleys sailed thence toward our port in the island of Hermosa, but so furious a north wind caught them, when near it, that they were carried to Cape Bojeador in five days; and they were able to make the port called Japones. There another storm struck them on the first of October, and the two galleys were smashed to pieces, although the artillery and men were saved.

The ship that put in at Fo-chiu returned to the port of the island of Hermosa with whose infantry and that of another small patache, which had arrived before, and with some silver and clothing which it carried, the fort was relieved; and its garrison were able to punish, as they did, the Chinese who had killed two captains, with twenty-five or thirty Spaniards.

The governor, having returned to the bay of Manila with his galleons, was notified from Macao, before he had disembarked, that four Dutch vessels had been sighted, whose intention was to make prizes and prevent the commerce. He sent two galleons as a convoy for the Portuguese galleys of that port; but when they reached Macao the Dutch vessels were no longer there, the battle having already occurred which was referred to in the preceding document.

The two galleons having been freed [from the convoy] went--after suffering a severe storm in which they were nearly wrecked, from the effects of which they had to be repaired--in accordance with the orders of the governor, to scour all the coast as far as Malaca in pursuit of the Dutch. For that purpose they equipped a patache before leaving Macao, while another patache was despatched from Manila to join them. During the eight months while the voyage lasted, those four boats scoured all the places where the Dutch are accustomed to go, without omitting any save to enter Jacatra [51] itself. They went first to the island of Aynao [_i.e._, Hainan], which has four cities, and is the pearl fishery of Great China. Then they skirted the coast of Cochinchina, where the king sent to request them, through a Spaniard who was there and the superior of the mission which the fathers of the Society have there, not to attack them, since he was our friend. They did not meddle with his possessions, but, before leaving the coast, captured a junk belonging to the king of Siam, which was coming from Canton laden with silks, earthenware, and tobacco, which was valued at more than fifty thousand ducados.

Between the islands of Pulo Condor and Puluibi, which are opposite the kingdom of Camboja, one of the two pataches met a very large Dutch ship, which it was thought was going to Siam, where the galleons were awaiting it. But it was not so, and it was believed to have gone to Japon.

The raid of the fleet, and especially of those galleons, was feared by all the kings of the coast and by those of Java and Borneo, and they desired peace with the Spaniards. Even the mandarin of Fo-chiu thought that the fleet was going to attack China, and ordered an agent to go to the island of Hermosa to find out about it.

The relief expedition sent to Maluco had the outcome mentioned in the preceding document.

During that year, the old king of Ternate died at Manila. He had been captured at the recovery of the Malucas. He was a Moro, of royal appearance and speech; and died in the Moro belief, of which he had always been most observant. He thoroughly understood the teachings of our holy faith, and said that the only reason that he did not embrace it was because it was not fitting for a king to change his religion because he had been captured.

This document refers to the invasion of the islands by the king of Jolo, in the same manner as the preceding document; and concludes by saying that after he had been punished, the Spaniards began to build three galleys, four brigantines, and forty large caracoas at the order of the governor; and that they must be preparing themselves to take vengeance on the Moros of Borneo, and the Camucones and Joloans, for the damages sustained from them during the preceding years.

REPORT OF APPOINTMENTS MADE BY GOVERNOR TAVORA

Sire:

Proceeding in conformity with what your Majesty orders me by royal decree, dated at Madrid on the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, and countersigned by Señor Don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras, directing that I should send a relation of the places, offices, encomiendas, gratuities, incomes, allowances, additional pay, and whatsoever other advantages I might confer, making a special record for this; after having complied with this, and sent an account in the ships which left this island for Nueva España in the year six hundred and twenty-seven, I have thus far made appointments to the following encomiendas, places, and offices: