This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com BY WILLIAM LYTLE SCHURZ if THE MANILA GALLEON ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK • 1939 )>>>>)>>>>>>>>>>>»<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Copyright, 1939, by E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc. All Rights Resbrvkd :: Printed in thb U. S. A. FIRST EDITION P6 S<4 CARPENTIEft TO THE MEMORY OF MY SON WILLIAM LYTLE SCHURZ, Jr. 1910-1931 • >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ACKNO WLEDGMENTS Since I laid the /{eel of my book twenty-seven years ago some of those to whom I would express my gratitude have, like my galleons, entered their last port. Of those who are left I owe most to the counsel and encouragement of fames Alexander Robertson, but for whose scholarship the rich background of the Spanish era in the Philippines would be a closed book t0 Ameri cans. My warm appreciation for early guidance in the ways of history goes to Professor Frederick J• Teggart, of the University of California. Above all, I acknowledge my great indebtedness to the Order of the Native Sons of the Golden West, whose in terest in the history of California made possible my study of the original Spanish sources in the Archives of the Indies at Seville. Washington January 7939 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>»<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< TABLE OF CONTENTS PAOl 15 INTRODUCTION Part I THE ORIENT 1. THE CHINESE 2. THE JAPANESE 3. THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 4. CITY AND COMMERCE 63 99 129 154 Part II THE NAVIGATION 193 216 251 5. THE GALLEONS 6. THE ROUTE 7. THE VOYAGE Part III THE FOREIGNERS 8. THE SPANISH LAKE 9. THE ENGLISH 10. THE DUTCH 287 303 342 Part IV THE AMERICAS AND SPAIN 11. MEXICO AND PERU 12. FLEETS AND GALLEONS 361 388 APPENDIX I. THE ROYAL PHILIPPINE COMPANY BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX 409 419 449 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< LIST OF MAPS a chart of the pacific ocean Endpapers MANILA IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY page 35 CHIRENO MAP OF THE PHILIPPINES (1638) page 223 page 385 ROAD FROM ACAPULCO TO MEXICO CITY .... >>>>>>> >® <<<<<<<< INTRODUCTION v. INTRODUCTION THE first of the galleons crossed the Pacific in 1565. The last t one put into port in 18 15. When the line began Philip the Second was king of all the Spains and his enemy, Elizabeth Tudor, was queen of England. Hernin Cortes, conqueror of Mexico, had been dead but eighteen years. The same year Pedro v Menendez de Aviles laid the foundations of St. Augustine in Florida. When the line ended it was already five years since Miguel Hidalgo had begun the revolt against Spain which was to create the Republic of Mexico. The United States was then nearly forty years a nation and Andrew Jackson had just won the Battle of New Orleans. Yearly, for the two and a half centuries that lay between, the galleons made the long and lonely voyage between Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico. No other line of ships has ever endured so long. No other regular navigation has been so trying and dangerous as this, for in its two hundred and fifty years the sea claimed dozens of ships and thousands of men and many millions in treasure. As the richest ships in all the oceans, they were the most coveted prize of pirate and priva teer. The English took four of them,—the Santa Ana in 1587, the Encarnacidn in 1709, the Covadonga in 1743, and the Santisima Trinidad, largest ship of her time, in 1762. As many beat off their English or Dutch assailants. To the peoples of Spanish America, they were the China Ships or Manila Galleons that brought them cargoes of silks and spices and other precious merchandise of the East. To those of the Orient, they were silver argosies, laden with the Mexican and Peruvian pesos that were to become the standard of value along its coasts. To California, they furnished the first occasion and motive for the exploration of its coast. To Spain, they were the link that bound the Philippines—and, for a time, the Moluc cas—to her, and it was their comings and goings that gave some substance of reality to the Spanish dream of empire over the Pacific. ^ 16 THE MANILA GALLEON Though the western terminus of the galleons was Manila .and the . Philippines were always to be the center of Spanish .activity, in "the- Eastern Indies, Spain's original objective was the Moluccas,; or Spice. Isles, then the source of the most profitable trade-ini-the- world. The series of expeditions from Magellan to Legaspi were but the realization of what Columbus and his com panions had aimed at in the other and newer Indies, where the barrier of the American continent had stopped them short. For Spain it was a belated achievement, since tlie Portuguese, sailing around Africa, had already preempted the strategic points in the eastern trade. Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the Malabar coast of India in 1498. In 1509 Diogo Lopes de Sequeira attacked Malacca with a Portuguese force, among which was Ferdinand Magellan. Two years later the viceroy, Affonso de Albuquerque, captured the city, which Portugal held for 130 years. From Malacca Albuquerque sent Antonio de Abreu eastward to the Moluccas. On the return voyage, one of Abreu's captains, Fran cisco Serrao, friend of Magellan, discovered Mindanao, the first European to land in the Philippines. That was in 1512. That year the Portuguese established a trading post on Ternate of the Moluccas, from which they were henceforth to export spices to Lisbon by way of Malacca and the Cape of Good Hope. It was to be only seven years until the remnants of Magellan's expedi tion, after entering the Pacific around South America, were to reach the Moluccas from the Philippines. Portugal's claim to the Spice Isles was not only established by priority of discovery, but was fortified in the eyes of Christen dom, as yet undivided by the Protestant revolt, by a series of papal bulls. This succession of pontifical decrees extends from the Dum divcrsas, issued by Pope Nicholas V to Affonso V of Portugal in 1452, to the Praecelsae of the Medicean Leo X in 1514, reconfirming the Portuguese monopoly in the Golden East. They included the famous bull of the Borgian Alexander VI, issued less than two months after Columbus returned to Spain from his first voyage. This sweeping dictum, based on a system of jurisprudence which gave the pope the right to dispose of all heathen lands, arbitrarily fixed a "line of demarcation" along the meridian 100 leagues west of the Azores—and of the Cape Verdes!—as the boundary between the Spanish and Portuguese fields of exploration and conquest. King Joao II of Portugal INTRODUCTION 17 was not satisfied with the terms of the papal arbitration, and the next year, 1494, the two countries agreed by the Treaty of Tordesillas to move the demarcation line to a point 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Of course, none of the cosmographers of the time could tell where the new line of demarcation would run when continued on the other side of the globe. Actually, it followed approxi mately the meridian near which Tokyo in Japan and Adelaide in Australia are now located, so that both the Moluccas and the Philippines were clearly on the Portuguese side of the line. How ever, the Moluccas were not yet a direct issue between the two powers. Bartolomeu Dias had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, but another eighteen years were to pass before the far-flung trad ing empire of the Lusitanians would reach the Moluccas on the western edge of the Pacifie. Meanwhile, though Spain did not actively challenge Portuguese expansion in the Far East, it was inevitable that sooner or later the two Iberian peoples would clash in that area. By an irony of fate, it was a Portuguese, who, acting on behalf of Spain, made the Moluccas an immediate source of con tention between the two great colonizing powers of the day. Fernao Magalhaes, already a veteran of Albuquerque's campaign in the waters to the east of India, had been denied a favor by King Manoel the Fortunate, in whose service he had fought so stoutly against the Moslem at Malacca. A correspondence car ried on half way around the world with Francisco Serrao, his friend and companion-at-arnls, who was now a power in his own right on Ternate, aroused Magellan's deep interest in the Moluc cas. Aggrieved by the slight at the court of Lisbon, he crossed into Spain with the idea that was henceforth to be the dominat ing obsession of his life. There he importuned the young KingEmperor Charles to dispute the Portuguese claims that the Moluccas lay within that nation's sphere, as determined by the Treaty of Tordesillas. He represented that the Spice Isles could be reached by sailing southwest around the American continent, and, ignorant as yet of the difficulties of such a voyage, argued that by this route spices could be brought to Europe at less ex pense than around Africa, which road was clearly barred to Spain by all the existing arrangements. Magellan was made the instrument of this daring project and the unparalleled voyage of i8 THE MANILA GALLEON 1519-22 at last brought Spaniards and Portuguese face to face in the East Indies. The matter at issue had suddenly become something more substantial than a geodetic controversy for astrologers and mapmakers to quarrel over. Though the discovery of the enormous width of the Pacific invalidated Magellan's argument for the transportation of spices by that route, upon the results of his expedition Spain founded her subsequent claims to the Moluccas —and the Philippines. Some gold and ginger, obtained from Mohammedan traders on Mindanao, and a cargo of spices laden at Tidore of the Moluccas, where the sailors gave up their cloaks and tore their shirts from their backs to barter for the precious cloves,—this was Spain's first share of the riches of the East. The spices brought to Seville by Sebastian del Cano in the eightyton Victoria more than paid for all the initial cost of the entire expedition. Weighing heavily on the debit side was the life of Magellan, lost on Mactan of the Philippines, on the same day, it is said, that Francisco Serrao, the man who was almost his blood-brother, died in the nearby Moluccas. Charles V now became more insistent than ever upon his claims to the Moluccas and even appealed to priority of discov ery, while Joao I sorely resented what he considered an intru sion into Portugal's sphere of influence. The two monarchs made an attempt in 1524 to settle the question of ownership by a coun cil held at Badajoz on the Portuguese-Spanish border. Even then, in spite of the expert testimony of such men as Sebastian del Cano, Fernando Colon, and Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, Ma gellan's chief in the expedition against Malacca, no definitive and satisfactory settlement was reached. The most advanced geographical erudition of the age and survivals of medieval quackery were invoked and aired by the contestants. Along side the latest word in geodesy, Ferdinand Columbus, the son of the great Admiral, quoted from the Book of Kings and the apochrypha of Mandeville, while one of the delegates was a "master of sacred theology." On the last day of the session, after seven weeks of "wrangling most terribly," the Portuguese de clared that the "Castillians had altered their only globe and map, based on the voyage of Juan Sebastian del Cano." The meeting thereupon broke up with more bad blood than ever on both sides. Spain declared her resolve to occupy the Moluccas INTRODUCTION i9 and Portugal threatened with the sword any Spaniard found there. The next year the king-emperor sent Juan Garcia Jofre de Loaysa with six ships to follow Magellan's path into the Pacific and to succor the small company of Spaniards from Magellan's Trinidad, left stranded in the Moluccas as prisoners of the Portu guese. Loaysa, the friar-commander, died in mid-Pacific, fol lowed a few days later by Del Cano, his second in command. Though the remnants of the expedition reached the Philippines and the Moluccas, it proved a disastrous failure and only aggra vated the rivalry with Portugal. The ships were in no condition to return the way they had come, and the 120 men of the 450 who had started on the voyage fortified themselves on Tidore, from where they waged continuous war with the Portuguese. However, one of Loaysa's officers, Andres de Urdaneta, had gained the navigating experience that nearly forty years later was to make him the invaluable guide of Legaspi, conqueror of the Philippines. Also, of great significance for the future, Loaysa's men had heard that Chinese junks came each year to the Philippines to barter silks and metal work for gold and pearls. Convinced of the futility of further efforts to develop the route around South America, Charles V next ordered Hernan Cortes to despatch an expedition across the Pacific from Mexico. The small squadron of Alvaro de Saavedra, driven westward by the trade winds to the north of the equator, reached the East Indies in 1528 with comparative ease, but two attempts to retrace their way back across the Pacific failed when almost within reach of success. Like its predecessors, the expedition later dis integrated among the Malay archipelagoes, where Saavedra died. Its only results were the discovery of many islands, including the Carolines and the vast land mass of Papua, and the practical demonstration of the feasibility of the direct passage across the Pacific from Mexico. Saavedra's route out to the East Indies was approximately the course followed later by the Manila Galleon on its yearly return from Acapulco. As for the survivors of the crews, they joined those who were left from Loaysa's force, and together, by grace of the Portuguese, who were glad to be rid of their annoying presence, they eventually returned to Spain in 1536, eleven years after Loaysa's fleet had put out from Coruna on its fruitless and ill-fated quest. For all practical purposes, the 20 THE MANILA GALLEON status of the two countries in the Moluccas was again what it had been before Magellan appeared at the Spanish court with his plan to discomfit the Portuguese by sailing west instead of east. The realization of the great difficulties of the navigation, as shown by the fate of these expeditions; the persistent opposi tion of the Portuguese, whom he desired at this time to concili ate; the inability to establish an exact line of demarcation; chronic financial difficulties; and the ever-recurrent wars in Europe— "our so just employment against the tyrants of Christendom"— all these circumstances led Charles V in 1529 to renounce all his claims to possession of the Moluccas. By the Treaty of Zaragoza he "sold and made a gift" to the crown of Portugal for the sum of 350,000 ducats of his "right and dominion to the Spice Isles." A new demarcation line was also fixed by this treaty, the faithful observance of whose terms would have for ever barred Spain from the East. This was the extension of the Portuguese sphere of possession to a line seventeen degrees east of the Moluccas. Spanish interest now shifted to the Philippines. Dazzled by the fame and riches of the Moluccas, their concern with the larger and less known group had been only incidental to their quest for the little archipelago that dots the sea between Celebes and Papua. Magellan and those who followed after him had touched at the Visayas or Mindanao, but had found little to arouse their curiosity or their cupidity. Magellan had named the islands, where he found death, for Saint Lazarus or San Lazaro, not for their apparent poverty, but because they were first sighted on the day of that saint. To later navigators they were early known as the Islas del Poniente,—the Western Islands, or Islands of the Sunset. When Saavedra's relief squadron sailed among the Visayas in 1528, it carried a letter from "Caesar Augustus, King of the Spains" to the "good and honoured King of Cebu,"—the same dato Humabon, who had trapped and slain Magellan's officers after their commander had been killed on the nearby island of Mactan! Though the islands seemed to offer no promise of wealth, at least there were no Portuguese on them to dispute possession. They would serve as a convenient base for future enterprises in the surrounding seas. As for the Moluc cas, the Spaniards would bide their time. Furthermore, Saavedra's voyage had established the feasibility of Mexico as a INTRODUCTION 21 starting point for future efforts. A Spanish Orient might be made an adjunct of Spanish America. Henceforth, the immediate impetus came from the viceregal government in New Spain and indirectly from the crown. Cortes and his fellow conquistador, Pedro de Alvarado, were enthusiastic advocates of trans-Pacific expansion. Alvarado equipped a flotilla for a voyage to the Far East, but it was diverted to share in the invasion of Peru. Four years later, the restless adelantado of Guatemala again took up the scheme in partner ship with Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy of New Spain. Fearful that Cortes might forestall them, Alvarado asked the king to refuse a license to his old chief, now ennobled as the Marques del Valle. The expedition which was dispatched from Mexico in 1542, under the command of Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, is significant as having been directed to the "Western Islands," renamed Felipinas, or Philippines, by Villalobos, for the infante Felipe, later to become king as Philip II. In the contract with Alvarado and Mendoza Charles V ordered them to permit no violation of the arrangements made with Portugal, which delimited their respective spheres in the Orient. The general purpose of the expedition was expressed as the "discovery, conquest, and coloni zation of the islands and provinces of the South Sea towards the west,"—more specifically, the Philippines. Villalobos was or dered to investigate the products of the islands, among which it was believed spices and gold might be prominent. Alvarado had also heard that "on the island of Cebu there are Castillians liv ing there since the time of Magellan, and the Chinese are wont to go thither to trade for gold and precious stones." The expe dition resulted as ill-fated as its predecessors. There were the usual mutinies and hardships and clashes with the Portuguese, who ordered the Spaniards to leave Mindanao. After futile cruisings about the islands, the remnants of the expedition dis solved among the forbidden Moluccas. Here the survivors met the customary fate of capture by the Portuguese, and on Amboina of the group their disheartened leader died in the arms of the great Jesuit missionary, later to be canonized as Saint Francis Xavier. The little Victoria's cargo of spices was still the only tangible return for nearly a quarter century of effort. It was to be almost as long before another attempt was made. 22 THE MANILA GALLEON (With Legaspi's conquest and organization of the Philippines began the actual history of Spain's colonial empire in the East Indies and of trans-Pacific commerce. In 1559 Philip II ordered. Luis de Velasco, second viceroy of New Spain, to take measures for the permanent occupation of the islands which now bore his name. In spite of so many failures, the Spaniards still held hopes of breaking the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade. "You shall stipulate," ran the royal instructions, "that they try to bring some spice, in order to make essay of that traffic." Yet the incon sistent king commanded that the vessels "must not delay in trad ing and bartering, but return immediately to New Spain, for the principal reason for this expedition is to ascertain the return route." When the expedition sailed five years later, it carried orders that "as much treasure as possible must be sent back with the ship or ships that return with news of the expedition." The fleet of five ships, with over 400 men on board, set sail from Navidad in Mexico in November__j§64» Its commander was Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, a Basque official of the City of Mexico, and "a worthy and reliable man." The aging Andres de Urdaneta, who had accompanied Loaysa out to the Moluccas twenty-two years before and had since taken holy orders as an Augustinian friar, left his convent in order to serve as first pilot and guide of the expedition. Legaspi's final orders directed him to take possession of all lands or islands discovered, to labor for the conversion of the natives, to ascertain the products of the regions occupied, and to discover the return route across the Pacific,—which had baffled all the efforts of his predecessors. The beginnings of the com mercial legislation of the Philippines are to be found in these orders. "The royal officials are to have entire charge of all trad ing of whatever nature," they read, "and no individual shall presume, under severe penalties, to trade for himself." Trading was thus to be exclusively in the royal interest, though this re striction was early relaxed. Careful records of all trading trans actions were to be made and forwarded to Spain. Urdaneta had proposed Papua or New Guinea for the ob jective of the expedition, as being on the Spanish side of the line of demarcation, and believed until after his departure that this was the destination of the voyage. Fortunately for the future cause of Spanish enterprise in the western Pacific, when his sail INTRODUCTION 23 ing orders were opened at sea, he found that he was to steer for the Philippines. For if an attempt had been made to settle among the savage Melanesians of Papua, the expedition would doubtless have met the same fate as later befell Mendana's efforts to occupy the Solomons. The fleet proceeded across the Pacific with little difficulty and with little incident, except the discovery of many of the beautiful coral islets of the Marshalls and other archipelagoes. Samar of the Philippines was sighted in February 1565 and Cebu was reached on April 27, exactly forty-four years after Magellan had been killed on Mactan. Here Legaspi laid the foundation of a settlement, which was to be the base for Spanish operations until the seat of government was transferred to the shores of Manila Bay six years later. The Spaniards displayed considerable activity in investigat ing the trading possibilities of the archipelago, but with disap pointing results. The clove tree, which formed the riches of the Moluccas, did not grow in the Philippines, but cinnamon grew in Mindanao. In the beginning Legaspi had high hopes of the spice production of Mindanao, and even proposed to develop it to rival the Moluccas and to supply "all Christendom." But he was quickly disillusioned as to the possibilities of this trade. In ts68 he told the king: "This land cannot be sustained by trade." The next year he declared to the viceroy: "The Philippines ought to be considered of little importance, because at present the only article of profit which we can get from them is cinnamon." However, the supply of cinnamon available in the Philippines was not sufficient to serve as the basis for a lucrative trade across the Pacific. Though small quantities of gold were found in the possession of the natives, its source was unknown. The silks in which the local datos or rajahs were clothed clearly came from outside the islands. The native civilization which they found was too primitive and poor to promise a profitable trade in manu factured products. When Moro praus appeared at Cebu from the north laden, among other merchandise, with porcelain and silks from China, the Spaniards may have had an intimation of the influence which was shortly to determine the course of their trade with the Span ish lands in the Americas. They found these Moro craft trading throughout the archipelago and bartered with them for their 24 THE MANILA GALLEON first cargoes. This people had long practiced a combination of trade and piracy as far as Borneo, the Moluccas, Java, and Ma lacca, and the Spaniards early learned from their wide operations the possibilities of East Indian commerce. The Moros bade fair at this time to exercise a more than commercial suzerainty over the more peaceful peoples of the northern islands, and after the coming of the Spaniards they were to become the piratical scourge of the Philippines. Though they chronically threatened the security of local trade and navigation until well into the nineteenth century, a greater people early took their place as in termediaries in the commerce of the Spaniards. The trade with New Spain began in June 1565, with the_ return of the San Pablo under the command of Legaspi's grand son, Felipe de Salcedo, and with the veteran Urdaneta in charge of her navigation. Though the principal object of her voyage was the discovery of a practicable return route to the Mexican coast, she carried a small shipment of cinnamon purchased in Mindanao on the royal account. She was the first of the gal leons that were to follow this same track down into the last cen tury. Urdaneta found the prevailing westerlies in the northern Pacific and with their aid reached Acapulco after three and a half difficult months at sea. However, another of Legaspi's ships un der Alonso de Arellano, who had deserted the fleet on the way out, had turned about from Philippine waters and entered the same harbor two months before. The navigation which had been initiated by the San Pablo was carried on with surprising regu larity from the beginning. Galleons came and went each year and the continuity of the line was to be broken only by the chance of shipwreck or war. In October 1566 the San Gerdnimo arrived at Cebu after one of the most extraordinary voyages in the history of the Pacific.1 The next year the little San Juan, or San Juanillo, left in late July for Mexico, under the command of the able Juan de la Isla. In 1568 two galleons arrived at Cebu from Acapulco in charge of Felipe de Salcedo, who made four voyages between the Philippines and Mexico during the first ten years of the new colony. With him came his younger brother, Juan, then only eighteen years of age, who, before his death nine years hence, was to take the most active part in the conquest of the Philippines. The same year the San Pablo cleared from the 1 See page 277. INTRODUCTION 25 Philippines on her second voyage, only to be lost at the Ladrones, —the first disaster in the history of the line. Besides 15,000 pounds of cinnamon for the king, she had on board 25,000 more consigned by private individuals. "These consignments," wrote Andres de Mirandaola to Philip II, "we allowed to be carried on the register, mindful of the misery and necessity which the people were suffering, and considering that they had nothing else with which to help themselves." During these first years the Spaniards were occupied in ex tending and organizing their domination over the islands. This process was carried on with a remarkable combination of courage and tact, but with a minimum of bloodshed. Legaspi was a man of great abilities, and the relative ease with which the Philippines were brought under Spanish rule was due as much to the natives' confidence in his moderation and humanity as to their own mili tary weakness. He preferred peaceful methods, wherever pos sible, to the sword. When the use of force was necessary, small bodies of the highly efficient Spanish infantry, under the com mand of Martin de Goiti, his veteran master of the camp, or of his brilliant grandson, the youthful Juan de Salcedo, were able to overcome the native resistance with little difficulty. As the conquest progressed, forces of native auxiliaries, often raised among the Pampangas of Luzon, shared in the subjugation of still recalcitrant tribes,—a system of strategy lately employed by Cone's in crushing the Aztec power in Mexico, and later to be freely used by the British in India. When Legaspi died in 1572 the conquest was virtually com plete. The year before he had moved the seat of government to the shores of Manila Bay, where Moro settlers had lately been beaten into submission. Nearly all the native chiefs in the Visayas and on Luzon had already recognized the authority of Spain. Missionaries soon followed the soldiers into the conquered dis tricts, where they remained to lay the foundations of their spirit ual sovereignty over the newly Christianized population. Only the problem of the Moro islands,—Mindanao and the Sulu archi pelago to the southwest of it,—remained to plague the Spaniards until the very end of their rule. Swarming up out of the south, these truculent Moslem sectaries and pirates were to harry the Visayas and the Luzon coasts time and again. Though the Spaniards later won several crushing victories over large Moro 26 THE MANILA GALLEON armaments and erected forts at Zamboanga and other points to hold them in check, they were never able to accomplish more than a partial or temporary conquest of this predatory and fanati cal people. It was not a propitious time for undertaking the economic development of the islands or for extending the trading opera tions which had been initiated on a small scale. The struggling colony was still too insecure to give much thought to more than the consolidation of its precarious position. A Moro descent in force was an ever-present possibility. The Portuguese had block aded Cebu for a time and threatened to appear again in greater force and extinguish the Spanish settlement. A much more seri ous menace came in 1574, when a large Chinese fleet under the filibuster Li Ma Hong, or Limahon, and with over four thousand men on board, attacked the newly-founded town on Manila Bay. The small Spanish garrison suffered heavy losses and was only saved from annihilation by the timely arrival of Salcedo and fifty musketeers. The heroic deliverance of Manila was so deci sive a turning-point in its history that its anniversary was long celebrated by the city with Te Deums and more secular festivities. The Spaniards were yet few in number, and these usually hardened soldiers who were fitted to be neither settlers nor mer chants. "The soldiers," complained Legaspi, "will rather impov erish the land than derive profit from it." Moreover, the Span iards were ignorant of the real possibilities of their position and of the direction their trade would ultimately take. On the other hand, there was a vague anticipation of the bright prospects which the future might hold for the colony. "We are stationed here at the gateway of great kingdoms," Guido de Lavezaris, Legaspi's successor, wrote to the king; "Will your majesty aid us with the wherewithal so that trade may be introduced and maintained among many of these nations?" It was the beginning of trade with the Chinese that fixed the basic pattern of the colony's economic life for the next two hun dred years. Until the latter half of the eighteenth century Manila was to be commercially little more than a way-station between China and Mexico. Trading junks had crossed the China Sea to the Philippines from early times, and the Spanish expeditions before Legaspi had either encountered these bold traffickers or heard from the islanders of their wide trading operations. Mean INTRODUCTION 27 while, since 1557 through their post at Macao, below Canton, the Portuguese had been engaged in this "most extensive and advan tageous trade that has hitherto been seen in any place where trade has been carried on." "We shall gain the commerce with China," wrote Legaspi in a moment of prevision in 1569, "whence come silks, porcelains, benzoin, musk, and other articles." The transfer of the seat of government from Cebu to Manila and the opening of direct trading connections with China were almost contemporaneous. A fortunate incident ushered in the new era of Philippine commerce. One of Legaspi's ships rescued the crew of a large junk which was sinking in waters off Mindoro. In recognition of the Spaniards' humanity, the Chinese spread the story of their deliverance to their fellows at home. "At the beginning of 1572," says Padre Zuniga, the Augustinian historian, "there arrived, with a great deal of rich merchandise, those Chinese whom the Spaniards had saved from shipwreck on Mindoro, together with many others of that nation. With this the foundation of a lucrative commerce was laid." The two galleons of 1573 carried to Acapulco, among other goods, 712 t~picces of Chinese silk and 22,300 pieces of "fine gilt china and other porcelain ware." Some half-dozen junks came to Manila in 1574 twelve or fifteen the next year. By 1576 the trade was already firmly established. Assured of the promising future of the commerce, merchants from Mexico began to settle in the islands and supply the professional element that was needed in the direction of the business. The demand for luxuries in Span ish America appeared to be almost as limitless as the capacity of the Chinese to supply them. With such a prospect, the position of the intermediaries at Manila was an enviable one. Of all the cities of the Far East Manila was best fitted by nature and by the economic geography of that area to be the cen tral entrepot of Oriental trade. The two great staples of that c' commerce, silks from the north and spices from the south, could be gathered at Manila more easily than at any other city, and thence forwarded to Europe or to America. Japan, China, the kingdoms of Farther India, and the long chain of islands that reach southeast from the Malay peninsula to the much-desired Moluccas, these were as a vast semi-circumference, whose radii met at Manila. As concerned distance from the chief fields of production, neither Malacca, Macao nor Batavia combined such 38 THE MANILA GALLEON advantages of position. True, Macao was nearer the Chinese silk producing provinces, but the destination of Portuguese ex ports was western Europe, while, until the creation of the Royal Philippine Company, those of Manila went eastward to America. As a spice market Batavia was better situated. For a purely European trade Malacca, as later Singapore, had the superior location, but for a commerce with both America and Europe, and in both silks and spices, the site of no other city was com parable with that of Manila. However, of the four points of what should have been her commercial compass,—Acapulco, Can ton, the Moluccas, and Seville,—she was cut off from the two latter. She relinquished the spice trade to Portugal and later saw the Dutch supplant the Portuguese. Spain also early acknowledged the Portuguese claims to monopoly of the naviga tion around Africa. Apparently secure in the enjoyment of the Chinese-American trade, the Spaniards never seriously undertook this direct traffic with Europe until near the end of the eighteenth century, when both Manila and Spain were long since commer cially outdistanced by other cities and other peoples. Even as it was, Manila was for a time the first mart of the East. Francisco Leandro de Viana, the ablest critic of his coun try's colonial system as it existed in the Philippines, said of her position: "No other region is so well seated for the center of a flourishing commerce." Grau y Monfalcon, who served the inter ests of the islands in Spain, described the "notable and especial greatness of the city of Manila, the mistress of so many seas and capital of so many archipelagoes,—the key to the ancient and ever rich commerce of the Orient." In our own time, Fernandez Duro, the distinguished historian of the Spanish navy, has said of Manila: "The capital of the Philippine Archipelago possessed elements and facilities that could have made of her the center and depository of the trade of the Far East. Connected with a distributing center in Spain, Manila could have supplied Europe, if the ideas and practice of her rulers had not closed the road which led to such a consummation." Alberoni, the minister of Philip V, first of the Bourbon kings of Spain, had realized the possibilities of Manila in this direction and planned to make her the center of a world-wide, and not merely Asiatic-American, trade. Clear-sighted Spaniards always recognized the advantage of Manila's imperial position and lamented the folly and neglect of the policy which diverted her destiny. INTRODUCTION 29 ✓ Travelers and writers of other nations have held the same opinion of her potential greatness. The famous French navi gator, La Perouse, said : "Manila is perhaps the best situated city in the world." Mallat, who wrote one of the best of the old descriptive works on the Philippines, declared that "Manila is undoubtedly destined to become one day the center of the com merce of the Pacific and Indian Oceans." De Guignes, writing in the last decade of the eighteenth century, said the Spaniards were too intent on the trade with Acapulco to make Manila the great emporium that might have taken the place of Canton and other cities. Another Frenchman, Delaporte, considered Manila "most advantageously situated for commerce with China, Japan, Borneo, and the Moluccas," and added that "such a place in the hands of a more active and more laborious people would perhaps become the richest entrepot of the universe." The verdict of the German traveler, Jagor, was virtually the same. Gemelli Careri, the Italian traveler, who circumnavigated the globe as a tourist in the seventeenth century, said: "The Author of Nature placed Manila so equally between the Wealthy kingdoms of the East and of the West, that it may be accounted one of the great est places of trade in the world." The writer of Anson's Voyage said: "Luzon is very well situated for the Indian and Chinese trade." The persistence with which the Dutch tried to capture Manila is the best evidence of the value which they placed upon the possession of her port. Grau y Monfalc6n observed in this regard; "The Dutch recognize that the Philippines are by their location the most suitable of the islands in the Orient for carry ing on the general commerce of these kingdoms and nations." Besides the advantage of proximity to the more important sources of production, Manila had probably the best harbor in the Far East, as excellent a western terminus of the navigation as Acapulco was the eastern. Although the vast and land-locked bay is liable to be swept by the terrible baguios or typhoons, ship ping usually found a certain security behind the head-land of Cavite, where the galleons were laden. The official United States "Gazeteer of the Philippines" describes Manila Bay as "one of the finest in the world and by far the best in the Far East." The galleon trade enjoyed a few decades of prosperity that probably reached its height early in the next century. The orig inal ban on private trading had long since been waived and everyone was free to share in the rich gains of the traffic. For a 3° THE MANILA GALLEON time the trade profited by the oversight of the government in Spain, which was concerned with more pressing problems in Europe and the Americas, and had not yet given its attention to the growing competition of Chinese silks with those produced on Spanish looms, or to the drain of Mexican and Peruvian silver to Asia. Though the first of the inevitable restrictive laws Wei»v issued between 1587 and 1593, they were only gradually, and even then half-heartedly, put into effect, so that it was long before the expansion of the trade could be effectively checked by the jealousy of the mother-country. Convinced that the Philippines could not yield the wealth which they had at first anticipated, the Spaniards early began to entertain ambitious projects for the military and spiritual con quest of the surrounding nations. The military phase of the conquista in the new world had given way to the work of con solidating and organizing the vast territories that stretched from California to Cape Horn. But the imperial urge of the conquista survived in the Eastern Indies—the Indias Orientates of the Span iards. In this grandiose scheme the Philippines were to serve only as the center of their operations, the nexus that was to bind together the parts of a new Oriental empire. A handful of men might even conquer China and Japan, for, after Mexico and Peru, any feat of arms seemed possible to Spain. The colony had able rulers and the vigor of early and enthusiastic effort. With the Duke of Alba's conquest of Portugal in 1580, Manila took the place of "Golden Goa" as the seat of a united Hispanic power that reached from Ormuz around to Macao. For a glori ous season she was the foremost city of the Eastern Indies, capital of a proud empire and emporium for trade, not only with China, but with the surrounding archipelagoes from Japan to the Javas and with Malacca and the Indo-Chinese kingdoms of the main land. Never again was Manila to know such greatness. Though Spanish resources were never equal to the full mag nitude of the mighty design, much of the dream was realized. The coming of the Dutch and the English to the East greatly complicated the execution of the plati at a time when circum stances were otherwise most favorable to its achievement. Yet persistent efforts to conquer the half-forgotten Moluccas culmi nated in Pedro Bravo de Acuna's smashing blow at the Dutch and their Malay allies on Ternate and Tidore in 1606. The INTRODUCTION 31 realization of Magellan's ambition after the lapse of nearly a century came too late, for, though the Spaniards stubbornly main tained their hold on Ternate until 1662, the Dutch were able to prevent further expansion in that quarter. The successful expe ditions against the native princes of Borneo, the Spanish estab lishments on Formosa and the Chinese coast, and the attempts to bring the kingdoms of Indo-China within the sphere of Span ish influence were all parcel of the imperial design. Yet the strength which the fighting governors, veterans of the wars in the Low Countries,—the Ronquillos and Dasmarinas, Guzman and Acuna and Silva,—could draw from Mexico and Spain was never commensurate with the gigantic tasks which they set them selves. Moreover, they were never free to devote all their ener-_ gies to projects of aggression and expansion. The chronic fear of a Chinese uprising in Manila, which became a reality in 1603, the strained relations with the bellicose and susceptible Japanese, the frequent incursions of Dutch fleets among the islands until the middle of the seventeenth century, and the ever-recurrent Mora raids,—all these problems preoccupied them greatly. The internal administration and upbuilding of the colony also made heavy demands on their crowded days. Thus, the versatile Antonio de Morga, judge, lieutenant-governor, soldier, and his torian, said of Governor Gomez Perez Dasmarinas that he exe cuted, "with great enthusiasm and zeal, many and various things, not shrinking from any kind of labor or taking any care of him self." And when Dasmarinas was killed by the Chinese rowers of his galley in 1593, he was leading a powerful armament of two hundred sail, with nearly a thousand Spanish soldiers and a large force of Filipino auxiliaries on board, against the Moluccas. As it was, these dauntless captains, who rekindled in the East the dying flame of the conquista in the Americas, performed prodigies of valor and enterprise. Only the unforeseen fate that struck down Juan de Silva on .his great armada in 1616 may have saved the East Indies from the domination of Castile. In spite of all the alarms and vicissitudes of that feverish time, the galleon trade flourished. Its cargoes grew in variety with the opening of commercial relations with every new region of the Orient. The manifest lists of the galleons are a veritable catalogue of the products of the Orient. Nearly all the exotic things that the East grew or made they carried to the Spaniards 32 THE MANILA GALLEON in Mexico and Peru. Also, some merchandise that had been brought three fourths of the way round the world entered Mexico through Acapulco. Thus, Viceroy Cruillas informed the king in 1765 that the China Ship imported Flemish laces "and many other kinds of European goods" into New Spain. Above all, save for a few years, these were silk ships. Silks in every stage of manufacture and of every variety of weave and pattern formed the most valuable part of their cargoes. There were delicate gauzes and Cantonese crepes, the flowered silk of Canton, called primavera or "springtime" by the Spaniards, vel vets and taffetas and the nobleza or fine damask, rougher grograins, and heavy brocades worked in fantastic designs with gold and silver thread. Of silken wearing apparel, there were many thousand pairs of stockings in each cargo,—more than 50,000 in one galleon—skirts and velvet bodices, cloaks and robes and kimonos. And packed in the chests of the galleons were silken bed coverings and tapestries, handkerchiefs, tablecloths and nap kins, and rich vestments for the service of churches and con vents from Sonora to Chile. Nearly all this was of Chinese work manship. It was largely from the Mogul Empire of India,—from Ben gal and the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar,—that came the fine cottons which, especially in the last century of the traffic, filled so important a place in the cargoes. However, some cotton goods, as the blue cambayas, were the produce of Chinese looms, while the mantas, or heavy sheeting, of Ilocos and the distinctive Philippine lampotes were always staple exports to the American market. In 1792 one lot of 998 white cotton shirts found no sale at Acapulco, "on account of their shortness, being made for natives of the islands." Persian rugs and carpets, imported into the Philippines by way of India, became customary items in the cargo of the China Ship after regular trading connections had been established with the Malabar ports. Chinese rugs were also a staple item in the galleon trade. Considerable gold in the form of bullion or manufactured articles was exported to Mexico. Though there was a legal ban on the importation of jewelry from the Orient, in a large con signment confiscated at Acapulco in 1767 there are enumerated hundreds of rings, many of which were set with diamonds and INTRODUCTION 33 rubies, bracelets, pendants, earrings, and necklaces, and many devotional pieces, such as crucifixes, reliquaries, and rosaries, and including a cross set with eight brilliants. There were also seized on the same occasion "a golden bird from China," some jewelstudded sword-hilts, and several alligator teeth capped with gold. Many uncut or unset gems were also carried to Mexico by the Manila Galleon. Wrote Henry Hawks, an English merchant who spent five years in Mexico in the sixteenth century: "There was a mariner that brought a pearle as big as a doves egge from thence, and a stone, for which the Viceroy would have given 3000 duckets." Thousands of women's combs were often carried in a single galleon,—nearly 80,000 in nine seamen's chests on the San Carlos in 1767. There were always fans, with sticks of ivory or sandal wood; ivory castanets and copper cuspidors and little brass bells, or cascabeles; bric-a-brac and biHelotsoFTvory, jade, and jasper; eyeglasses and bronze thimbles and paper balloons and brass toothpicks and fruit dishes of gold and silver; finely carved and inlaid boxes and escritoires; huge earthen jars, or tibores; and porcelain ware of great variety. Spices, gathered at Manila from the Moluccas, Java and Ceylon, were also sent across the Pacific, and among the "drugs" of the Orient carried on the China Ship were musk, borax, red lead, and camphor. As the galleons brought out to the Philippines the chocolate of Guayaquil, so, in the later years, they exported to Mexico the tea of Asia. Towards the last of the eighteenth century many Manila cigars also found their way into Spanish America through Acapulco. The Manila Galleon was only too often a slaver, in spite of restrictions on the traffic in human flesh. A law in 1626 levied a tax of 4000 reales, or 500 pesos, on every slave brought in from the Philippines, and in 1700 a royal order prohibited the trade altogether. Even Caffirs from far-off South Africa were sold in Acapulco, and it was customary for passengers to dispose of their personal servants at the end of the voyage in the same manner, as Gemelli Careri did. Now and then there was conveyed eastward to Acapulco, and perhaps on to Spain, some curious or monstrous animal, like the white deer which was caught in the forest of Laguna de Bay, and, with a golden collar about its neck, sent as a present to the king by the bishop-governor in 1746. It seemed in the first half-century of the trade that neither 34 THE MANILA GALLEON shipwreck nor other circumstance could ever deter its progress. Many ships were lost at sea with their rich merchandise and thousands of lives that could be ill spared. Though for a brief period the colony was prostrated by its losses, the citizens quickly recovered their confidence and resumed their trading activities. If the Manilenos lived dangerously in the midst of so many perils, they also lived luxuriously and recklessly, and it was the bountiful returns from the annual voyage of the Manila Galleon that provided the means for their lavish way of life. It was their city that Morga described in its young prime, and that Padre Chirino called "a copy of that Tyre so praised by Ezekiel." The Spanish quarter was located on the site origi nally occupied by the Moro settlement, when Legaspi moved his government thither from Cebu in 1572. It formed a rough tri angle with the Pasig River on one side and the bay on another, and was surrounded by the wall built by the elder Dasmarinas. At strategic intervals along the walls were bastions mounted with artillery or more formidable defense works, like the fortress of Santiago. On the land side there were three main gates, flanked by salient towers and closed at nightfall, and a number of postern gates opened to the shores of the river and the bay. Around the Plaza de Armas were ranged the principal public buildings. Here stood the governor's palace until its destruction in 1863. Morga considered it "very beautiful and sightly," with its "many windows opening towards the sea and the Plaza," and its "two courts, with upper and lower galleries raised on stout pillars," after the conventional style of Spanish colonial capitals. Not only did it house the governor and his family and official retinue, but there was a "large and stately hall" for the high ju dicial and administrative court of the audiencia. It also contained the quarters of the company of arquebusiers, who served as the governor's guard. Facing the same great square, that was the center of the city's collective life, were the Cabildo, or city hall, the royal treasury and arsenals, and the cathedral, with its three naves and its rich choir and chapels. In other parts of the Intramuros, or walled city, were the great monasteries of the Augustinians, Dominicans, and Francis cans, the residencia of the Jesuits, and the Convent of San Andres and Santa Potenciana, famous for its charities to the needy women and girls of the city. Besides these religious establish- 36 THE MANILA GALLEON ments there were three large hospitals,—the royal hospital for Spaniards, supported by the king, the charitable hospital of the Confraternity of Mercy, or Hermandad de la Misericordia, main tained by the rich endowments of the principal society of the obras pias, and the Hospital of San Juan de Dios for natives. This institution was conducted by the Franciscan priests and laybrothers. "A great many natives, suffering from all diseases," said Morga, "are treated there with great care and attention. The physicians, surgeons and apothecaries are so skilful and use ful, that they cause many marvelous cures, both in medicine and in surgery." Morga thus describes the houses of the Spaniards in his time: "The streets of the city are compactly built up with houses, mostly of stone, although some are of wood. Many are roofed with clay tiles and others with nipa thatch. They are excellent edifices, lofty and spacious, and have large rooms and many windows, and balconies with iron gratings, that embellish them. More are daily being built and finished. There are about six hundred houses within the walls, and a greater number, built of wood, in the sub urbs; and all are the habitations and homes of Spaniards." After the burning of the original wooden city in 1583 and the disastrous fire of 1603, the Spanish city was soon entirely reconstructed of stone, with roofs of red rile. It was a colorful scene that the city made, as Morga wrote of its crowds, with which he must often have mingled. "The streets, squares and churches are generally filled with people of all classes, especially Spaniards—all, both men and women, clad and gorgeously adorned in silks. They wear many ornaments and all kinds of fine clothes, because of the ease with which these are obtained. Consequently this is one of the places most highly praised by the foreigners who resort to it, of all in the world, both for the above reason and for the great provision and abun dance of food and other necessities for human life found there." When the Spaniards wished to leave the precincts of the walled city for recreation, they had the choice of two drives. One led by the present route of the Malecon and the Luneta along the shore of the bay through the native quarter of Bagum-bayan to the popular shrine of Our Lady of Guidance and on to the Augustinian monastery in Malate. Another extended inland through the old suburb of Laguio, now called Conception, to INTRODUCTION 37 the Chapel of San Anton and ended at the Franciscan monastery and mission house of La Candelaria near the Japanese quarter. Thus, the Manilenos were accustomed to mingle devotion and pleasure in their excursions from the confinement of the city. The better class of Tagalogs lived in the quarter of Malate, which fronted on the beach beyond the walled town. In the lowlands immediately beyond the walls there were grouped a number of native settlements, which included Santiago, San Anton, San Miguel, San Lazaro, and Dilao. However, in 1791 the government undertook to clear this section of the metropoli tan area, in order to ensure the better defense of the walled city from that side. At the same time, their inhabitants were settled on lands farther removed from the old city, to which they gave the names of their original quarters. The Parian, or enclosed district of the Chinese, was situated near the river in the locality of the present Botanical Garden. A large body of Chinese also lived on the opposite side of the Pasig in two settlements in the popular Filipino quarter of Tondo. For a time there was a smaller Japanese community between the Parian and the quarter of Laguio. The belief in the splendor of Manila persisted into the time of her decadence, when at last traders and travelers could see her as she really was. To much of the rest of the world Manila was still the great center of a rich commerce whose returns were fabulously high. Morden, an English geographer, wrote in 1693 that Manila was then "the Magazine of the richest commodities in the World." Crawford, another Englishman, writing in 1762, the year in which the English force of occupation expected to enrich themselves by putting the city to loot and ransom, said: "The British public absurdly imagined that Manila, an ill-gov erned settlement and oppressed by all the devices of Spanish colonial restrictions, must be a place of great wealth. They were seduced into a belief in this mischievous phantasy, by the daz zling and popular spectacle of the millions of dollars sent annu ally from America, by the dazzling captures of Cavendish and Anson, and by the imposing circumstances of seeing annually embarked in a single speculation the commercial adventures of a whole settlement, in itself one of the most obvious sources of a poverty, which it would have been reasonable to have pre dicted." Not only was this fame due to the reports of the wealth 38 THE MANILA GALLEON of captured galleons like the Santa Ana and the Covadonga, but also to the Spanish policy of excluding foreigners from the city, leaving them to their imagination. Thus, bright as was the reality in early times, fancy endowed Manila with the ex aggerated glamour of a "forbidden city." No ship ever played the part in a city's life which the gal leon did in that of Manila. It brought the Spanish settlers out to the distant colony. If they survived the fevers, and were not of the small minority who would establish themselves perma nently in the islands, the galleon would carry them back in a few years, enriched, to Mexico or on to Spain. It was the solitary mail-boat that brought them the year-old or two-year-old news from Mexico or Madrid, of new viceroys and kings, of belated royal decrees that vitally concerned their own fortunes, and of wars in which Spain herself might be taking a part, with letters from the Spanish town whence they had come, and to which they might return, to set up in state. Their only occupation and source of income were the Acapulco trade. The character of Manila society, in the wider sense of that word, was deter mined, beyond the circumstances of climate and situation, by conditions incidental to the all-important galleon commerce. The commercial position of the Spaniards was that of inter mediaries. Their part in the trade was a stationary one, since without the need for exerting themselves trading routes from all the Orient naturally converged at Manila and the products of all those regions gravitated, without effort on their part, to its profitable market. The Spaniards, assured of rich returns from New Spain, paid good prices—"like gentlemen"—and the traders of the east vied for a share of the constant stream of silver pesos that poured in from the mints of Mexico and Peru. In the circumstances, the Manilenos rarely felt the urgency for venturing forth in search of new markets. The mercantile operations of no trading system could have been simpler or less arduous. For the typical merchant, they amounted to taking over at a regular season of the year a part of the merchandise brought to Manila by the Chinese or other Orientals, registering at the treasury his consignment for the galleon, the making out of the invoices for the galleon's register, and the packing of his bales and chests for shipment. At the return of the galleon he received his share of the proceeds of her INTRODUCTION 39 voyage, and, if he were a debtor to the obras pias for the money he had invested in his shipment, he arranged his accounts with these clerical bankers. According to Morga, this whole series of transactions did not consume more than three months of the twelve. By Viana's time, nearly two centuries later, the period of exertion had been shortened by a month. The possession of nine or ten months of leisure in the year permitted the enjoyment of an easy and luxurious existence, except as it might be interrupted by the incidence of war or catastrophe to which the city was long subject. The where withal for such a favored life was provided by the profits from the galleon; its proper adornment was made possible by the availability of Oriental goods of an infinite variety and a tempt ing cheapness. The whole Orient and the Americas, and be yond them, the looms and workshops of Europe were drawn on to minister to their desires for indulgence in food and dress and equipage. The high returns from the galleon trade and the facilities which it afforded for a life of luxury discouraged the Spaniards from embarking in other occupations that might have given them more security, if less glamour. In 1586 Pedro de Rojas wrote to Philip II from Manila that the entire colony was ab sorbed in the Acapulco commerce. He complained that it un fitted them for warlike enterprises, and his picture of the moral consequences, "effeminacy, vices, luxuries, fine clothes, eating and drinking," is similar to that drawn by Padre Zuniga over two hundred years later. In a memorial addressed to the Coun cil of the Indies the same year by some citizens of Manila, in cluding Governor Vera, they lamented the unsettled and uncul tivated state of the islands, which they attributed to the fact that the first comers were conquerors, and that "afterwards all thought and care were transferred to traffic and gain." "This trade is so great and profitable and easy to control," wrote Morga in 1609, "that the Spaniards do not apply them selves to, or engage in, any other industry. Consequently there is no husbandry or field labor worthy of consideration. They do not engage in the many other industries to which they could turn with great profit, if the Chinese trade should fail them. That trade has been very hurtful and prejudicial in this respect." Governor Alonso Fajardo called it "the harvest that sustains the 4o THE MANILA GALLEON country," and in 1637 Grau y Monfalcon declared that the Span iards could not exist without the trade, since all agriculture was in the hands of the natives, and retail trade and the mechanical arts were a monopoly of the Chinese. And he added: "The principal motive that leads the Spaniards to those islands is the profit from the trade with New Spain, for which they risk their lives and property in a long and painful voyage." Nearly a century later the city, in a memorial which it di rected to the king, made the following appeal on behalf of the old order: "As soon as these islands were discovered, it was recognized that for their maintenance and increase trade was necessary with other regions; for there were no profitable mines in them and the products of their soil could not furnish the basis of a commerce for their support." Francisco Leandro de Viana, writing in 1767, said: "The Spaniards do not go out of Manila, where all are gentlemen; they regard it as unworthy to devote themselves to any other pursuit than commerce; they employ themselves in swindling and begging alms, rather than seek a living in the provinces and, above all, they live in utter idleness. They loiter about and divert themselves with gambling and other vices. For this reason, Manila is the commonwealth most abominable for malicious tales, slanders and factions, for sloth and licentiousness." The next year Governor Anda attributed part of the bad state of the Spanish population to "the exclusion of all other means of gain." "The products of the islands," he continued, "are largely in the hands of the friars, the provincial alcaldes are concerned to a certain extent, and the Chinese and mestizos receive a large share, but the Spanish population benefit little or none." The verdict of the chief of the insular bureau of accounts, writing in 1805, was as severe, when he declared that the Acapulco trade had always been "prejudicial to the state, the inhabitants, and the city." A memorial directed to Governor Berenguer by the City of Manila in 1788 well illustrates the citizens' position on the trade. "The Spanish conquerors of these islands," it read, "did not leave Spain to take up the plow in the Philippines; much less did they undertake so long and unknown a navigation to set up looms and transplant new fruits. At the first insinuation of this, they would have left the islands, and the archipelago would today be in the hands of another power. That which led those great men INTRODUCTION 4i to abandon home and country and to face so many dangers was their interest in gold and spices, which they believed they would find on touching these shores. Once established here, it was necessary to maintain communications with New Spain whence they must receive reinforcements and subsidies. That led to the concession of an annual 'permission' for Acapulco, and the fame of the commerce of this port was the loadstone which has drawn Spaniards from Europe and America to this city. The natural inclination of men to seek their fortune by the shortest road led them to migrate with the sole aim of freighting the Philippine galleon. The result of this was the establishment and gradual increase of this community. How could a small number of men, already occupied in commerce, because of the advantages they found in it, apply themselves to the cultivation of the soil, the introduction of new plants, or the establishment of manu factures,—objects that demand serious attention and a long course of time, to which no one occupied in trade can attend? The regard of the trader is directed solely to commerce, and not to something else that would distract him from his occupa tion. Other occupations demand other men, whose natural lean ing is towards their profession. None but Spaniards of adven turous temper have ever come to the Philippines and these have not been suited for the development of industry. The European nations who now have colonies in America and Asia all know that to give them their present luster they purposely colonized them with many families experienced in the arts and agriculture. If a like course had been followed in the case of Manila, it would have contributed to its progress. It is very evident that since this trade has fallen in importance but few Spaniards come, which decrease is the source of the depopulation of this city. "Since the founding of this commonwealth there has not been, nor is there now, any other means of conserving the Islands, and of defending them at all times by land and sea against whatever enemies, internal or foreign, have made at tempts on them, save the Acapulco ship. . . . This commerce is, then, the only base and foundation of the subsistence of this commonwealth." Many foreign observers in the eighteenth century com mented on the failure of the Spaniards to develop the resources of the islands. Sir William Draper, who was governor at 42 THE MANILA GALLEON Manila during the short-lived English occupation in 1762, said of the Spanish colony: "It may appear wonderful that so many islands, so excellent in situation, should yield so little for foreign commerce." La Perouse, the French navigator, said: "The Philippines resemble the estates of those great lords, whose lands remain uncultivated, though they would make the fortune of a number of families." His countryman, Legentil, observed at first hand the effect on the colony of its general preoccupation with the galleon trade. "I saw," he remarked, "that although the Spaniards derived no advantage from these islands they could have made of them the most flourishing colony on earth." "The regard of the Spaniard at Manila," he continued, "is fixed on the galleon bound for Acapulco, which is to bring him back the means of living through the next year. Thus, his ambition passes from one galleon to another, and ends there. He sees the impossibility in which he exists of raising himself above this state of affairs. He thinks neither of cultivating the soil nor of any other branch of trade. The galleon is the source of his well-being and he is content to leave it so, but if the ship fails to return, as has happened more than once, he vegetates in medi ocrity or dies in misery." In another place he writes: "The Manilenos have no lands, as in France and Spain, and so no assured income. The money which they spend never returns to thenhands. . . . The result of all this is that one sees an infinity of ups and downs in the fortunes of the citizens of Manila, and that today the children of those who were once very rich are often reduced to beggary and lost in the mass of the people. I was astonished every day to hear remarks like these in the streets of Manila : 'Do you see that person,' one would say to me, 'who asks for alms? Well, his grandfather—or even his father—had a great deal of money. But the poor devil suffered heavy losses, and his children, or his grandchildren, are in the state that you see. The father of that man was general of the galleon and lost everything. This other one is a descendant of the Marquis of So-and-so, who once cut a great figure here. What fiestas and what balls he gave! He is dead and he left very little to his children. The executors never made an accounting of his in heritance and his children are left in the plight you see.'" "I have been assured," Legentil concludes, "that money very rarely passes to the third generation." INTRODUCTION 43 This change in the character of colonial society was also pictured by Padre Zuniga in the beginning of the last century. The priest described the spectacle of those creoles who had dis sipated their own accumulations or the heritages of their fathers. He saw them wandering about the streets of Manila, "in the greatest misery and begging alms," while five hundred coaches of their more fortunate fellows were rattling through the same streets. Added to these were other classes,—renegades and ad venturers, heedless of all the ordinary bonds of society, envious mestizos without caste in the Spanish community, ruined and disaffected men who had staked and lost all on a wrecked galleon, imported criminals of expired term,—for the Philippines were long a penal colony,—and disbanded soldiers of unsteady habits. Such men were ready for any questionable venture, and gained their living by fraud or violence or mendicancy. Other reasons for the failure to develop agriculture and manufactures were the dangers to intrainsular traffic from Moro piracy, which was until recent times a constant obstacle to peace ful navigation; the lack of demand in Mexico for Philippine products (except cottons); the gathering of the small Spanish population in Manila for greater security and comfort; the gen eral aversion of the Spanish colonizer to agriculture where there was any other means of enrichment; the early occupation of the best lands by the friars—a result as much as it was a cause; the restriction of the amount of the galleon's cargo, which favored the more compact Chinese silks as against the bulkier products of the islands; and the absence of any organized effort—until the Royal Philippine Company—to foment agriculture. The Spaniards merely followed the line of least resistance and largest profits. From the time of Philip II, for whom the islands were named and during whose reign they were occupied, there existed a movement to abandon the Philippines. In fact, the abandon ment of the group was discussed in Spain only a year after Legaspi's arrival on Cebu. The motives for these proposals were financial and commercial. The colony was not self-supporting, for the duties collected on the galleon's imports into New Spain seldom equaled the amount of the annual subsidy, or situado, which was sent out to Manila from the viceregal treasury in Mex ico, In extenuation of the chronic deficit in the insular finances, 44 THE MANILA GALLEON the Manilenos contended that a large part of the subvention from Mexico was drained off to finance the expeditions against the Moluccas and to maintain the Spanish establishments in those islands, which were not relinquished until 1662. As they con tended the costly Moluccan enterprise had not been of their choos ing, they protested against being held responsible for its effects on the insular finances. The opposition of the powerful commercial interests of the Andalusian cities was a more formidable support of the move ment than were these considerations of fixed policy. The gal leon trade in Chinese silks competed with their trade with the American viceroyalties and threatened the existence of the na tional silk industry. Therefore they intrigued and labored at court to have the troublesome colony turned adrift. Though the evacuation of the islands was seriously debated at times, the skilled advocacy of their interests by the friends of the colony always saved them. In any emergency, Manila could depend on the powerful support of the Church with its great spiritual and material interests in the islands. National senti ment and the prestige of the crown were also concerned in the preservation of the colony. The kings had a weakness for the city to which Philip II had given the title of "Notable and Ever Loyal." Philip IV once called it "the best and most honored city in the overseas dominions of my monarchy." If the Philippines were abandoned, it was certain that they would quickly fall into the hands of the Dutch or the English, a prospect which Spanish pride could not face with equanimity. The Philippines also formed an advanced post for the defense of the western coasts of the Americas against aggressions from the side of Asia and the Eastern Indies, and so constituted an important link in the general plan of Spanish strategy in the Pacific. There was also enunciated on behalf of the Philippines the benevolent principle of statecraft that "a king holds some states because he needs them, and others because they need him." Only out of Spain could there have come in that age a concept of imperial policy so quixotic in its nobility. Philippine products never held more than a minor place in the cargoes of the galleons. The Spaniards never became aware of the true extent of the islands' gold deposits. And the Philip pines produced neither silks nor spices,—except for cinnamon,—- INTRODUCTION 45 the two great staples of Oriental trade. As we have seen, the Spaniards were early disillusioned of riches from the develop ment of insular resources. Legaspi showed little enthusiasm for the industrial prospects of the colony he founded. His admiral, Juan Pablo Carrion, said: "No profit can be expected from the islands until trading connections can be opened with China and the rest of the Indies." And it was the beginning of the rich trade in Chinese silks that removed at the outset all incentive for a systematic investigation of the possibilities in local produc tion. Doctor Sande, the third governor, called the land "as sterile as one who lives on charity," and those who came after him for the next century and a half accepted his verdict with little questioning of its soundness. It is difficult to determine the exact extent of the Philippine goods shipped on the galleons. The Spaniards in the islands wished the merchants of Cadiz and Seville to remain ignorant of the potentialities of insular production, which their rivals in the peninsula might consider adequate compensation for a pro hibition of the trade in Chinese silks. Accordingly, it was the policy of the islanders to minimize whatever importance this branch of the galleon trade had, and, to accomplish this, they were not averse to falsifying the entries in the ships' registers. Such efforts as were made during the last century of the galleon trade to promote the exportation of native products were largely defeated by the inertia or open hostility of the Spanish traders in Manila, who looked with disfavor on any innovation in the old order, then long sanctified by time and custom. In fact, an especially remiss application of the fiscal and commer cial laws was designed to favor the growth of insular industry and trade. In their case the royal authorities at Manila usually waived the imposition of the export duties levied on goods of foreign origin destined for the Mexican market. In this way insular goods enjoyed the advantage of what amounted to a preferential tariff or bounty. Nor were the products of the islands generally included in making up the legal total of cargo, but were shipped outside it. In 1609 Banuelos y Carrillo told Philip III that "the inhabitants of the Manilas should be allowed to export as many shiploads of the country's produce as pos sible." In 1720 the royal prosecutor, or fiscal, declared that the pcrmiso, or limitation on the galleon's cargo, had never been 46 THE MANILA GALLEON held to apply to such goods. The colony's agents in Spain al ways favored the formal abolition of such restrictions as there were on the exportation of insular products. Though their pri mary purpose was probably to secure more lading space for the Chinese stuffs, in some cases they may have argued from a sin cere desire to stimulate the development of Philippine resources. For example, Grau y Monfalcon said: "The products of the islands, by that very fact, ought to be exported freely, a claim founded on justice, since it is not usual to prohibit to any prov ince its own trade." He should have written "just" for "usual," since England and France, save in periods of laxness, were as jealous of their colonies' unrestrained prosperity as was Spain. At rare times, as when the Chinese trade was temporarily interrupted, the volume, if not the value, of insular goods on the galleons may have been considerable. Yet, during the long and bitter contest with the Andalusian cities it was declared that "the only products of the islands for the New Spain trade are wax, Ilocos cottons, and cordage,—and the value of these ex ported, with some gold chains, does not go beyond 30,000 pesos." This was at a time when the permitted cargo was ten times that amount. Morga gives as the insular products exported to America in his day "gold, cotton-cloth, and cakes of white and yellow wax." From the very earliest appearance of Spaniards in the archi pelago they had observed traces of gold among the natives, usu ally in the form of ornaments, and the conquerors accordingly had at first high hopes of a lucrative output of the metal. How ever, they remained ignorant of the exact origin of such gold as they encountered. Pigafetta, chronicler-companion of Magel lan's voyage, wrote of placer mines among the Visayas, where "pieces of gold, of the size of walnuts and eggs" were sifted from the auriferous sands of the streams. Alvaro de Saavedra, who was among the group in 1527, mentioned Cebu as yielding gold, besides "many fine hogs." The famous pilot, Urdaneta, who accompanied Loaysa's ill-fated expedition, told of "much gold" in Mindanao and Cebu, and the credulous followers of Villalobos were regaled with like tales of gold. In his first report to the king, Legaspi said : "The people wear gold earrings, brace lets and necklaces. Wherever we have gone we found a display of these articles." In a later communication he announced the INTRODUCTION 47 presence of "more or less gold" in all the islands, but lamented that the natives were too indolent to work the mines steadily, while he anticipated little profit from this source for the con querors. Two years after his arrival at Cebu, he wrote to Philip II: "In some islands we have been informed of and have seen mines of gold, which, if the islands were peopled with Spaniards, would, it is believed, be rich and profitable." A considerable quantity of gold, received as tribute from the natives or obtained in barter from them, usually constituted part of the cargoes of the early galleons. The provinces of Ilocos and Pangasinan, on Luzon, paid their first tribute in gold, to the value of 109,000 pesos. The Spaniards themselves engaged but little in the actual work of mining and depended on what they could obtain from the natives, who feared their cupidity and concealed the sources of their gold. Like the management of a lone hacienda, panning gold in a remote mountain stream was not only more arduous but less remunerative than taking part at Manila in the galleon trade. Governor Diego Ronquillo (1583-84) said that in some years from 60,000 to 70,000 pesos in gold were taken to Acapulco. But the gold carried by the gal leons became of less and less consequence. The Spaniards be lieved the falling-off was due to a contraband trade between natives and foreigners, in which the former exchanged gold for merchandise. As late as 1783 Francisco Martinez de la Costa declared that the "Indians" took out about two million pesos of gold each year and bartered it to foreigners. "In former times," he adds, "gold was sent to Mexico, since Cavendish found 658,000 libras on the Santa Ana." 2 Philippine spices proved to be as disappointing a support for a local economy as did gold. Yet, the hopes of the conquerors, that they had at last found what Columbus had sought in vain, were at first as high as they were of rich gold discoveries. Guido de Lavezaris, Legaspi's aide and successor, wrote to Philip II of a great area of cinnamon trees on Mindanao and of rumors that the hills on the southern island were full of the spice.3 Cinnamon * Gold it now one of the most important products of the Philippines. The out put in 1936, largely mined on Luzon, amounted to 19,684,976 fine grams, with a value of $22,197,276. Gold production in 1937 was valued at $25,626,911. 3 The true cinnamon of commerce (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) is indigenous to Ceylon. However, the bark of Cinnamomum mindanaense is very similar to the Ceylonese variety. 48 THE MANILA GALLEON from that region was shipped on the first galleons from Cebu to Mexico. But the Spaniards never made a serious effort to develop a trade in the local bark and generally imported cinnamon from Ceylon for the American market. On the other hand, they never entirely abandoned the idea of a lucrative spice production from the country about Zamboanga on Mindanao. In 1625 Philip IV ordered Governor Fajardo to promote the growing of nutmegs, but that unhappy man died the year before. Insular spices were to have an important role in the plans of the gov ernors who ruled the Philippines in the period of revival in the later eighteenth century, though the practical results were insig nificant. The Dutch, aware of its usefulness for spice production, placed a stone on Mindanao in the early part of the eighteenth century to signify their intention of occupying it. Nicholas Norton Nichols, an Englishman who resided in the Philippines, attempted to arouse the Spaniards to a belated effort to develop a spice industry in the southern islands. "Cinnamon grows very abundantly in Mindanao," he wrote to Charles III in 1759; "it would be of no little advantage to be able to cultivate it as the Dutch do." "Spain," he added, "might with as good reason send to Holland to buy wine as cinnamon." "Nutmegs also grow there," he said, "and need only to be cultivated; also pepper of the best quality can be had in abundance." But, in view of the attitude of the Manilenos, Mindanao could never be made to compensate for the loss of the Moluccas. An extensive cultivation of spices in that region would have in volved incessant conflicts with the Moros, and with the assurance of the highly profitable Chinese silk trade the Spaniards on Luzon never felt the urgency of undertaking the systematic exploitation of the spice industry on the great southern island. After they gave up their temporary hold on the Spice Isles themselves, they obtained the bulk of their spices from the Dutch in Java. They bought large quantities each year for the Mexican market, while the peninsular merchants bought some from the Dutch East India Company, part of which was in turn reshipped to Spanish America, there to compete with that shipped from Manila. Some half-hearted efforts were early made to encourage the manufacture of cottons by the natives for export to New Spain. The influx of similar goods from China and India after the INTRODUCTION 49 Spanish occupation largely caused the natives to abandon the manufacture of cloth even for their own consumption. An ordi nance of 1591 forbade the Filipinos to wear Chinese stuffs, but this restriction and the efforts of Governor Dasmarinas to revive the industry with a view to contributing to the Acapulco trade had little effect. There was a good market for such materials in Mexico and the demand could have been largely supplied by Philippine manufactures. The lampotes or gauze of Cebu was especially esteemed, both by the islanders and the Mexicans. The cotton mantas or sail-cloth, made in the Province of Ilocos on Luzon were also in wide demand among shipping in the East Indies. A larger trade in these insular products would also have served to keep in the islands some of the silver from Mexico. Among other textile goods of domestic manufacture which found a regular demand in Mexico were linen sheets and tablecloths and bed canopies, bed coverlets from Lubang and Ilocos, cotton stockings from Manila, and petticoats and hammocks from Ilocos. During the later seventeenth century a momentous change came over the Spanish colony. Exhausted by the efforts of the heroic age, it gradually drew within itself and vegetated in in glorious obscurity. The days when Spain swaggered about the East were over. Under the threat of a Chinese pirate state on Formosa, the Moluccas and the Moro Islands were abandoned in 1662 and their garrisons withdrawn to Manila. The armed forces and defenses of the colony were neglected. The replacements in the troops were now largely inferior recruits from Mexico, in stead of the veteran infantry of former times who had seen service in Flanders and in other continental campaigns. The result was that toward the end of this sorry period even the Moros raided at will among the islands in defiance of a government too supine to hold them in check. Only Luzon and the Visayas remained, and the once brilliant luster of Spanish prestige in the Orient was dimmed, never again to awe its peoples with the old daring and splendor of its imperial enterprises. Though not to the same degree, the Philippines shared in the decadence of the mother country under the later Hapsburgs and the first of the Bourbons. From the great age when she had lorded it over the rest of continental Christendom Spain had left to her little more than her inexorable pride and the American colonies into which England and France were already making 50 THE MANILA GALLEON inroads. The very nation appeared weary and disillusioned, as though by efforts beyond its strength, made in pursuit of aims that no longer seemed worth the cost. The epic adventure of the conqtdsta had ended, and with it there seemed to have gone for the time much of the high spirit and energy of the race. Her rulers governed the monarchy and its overseas empire with sub lime ineptitude, and among the viceroys and governors who were sent out during this period there were few who rose above the general level of mediocrity, even when far from the dead hand of an irresolute and unintelligent court. The galleon trade was sustained by the impetus of the past well into the era of political decline. In 1663 the Jesuit historian, Padre Colin, could say of a commerce that was still varied and far-reaching: "Manila is the equal of any other emporium of our monarchy, for it is the center to which flow the riches of the Orient and the Occident, the silver of Peru and New Spain, the pearls and precious stones of India, the diamonds of Narsinga and Goa, the rubies, sapphires and topazes, and the cinnamon of Ceylon, the pepper of Sumatra and the Javas, the cloves, nut megs and other spices of the Moluccas and Banda, the fine Per sian silks and wool and carpets from Ormuz and Malabar, rich hangings and bed coverings of Bengal, fine camphor of Borneo, balsam and ivory of Abada and Cambodia, the civet of the Lequios, and from Great China silks of all kinds, raw and woven in velvets and figured damasks, taffetas and other cloths of every texture, design and colors, linens, and cotton mantles, gilt-deco rated articles, embroideries and porcelains, and other riches and curiosities of great value and esteem, from Japan, amber, vari colored silks, escritoires, boxes and desks of precious woods, lacquered and with curious decorations, and very fine silverware." Yet, only seven years before, the City, brooding over its waning prosperity, addressed to Philip IV the following lament: "This city had a vast commerce with Great China, Japan, the kingdoms of Cochin-China, Macassar, Cambodia, and Siam, and with the Portuguese inhabitants of the Eastern Indies, Goa, Cochin, Ben gal, Nagapatam, Cananor, and Ormuz, from whence there came such an abundance of merchandise and precious stuffs that with this great trade Manila was considered, and rightly so, as a new Venice." Influences were at work in the trade, which, though their INTRODUCTION 5» full effects were long delayed, were gradually to bring about its eventual ruin. A cautious spirit of routine was supplanting the bold initiative of earlier times. Signs were evident of the monop oly of the trade by a small body of professional merchants, who were forced to share their profits with speculators in Mexico and with the clerical bankers of the obras pias, whose credits were partly depended upon to finance their operations. In their sources of supply throughout the Orient the Spaniards had begun to feel the competition of rivals with more enterprise and a keener commercial sense, who broke into the eastern trade after the coming of the Iberian peoples. Also, the galleon trade was increasingly harassed by the re strictive policy of the central government. The trade, which profited from administrative laxness and collusion at both ends of the line, had survived the rigorous regime temporarily put into effect at Acapulco in 1635 by the royal visitador, Pedro de Quiroga. It then enjoyed a long period of tolerance until 1714, when the ancient feud between Manila and the Andalusian ports was reopened as a result of revelations made at Acapulco by Viceroy Linares. Four years later, at the behest of commercial interests in Spain, the king ordered the abolition of the trade in Chinese silks. Though the royal decree was arbitrarily suspended by the new viceroy, Valero, the order was reissued in October 1720, by Philip V, in terms more far-reaching than that of 1718. News of the fateful law did not reach Manila for nearly two years. The colony, threatened with ruin, prepared strong repre sentations to the king and invoked in its behalf the aid of all the interests on which it generally counted in times of emergency. Their efforts were crowned with success when the king issued a decree in June 1724, raising the ban on the traffic in silks. Though Cadiz and Seville again raised the issue in 1729 on the instigation of Viceroy Casafuerte, the court turned a deaf ear to their entreaties. Moreover, a royal decree of April 18, 1734, en acted into law the demands of the Manilerios for further con cessions and definitely sealed their victory over their hated rivals. In the Philippines only the Church prospered. Its leaders were able, its policies had the force of continuity, and the re serves of its wealth were never dissipated. The clerical element was dominant and the colony took on more and more the char acter of a vast religious establishment. Manila had become a 52 THE MANILA GALLEON "warehouse of the Faith"—"almacen de la Fe"—from which mis sionaries issued forth to labor at the conversion of the infidels of the surrounding regions. In 1722 there were said to be over 1500 priests in the islands, or more than the total of the Spanish lay population at that time. Even the galleon trade was largely sub sidiary to their interest through the ecclesiastical control of the obras pias, or rich charitable foundations, on whose funds ship pers were often accustomed to depend to finance their consign ments to Acapulco. If the government, beyond the collection of the head-tax or "tribute," largely abandoned the native popula tion of the provinces to the care and solicitude of the clergy, it was to the credit of the Church that whatever advantages of Eu ropean civilization the Filipino people derived from the Spanish regime were in large part the work of the priests. Also, most of the lands which had been held in encomienda by lay Spaniards had gradually come into possession of the friars, eventually to create a problem which was only solved after the American occu pation. Governors found it necessary to yield before the dictation of the all-powerful religious orders. One, Salcedo, was broken by the Inquisition and, a prisoner of the Holy Office, died at sea on his way to Mexico in 1669. The conflict between Church and state was never more bitter than during the governorship of Vargas Hurtado (1678-1684), when the high-handed and violent Archbishop Pardo was head of the Philippine hierarchy. Ban ishment and excommunication were freely resorted to. Vargas, when no longer governor, was humiliated by being forced to stand daily in the streets of Manila with a rope around his neck and a candle in his hand, and, like Salcedo, finally died on an outgoing galleon, a prisoner of his clerical enemies. When Bustamante, a governor of the old school, attempted to revive the former prerogatives of his office, he aroused the bitter opposi tion of the clergy, who stirred up the populace in sedition against him. At last, on the nth of October 1719, a mob, incited by friars, broke into the palace and slaughtered the brave and defiant governor. After the enlightened rule of Governor Arandia (1754-1759), which presaged the revival that was soon to come, there was a short interregnum of church control during the unfor tunate governorship of Archbishop Rojo (1761-1762). In the circumstances, it was natural that orthodoxy should come to be INTRODUCTION 53 rated a higher virtue than industry and that charity should be held above foresight and thrift. The Inquisition was entrusted with the pursuit of heretics, and, according to Morga, it had never failed "to have plenty to do." The Frenchman, Legentil, who lamented the effects of what he called "the despotism of religion," declared that, although non-Christians were admitted at Manila for purposes of conversion, he had not heard of a single case in the century and a half of the city's trade where a Moslem had for saken Mahomet or an Armenian had abjured his error. As the Philippines had shared in the decadence of the mothercountry, so were they to participate in the revival of Spain in the eighteenth century. The new state of affairs which developed in the peninsula and culminated in the "enlightened despotism" of Charles III (1757-1788) was reflected in a similar improvement in the colonies. In the Philippines the reforming king and his progressive ministers had their counterparts in royal administra tors of a refreshingly new stamp, whose minds were open to the progressive ideas of the age and who were brutally critical of the shortcomings of the old regime. They were exemplified in gov ernors like Arandia (1754-1759), Anda (1762-1764; 1770-1776), Basco (1778-1787), and Aguilar (1793-1806), and other officials like Calderon Enriquez and Francisco Leandro de Viana. They introduced far-reaching reforms in the government and the economy of the colony. That they did not accomplish more was only due to the shortness of the time at their disposal and to the opposition of those who profited by the perpetuation of old abuses. They had everywhere to contend with the selfishness and sus picion of long-established interests, and with an inertia that had its roots deep in custom, the tropical environment, and the con servatism of the Orient. The revival took the form of (1) greater vigor and honesty in the public administration; (2) a more intensive development of the internal resources of the long fallow islands; (3) an at tempt to reorientate and broaden the commercial life of the colony by the opening of direct trade with Spain; and (4) a more liberal attitude towards the traders of other nations. The crux of the movement was the creation of a new local economy, based on the long neglected productive capacity of the islands them selves and that would take little account of the goings and com ings of the galleons and the junks. Tobacco, sugar, hemp and 54 THE MANILA GALLEON copra were to form a more stable economic basis for the colony in the new age. At last the Philippines were to have a value and importance in themselves, rather than as a mere way-station in the two-century-old trade between China and Mexico or as a preserve of the Church. The tradition of the galleon monopoly was clearly incom patible with the new order of things. A memorial, drawn up in 1805 by the royal treasury officials at Manila, was to contain this indictment of the ancient trade: "It is well known that the pro ceeds from the galleon commerce have been of little benefit to agriculture and industry in the Philippines. Instead of realizing the great advantages that were promised by the fertility of these lands, the stream of silver which has poured in from New Spain has only had the effect of rendering sterile those very advantages. For the profits are only divided among a small number of real merchants, a few of their hangers-on, some persons with influ ence in Manila, and the intermediaries in Mexico. The result is that, instead of promoting the welfare of the farmers and the artisans and of the other poor classes of those islands, it has been prejudicial to the state and to its inhabitants. For the greater the abundance of money which passes from New Spain to the Philippines, and thence into the dead hands of the Chinese, the merchants of India and other peoples who supply the cargoes of the galleons, the greater is the damage which it does. From it ensues the scarcity and dearness of everything necessary for the support of life, a circumstance which vitally affects the poorer inhabitants of the islands. That is the situation now." Probably the most vigorous advocate of a new economic order was Gover nor Jose Basco y Vargas. In a noteworthy manifesto to "the people of the Philippines" in 1779 he proposed the large-scale cultivation of sugar cane, tobacco, cotton, cacao, cinnamon, and silk worms, and the development of the islands' mineral wealth. He realized the value of the industrial application of scientific knowledge which had placed England in the forefront of Euro pean nations. "When we shall really seek our own welfare," he said, "we shall see what by lack of study, application and industry we now miss, and that is that these islands are pure silver for us if we will but exert ourselves to find it." He then enunciated the important principle that the commerce of the Philippines should depend on the islands themselves and not on INTRODUCTION 55 the uncertainty of foreign supply. The Sociedad Econdmica de los Amigos del Pais, or "Economic Society of Friends of the Country," was the principal vehicle for the propagation of Basco's truly revolutionary and far-reaching ideas. Under the impetus which he supplied, agriculture was developed as never before, and much of what he accomplished was never lost. One of his en terprises which was to have permanent results was the famous tobacco monopoly, which placed the cultivation and export of tobacco on a profitable basis. Also, by creating this and other sources of new revenues, he succeeded in freeing the insular gov ernment from its long dependence as a pensionary on the annual subsidy from Mexico. Four years after Governor Basco's manifesto Francisco Martinez de la Costa, lamenting "the chaos in which these islands are now submerged," proposed the working of their iron ore de posits as one means of their economic rehabilitation. He de clared that the first blast furnaces and forges for the utilization of domestic ore had been established by Governor Anda, but that on Anda's death they had been abandoned. He also suggested a great expansion of the sugar industry, which had hitherto pro duced only for the local market. Of the ban on the export of insular sugar, he said: "This is a blind policy, since the soil of the Philippines is so favorable for the growing of sugar cane that they could supply a great part of Asia." * The most comprehensive project until the creation of the Royal Philippine Company is found in the memorial addressed to the king by Francisco Leandro de Viana. This was in 1765, shortly after the Seven Years' War, when the islands were all but lost to England. Even the government in the peninsula was rudely awakened to the problem of the future management of the colony, and such men as Viana and Anda, who had held Luzon against the invaders, labored to secure the adoption of some policy that would not only insure the conservation but the profitable development of the islands, in whose possibilities they had such great faith. "As is admitted by those of all nations," he said, "these islands are the most fertile, abundant and rich, and the country the most delightful in all these Indies." Viana's scheme would have made the Acapulco trade but a branch of a ♦In the crop year 1933-34 the Philippines produced 1,580,000 tons of raw cane agar, or more than any other country in the world, except Cuba and India. 56 THE MANILA GALLEON new commercial system, whose main interest was in the opening of communications and traffic between Spain and the Philippines. The activities of a far-reaching commercial company would ramify throughout the Far East in competition with the long established trading companies of other European powers. Also, as in the case of India and the British East India Company, the government of the group was to be turned over to the projected Spanish company. This company should not only rule, but ex ploit the islands' resources with a thoroughness hitherto un known. Viana had high hopes for a development of spice cul tivation in Mindanao and other southern islands. Cacao, coffee, tobacco and sugar should be cultivated on a vast scale, not only for insular consumption, but for markets beyond even the peninsula and the American colonies. "Our own inactivity and lack of application," he lamented, "cause us to buy from foreigners the very articles with which these dominions abound." Goldmining, shipbuilding, and textile manufacturing were other fea tures of Viana's program. "In the Provinces of Ilocos and Cagayan," he wrote, "there might be factories to work up the great amount of fine cotton which they produce, and by bringing skilled workmen from India the figured cottons which are brought thence could be made here. In all the Visayas, in Camarines and Albay are made the choicest and finest weaves, which they call nipis, and others of commercial quality, which they call gainaras, and use for shirts. In Cagayan and Ilocos are woven very fine handkerchiefs, towels, coverlets, and tablecloths of as good quality as those made in Flanders." An export busi ness to India and a Canton-Manila trade were to be adjuncts of the main line around Africa. He even proposed a direct trade with Spain via Panama, which would have involved, as he as serted, the construction of a canal across the isthmus. Viana's scheme can only be saved from the charge of being an oversanguine dream by his realization of the vast obstacles that would meet such a program. He said of the creoles: "These citizens have no thought of any further occupation than their everlasting laziness, nor have they the spirit to risk four redes or any zeal for the nation." The Cadiz merchants would be hostile to the oriental company, but they could be brought in as shareholders and the opposition of the galleon merchants in Manila might be overcome in the same way. The only other INTRODUCTION 57 class who could furnish the capital for such an undertaking, the old peninsular nobility, he declared "without occupation and, as a rule, reared in extreme ignorance and idleness." However, even these faineants might be induced to invest in the prospective company and the profits that would result would arouse in them a liking for commerce. His countrymen, then generally con temptuous of a commercial career, and lacking the experience and enterprise requisite for the conduct of a world trade, would become a commercial, and so a prosperous, people. Out of it all there should come a fructified colony and a revival of prosperity for the mother country. It was Viana's proposals which formed substantially the basis for the Royal Philippine Company, or ganized in 1785. The commercial legislation of the period was truly epochmaking. In 1769 a new commercial code was drawn up to govern the trading operations of the colony. Among other in novations, it created the consulado, or consulate, as a corporation of merchants, with large powers over the direction of the Acapulco trade, as well as over all the other overseas and inter-insular com merce of the islands. The new code also recognized the fact that the galleon merchants had lost their former identity with the general body of Spanish citizens and were now a class apart. The creation of the Royal Philippine Company in 1785 aimed at a complete reorientation of the whole commercial system of the islands.5 Its principal feature was the opening of regular connections between Spain and the Philippines, though a num ber of individual trading voyages had been made since 1765, when the Buen Consejo arrived from Cadiz. However, the passive opposition of the Manila merchants to this radical innova tion in their field of business was largely to defeat the purpose of the change and to delay the full fruition of its possibilities to a later time. The traditional attitude of the Spaniards in the islands is seen in the memorial addressed by the City of Manila to Governor Berenguer in 1788.6 It is a protest of the defenders of the old order and a frank acknowledgment of the spell in which the galleon still held the colony. "The principal object of its establishment," they said of the Company, "was the pros perity of these islands and of their inhabitants. In no way is 8 See Appendix I. 6 See page 40. 58 THE MANILA GALLEON this result seen." "It is contrary," the memorial continues, "to the commercial system of this commonwealth. You cannot con serve a building by destroying its foundations." In 1789 the port of Manila was opened to the shipping of the world, but with the important restriction, designed to pro tect the interests of the Royal Philippine Company, that foreign ships might trade only in Asiatic goods. A more liberal attitude towards foreign traders at Manila, if it had been demonstrated earlier, might have prolonged the duration of the city's pros perity. For the Spaniards persisted in their suspicion of for eigners long after the conditions which might once have justi fied their policy of exclusion had everywhere given way to greater freedom of trade. Dutch and English had continued to be treated as enemies and pernicious heretics, while neither the friendship nor the orthodoxy of the French was trusted. Con sequently, the ships of none of these peoples might trade at Manila, except with the aid of various devices and subterfuges intended to conceal the nationality of their registry and cargoes. "Batavia opens its port to the whole world," wrote the French man, Legentil, in 1779, "but Manila closes hers to all nations. No foreign ship is allowed to go there to sell its goods under any pretext." Manila's great opportunity would probably have been in its opening as a free port to the merchants of the world. This was the idea that the advanced French thinker, Raynal, had of her mission, but such a revolutionary project was beyond even the liberalism of the statesmen who surrounded Charles III. The other peoples who had come into the eastern Indies built up ports, such as Batavia and Madras, that took the place which nature destined for Manila. Meanwhile Manila went the way of Goa and Macao into comparative insignificance, again to build up a considerable commerce in insular staples in the last century. The Spaniards later saw England make of Hong-kong and Singapore such centers of the Far Eastern trade as Manila could have been under a rational system, which would have en couraged, instead of hindering, her development. When at last the port of Manila was thrown open to the commerce of the world, she was already outdistanced by her more farsighted com petitors. Governor Anda, in 1773, and Carvajal, first intendant in the islands under the new administrative organization of the INTRODUCTION 59 colony, had petitioned the crown for unlimited freedom of trade with foreigners. A special council of ministers, which included the enterprising Viana, recommended the change to Charles IV in April 1789. Four months later a royal decree was issued, with the limitation which we have seen. Though the original con cession was for only three years, it was extended again at the expiration of the period of trial. The results of the decree are shown by the records of ships entering the port of Manila under the new dispensation. Thus, for the year June 1795-May 1796, the entries at Manila comprised the following nationalities: English, four ships from India; Portuguese, two from Macao and one from Java; Danish, one from India and one from China; "Irish," one from Malacca; and American, one, the Theodosia, of Boston, from Madras. During the same year there entered the harbor of Manila twentyone Chinese junks and twelve Spanish ships, the latter including nine from Macao and Canton, one from Cadiz, one from Borneo, and one from the Moro island of Jolo. In 1818, three years after the last Manila Galleon had crossed between Acapulco and Manila, vessels clearing from the port of Manila were dis tributed as follows: English, seventeen; Chinese, thirteen; Amer ican, ten; Spanish, nine; French, five; and Portuguese, four.7 7 A resume1 of the commercial operations of the port of Manila in 1810 shows the following movement: Imports: Pesot Merchandise from Bengal 650,000 Merchandise from the Coromandel Coast of India 500,000 Merchandise and silver from Europe, the United States, Mauritius, and Jolo 175,000 Merchandise from China 1,150,000 Coined gold and silver from Mexico 2,100,000 Cochineal, copper, and cacao from Mexico 124,000 Coined gold and silver from Peru 550,000 Copper, cacao, etc., from Peru 80,000 Total Exports: Silver to India Copper, etc., to India Silver to China Merchandise to China Merchandise to Mexico Merchandise to Peru Merchandise to Europe, United States, etc. Total 5,329,000 1,100,000 90,000 1,550,000 175,000 1,100,000 530,000 250,000 4,795,000 6b THE MANILA GALLEON Carried by the momentum of centuries, the galleon trade continued until its end was decreed by law. It had become an anachronism,—magnificent still by reason of the great tradition which it represented, but none the less outdated in an age whose conditions were hostile to the principles on which it had endured so long. Certain factors were now working for the early doom of the line. The right of the Royal Philippine Company to intro duce eight hundred tons of Asiatic goods annually into New Spain had created a disastrous competition between the two branches of the islands' trade. In 1804 the consulado complained to the king that the three ships, Rey Carlos, MontafUs, and Casualidad, had then lain in Acapulco harbor for from one to three years, unable to sell their cargoes. Not only had a ship of the Royal Philippine Company introduced an exceptionally large amount of merchandise into Mexico through San Blas, but English and American ships were now making frequent trading voyages to the west coasts of Spanish America. The confusion in Spain consequent on the Napoleonic in vasions and the disorders in Mexico attending the outbreak of the wars of independence were shortly to hasten the end that was already inevitable. In 181 1 Mexican rebels seized the silver that was ready to be embarked on the galleon. Late in the same year the last of the galleons from Manila entered Acapulco harbor. Two years later an insurgent force under Morelos cap tured Acapulco, and though it was retaken four months later by a royal army under Armijo, the town had meanwhile been burned by the patriots. On October 25th, 1813, the restored king, Ferdinand VII, on the recommendation of the famous Cortes of Cadiz, decreed the suppression of the line. In 1815 the Manila Galleon of 181 1 cleared from Acapulco for her home port on the last voyage of the navigation. She bore the immortal name of Magellan on her bow. A quarter of a millennium had intervened since Legaspi sent the San Pablo eastward with a few hundred pounds of cinnamon bark for the royal warehouses of Philip II. Only 83 years were to be left to Spain in the Philippines. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< PART I THE ORIENT CHAPTER I THE CHINESE CHINA was always the principal source of the galleon's cargo. To the people of New Spain the galleon was the nao de China, or China Ship, and Manila was but a way-station between China and Mexico, where the silks that formed the great staple of the trade were gathered for shipment across the Pacific. Spaniards in Mexico often spoke loosely of the Philippines as of a province of the Chinese Empire. To Manila the annual coming of the junks from across the China Sea was the very basis of her prosperity. Moreover, the heavy influx of Chinese into Manila, as a consequence of their trading operations, early resulted in their domination of the ordinary economic life of the colony. For, though the Spaniards remained the intermediaries in the galleon commerce, the Sangleys, as the Manilenos called them,1 early came to monopolize the retail trade and the skilled crafts of the community. In spite of the later entrance of native, Spanish, and American elements into the business of the islands, the Chinese still maintain a strong position in their commercial and industrial life, certain branches of which they have never ceased to control.2 Finally, at the source of the Chinese traffic the withdrawal during nearly two hundred and fifty years of such vast sums of Mexican pesos in payment for the goods carried to Manila by the junks established a monetary standard for the east coast of Asia that has endured to the present. "For this reason," wrote Gemelli Careri, the Italian globetrotter of the seventeenth century, "the Emperor of China calls the King of Spain, the King of Silver; because there being no good Mine of it in his dominions, all they have there is brought in by the 1The term "Sangley" is derived from "Seng-li," a word of the Amoy dialect, meaning "trade." 2 According to Commerce Reports, December ai, 1935, published by the United States Department of Commerce, there were 13,787 retail establishments in the Philippines operated by Chinese. Chinese merchants then owned "somewhat over 56 percent of the capital invested in retailing, and as late as 1932 handled 50 percent of the total business." 63 THE MANILA GALLEON Spaniards in Pieces of Eight." The old "trade dollar," coined by the United States mints until 1887 for the convenience of Americans trading with the Orient, was a recognition of the standard of value fixed centuries ago by the China Ship. The Spaniards early made an attempt to establish direct trading relations in China, but the post which might have rivaled Macao proved to be but a short-lived venture. Legaspi entertained such a project in the early years of the colony, and a number of voyages, inspired as much by curiosity and religious zeal as by a desire for the opening of trade, were made before the end of the century. A voyage of exploration, suggested to Philip II by Juan de la Isla, a veteran pilot and navigator, was never realized, though it promised more substantial results than those which were to follow. La Isla proposed to chart the Asiatic coasts up to fifty or sixty degrees of latitude, while in vestigating possibilities for trade, and to return thence along the American coast to New Spain. Instructions to that effect were drawn up, but before the skillful seaman could leave Manila Legaspi died, and his successor, Lavezaris, refused to give the needed support to the enterprise. That was in 1572. It was three years later that the first voyage was made to China from Manila. The small company which went from Manila at that time consisted of two Augustinian friars and four officers and soldiers. The ostensible object of their visit was to give an account to the viceroy of Fuhkien of the measures being taken to suppress the pirate, Limahon, who had recently sacked the young settlement at Manila and was then besieged by Juan de Salcedo in northern Luzon. Lavezaris, who was still governor, also instructed his emissaries to notify the viceroy of the Spaniards' desire for peaceful trading relations with the Chinese and for freedom to carry on mis sionary propaganda within the empire. Finally, they were to request the cession of a port, which the Spaniards might use as a base for trading with the Chinese, as the Portuguese already did at Macao. Though the Spanish envoys humiliated their pride by kowtowing before the viceroy and submitted to all the required ceremonials, they returned to Manila without having accomplished the real purposes of their journey. However, they brought back with them rich presents from the viceroy to Lave zaris. But Lavezaris was no longer governor, and when the THE CHINESE 65 Chinese who accompanied the returning ambassadors refused to deliver the presents to Governor Sande, his successor, the latter conceived such a violent antipathy towards all things Chinese that further attempts at a closer official rapprochement with China were suspended during the five years of his administration. When the viceroy of Fuhkien relented and in 1526 offered the Spaniards an island between Canton and Pakian for purposes of a trading factory, Sande bluntly declined the offer. Moreover, he not only refused to send any presents to the viceroy according to custom, but put two friars on board the returning junk, who were thrown overboard before the ship had left Philippine waters. The interest of the regular clergy in the Philippines had already been aroused in the possibilities for an unlimited mission field in China. During the next few years Spanish friars— Augustinians, Jesuits, and Franciscans—made several voyages to the southern provinces. Two of these parties of missionaries were fortified with letters from the pious Philip II to the "Power ful and very Esteemed King of China," and one of them carried from Spain as a present for the "Gran Chino" twelve falcons, twelve horses, whose harness and caparisons bore the royal arms, six mules with rich coverings, and twelve chests containing Spanish silks, mirrors, and wines, and Venetian glassware. None of these overtures advanced either the spiritual or material de signs of the Spaniards, though the reports brought back by the missionaries greatly increased Spanish knowledge of Chinese civilization. Meanwhile Chinese junks had come each year to Manila with rich merchandise, so that the urgency for direct connections with the mainland had largely disappeared. A ship occasionally went to Macao to buy Chinese goods, but even this was forbidden by a royal decree of 1593. Philip II wrote in the order to Gov ernor Dasmarinas: "I have been informed that many persons of those islands are going to Macao and other parts of China to trade and traffic." The king gave as his reason for promulgat ing the order the higher prices the Spaniards were compelled to pay in China "and other notable inconveniences." Yet, only five years later, in his instructions to Governor Tello, he authorized him to undertake direct trade with any of the nearby countries, if in his opinion it seemed advantageous to the interests of the colony. > 66 THE MANILA GALLEON With this royal sanction Tello gave permission in 1598 to Juan Zamudio to go to the Chinese coast for the purpose of secur ing the grant of a port that might serve as a trading post. This semi-private enterprise succeeded in its immediate end, and "by means of great assiduity and a quantity of silver," Zamudio ob tained from the suspicious Chinese officials the concession of the site near Canton known in Spanish records as El Pinal, or the "pine tree." 3 The Spaniards were also granted the use of a ware house or godown in Canton, where they might carry on their trade at that greatest of Chinese markets, and passports were given to assure them freedom in their trading activities within the restricted areas. The next year the governor dispatched his relative, Juan Tello de Aguirre, with another ship, equipped with arms and supplies, to follow up Zamudio's expedition. A short time after an armament under ex-Governor Luis Perez Dasmarinas, destined for operations in Cambodia, was shipwrecked on the south China coast and the survivors carried to El Pinal by a Chinese junk. The arrival of so many Spaniards in a locality where they had hitherto enjoyed exclusive trading privileges aroused the violent opposition of the Portuguese at nearby Macao. Zamudio had fought off their attacks for six weeks and with the arrival of Dasmarinas they redoubled their efforts to drive out the Spaniards. In fact, the persistent hostility of the Portuguese made it almost impossible for the Spaniards to carry on the trad ing part of their program, on which depended the success of the whole plan for a foothold on the Chinese coast. Moreover, the Spanish king, who now ruled over Portugal as well, gave only a lukewarm support to the venture. The need for presenting a united front to the impending onslaught of the Dutch and the English in the Orient, with the danger to harmonious coopera tion that would result from trading quarrels, doubtless had much to do with the failure of the Spaniards to develop the possibilities of their new treaty port. The inertia of the Manilenos, satisfied with the existing arrangements for trading with the Chinese at Manila, also contributed to the early abandonment of the Chinese factory. When a royal order was issued in 1609, specifically granting the right to direct trade with China, El Pinal was al ready a memory. * The exact location of "El Pinal" has not been determined. It is probable that it was situated on the island of Hong-Kong. THE CHINESE 67 Among the most influential partisans of direct trade had been Antonio de Morga, then president of the audiencia at Manila. Morga favored the plan for the following reasons: that it would save to the Spaniards the large profits of the merchants of the junk fleet; that it would free Manila from the perpetual Chinese peril; that the Spaniards could thereby better control prices, since, when the Acapulco galleon reached Manila in advance of the junks, the Chinese were in the habit of raising prices by as much as one hundred percent; and finally, that it would enable the Manilenos better to regulate the time of dispatching the annual galleon. In December 1598, Hernando de los Rios Coronel, one of the ablest officials in the islands, had written to Morga from "the port of El Pinal, frozen with cold," urging continued support for the undertaking. Yet at the time he was being assailed on one side by the active interference of the Portu guese and on the other by all the devious trading devices of the Chinese. "Each Chinaman appears to be the devil incarnate," he wrote, "for there is no malice or deceit which they do not attempt. Although here they do not rob or plunder the for eigners openly, yet they do it by other and worse methods." In 1637 Grau y Monfalcon, agent of the colony in Spain, declared that the Manilenos had neither the forces nor the capital to prosecute such an enterprise. There were too many demands at that time on the attention and energies of the small Spanish population in the Philippines to risk the further diversion of their slender resources on a venture of doubtful advantage. Desultory efforts made in the eighteenth century to enter into trade at the source of supply usually failed of profitable results. Meanwhile, other European powers had broken into the Chinese market by way of Macao, where they maintained agents who sent orders to Canton for the manufacture of specified lots of goods. When their ships arrived from India or Europe in July or August, the factors removed to the quarter set off for foreigners in Canton and superintended the loading of their consignments. Though the Spaniards made a fortunate venture at Canton in 1766, their late re-entrance into a field where competition was fierce with skilled English and French buyers operated against the con tinued success of their trading. They were generally forced to wait several months after the departure of their rivals before they could make up a cargo. The later and more ambitious voyages of the Royal Philippine Company to China were as unsuccessful. 68 THE MANILA GALLEON Closely connected with the early attempts to trade direcdy with China were the Spanish schemes for the conquest of that monarchy. The wealth of Cathay had cast a spell over the imagination of Europe since the publication of the account of Marco Polo. The Spaniards believed it would be an easy prize in view of the peaceful and unmilitary reputation of its inhabi tants. The religious motive was strongly alleged, as well as the need to forestall the English or the French, who, if established there, might use it as the base for a descent on the west coast of the Americas. Diego de Artiega proposed to Philip II in 1573 to penetrate China with eighty men. "I will enter the country myself," he promised the king, "and will return by way of New Spain, after having explored the coast. I will ascertain how both trade and conquest must be carried on there." Governor Sande offered to undertake the conquest of the country with from four to six thousand men. "This people is so cowardly," said Sande, "that no one rides on horseback." About the same time Diego Garcia de Palacios, a member of the Audiencia of Guatemala, conceived a similar plan. He considered raising an army of four thousand Spaniards in Central America, where a large number of restless men were eager for military adventure. These were to be trans ported to Manila, where they would join a force to be assembled by Governor Sande, and thence proceed to the Chinese coast. Hernando Riquel considered sixty good Spanish infantry enough for the task of overturning the Empire of the Mings. Juan Bautista Roman, the Spanish factor at Macao, declared that "with the divine favor," less than seven thousand men would be suffi cient. As late as 1797 Governor Aguilar wrote to Godoy, the first minister: "A well disciplined battalion could overcome armies of Chinese as numerous as those whom Alexander con quered." The Spaniards at Manila counted on the aid of a force of Japanese, who were "redoubtable and mortal enemies of the Chinese." However, in 1586 the king ordered his governor to desist from entertaining such a project, and instead to guard the friendship of the Chinese. The same year Governor Vera and several citizens of Manila sent a memorial to the Council of the Indies, in which they wisely observed: "If the Spaniards go into China in their usual fashion, they will desolate and ravage the most populous and richest country that ever was seen." All these THE CHINESE 69 proposals for the armed invasion of China would appear quite chimerical and fantastic if it had not been for the accomplished fact of the conquest of Mexico and Peru by small bands of Spanish paladins. The spirit of the conquista was still alive, with its ardor and its confidence in the superhuman prowess of the Spanish man-at-arms. It might even lay Cathay at the feet of the Most Catholic King. After their abortive plans for conquest and direct trade had been renounced or left to the chance of a more propitious oc casion, the Spaniards early came to rely on the Chinese imports into Manila. In accepting so natural an arrangement they were only taking advantage of a long established channel of trade. For centuries merchants from China had trafficked among these islands and penetrated southward into more remote corners of the eastern Indies. About 1280 Chau Ju Kua, who had evidently made a voyage to the island of Ma-i, as he called Mindoro, wrote of the land and the barter that was carried on between its natives and his people. In his time the Filipinos exchanged cotton, yellow wax, pearls, tortoise shell, and hempen cloth with the Chinese for silks, porcelain, colored glass, and beads, and iron ware. When Magellan reached the Visayas in 1521 he heard of the trading relations of the Chinese with Luzon, which seems to have been visited by six or eight junks a year. Alvaro de Saavedra heard the same reports when he passed among the group a few years later, and Andres de Urdaneta, who accom panied Loaysa's expedition in 1537 and was to be Legaspi's pilot in 1564, also gave an account of Chinese trading among the islands. In 1567 Legaspi wrote to Philip II from Cebu: "Moros have come to this port from Luzon and Mindoro. These men have told us that the Chinese go to their land to trade and carry away all the products of this archipelago." It was in 1571, the year Legaspi transferred his headquarters to the site of the old Moro settlement on Manila Bay, that commercial intercourse began between the Spaniards and Chinese. As we have seen, his admiral, Juan Pablo Carrion, rescued the crew of a junk which was sinking off the Mindoro coast and carried them to safety. On their return to China the survivors spread such a good report of the Spaniards that a number of merchants hastened to take advantage of the opportunities for trade with the newcomers in 7° THE MANILA GALLEON the Philippines. It was their cargoes of silks and porcelains, which arrived early the next year, that laid the real foundation of the galleon commerce with Mexico and fixed the course of the colony's economic life for over two centuries. In June 1573, Guido de Lavezaris, who was to take over the government on the death of Legaspi, wrote to the king: "The Chinese have come here on trading voyages since our arrival, for we have always tried to treat them well." The same year, Juan de la Isla, just returned from Manila, addressed the king on the need for merchants in the Philippines to take advantage of the new openings there. "We have friendship and trade with the people of China," he added as an inducement for the migration of merchants to the young colony. A year later Lavezaris wrote again: "The Chinese continue to increase their commerce each year, and supply us with many articles, as sugar, wheat and barley flour, nuts, raisins, pears and oranges, silks, choice por celain and iron, and other small things which we lacked in this land before their arrival." The goods were carried from Canton or Amoy or other ports between directly across the open China Sea to Manila, a distance of from 650 to 700 miles. After Governor Leon (1669-76) had sent a special embassy to China to promote trade with the Philippines merchants were accustomed to come to Manila from as far as Ningpoo in northern Che-Kiang. The large sea-going junks, which made the voyage to the Philippines, carried between two hundred and four hundred men. In fact, these limitations were placed on the number of men who might go in a single junk by the Chinese authorities in order to restrict emigration to the Philippines. Except for their larger size, their general appearance and arrangement were much like that of the smaller coastwise junk which William Dampier saw below Canton in 1687 and described as follows: "She was built with a square flat Head as well as Stern, only the Head or forepart was not so broad as the Stern. On her deck she had little thatcht Houses like Hovels, covered with Palmetto leaves, and raised about 3 foot high, for the Seamen to creep into. She had a pretty large Cabbin, wherein there was an altar and a Lamp burning. I did but just look in, and saw not the Idol. The Hold was divided in many small Partitions, all of them made so tight, that if a Leak should Spring up in any one THE CHINESE 71 of them, it could go no farther, and so could do but little damage, but only to the Goods in the bottom of the Room where the Leak springs up. Each of these Rooms belongs to one or two merchants, or more; and every Man freights his goods in his own room; and probably lodges there, if he be on Board himself. These Jonks have only two Masts, a Main-mast and a Fore-mast. The Fore-mast has a square Yard and a square Sail, but the Main mast has a Sail narrow aloft, like a Sloops-Sail, and in fair Weather they use a Top-sail, which is to hale down on the Deck in foul Weather, Yard and all; for they do not go up to furl it. The Main-Mast in their biggest Jonks seems to me as big as any third-rate Man of Wars Mast in England, and yet not pieced as ours, but made of one grown Tree; and in all my Travels I never saw any single Tree-masts so big in the body, and so long, and yet so well tapered, as I have seen in the Chinese Jonk§." The usual number of junks to visit Manila varied from twenty to sixty each year. In 1574 six came, but by 1580 forty or fifty were coming. At the end of the century thirty or forty generally came. In 1616 there were only seven, but in 1631 fifty came and five years later thirty made the voyage. The number varied little from one year to another in the eighteenth century. At any period it depended on the chances for a profitable sale at Manila, the momentary safety or danger of the passage, and local conditions in China. When the Chinese knew money to be scarce at Manila they cut down their shipments accordingly for the year. Word of piratical armaments in their path might keep the junks in port beyond the time when weather conditions would be favorable for the crossing. Especially destructive were the ravages of the pirate community that long flourished on the Cochin-China coast, the Japanese pirates who plied off northern Luzon, and the corsair attacks which used Formosa as a base. Sometimes the menace from the Portuguese or the Dutch was as serious, when either of those peoples were bent on crippling the business of Spaniards at Manila. Finally, the internal dissensions of the empire or local disturbances in the coast provinces might suspend temporarily the junk trade to the Philippines. Morga thus describes the coming of the junks: "Although they do not come together, in the form of a trading and war fleet, still they do come in groups with the monsoon and settled weather, which is generally at the new moon in March. They 72 THE MANILA GALLEON make their voyage to the city of Manila in fifteen or twenty days, sell their merchandise, and in order not to endanger their voyage return in good season, before the winds change at the end of May or early in June." "In the moneth of March," wrote Captain John Saris, of the English East India Company, "the Junckes bound for the Mannelies depart from Chanchu in Com panies, sometime foure, five, ten or more together, as they are readie." On the appearance of a junk outside Manila Bay it was boarded by the watchman stationed on Mariveles, who posted a guard on it and by fire signals announced its arrival to the authorities at Manila. After it had proceeded up the bay and anchored before the city its cargo was inspected by the royal treasury officials and appraised for payment of the three percent import duty. When import and anchorage duties had been paid the cargo was lightered ashore and stored in the Parian or Chinese quarter.4 Though there was an infinite variety in the cargoes of the junks, silks always comprised the bulk of the goods from China. Some of the early stuffs were of inferior quality, but the Chinese merchants soon learned to meet the demand for better fabrics, while skillfully copying the favorite Spanish designs until they quite equaled the Andalusian cloth in color and were only slightly surpassed, if at all, in wearing quality. "Among all the silk stuffs brought by the Chinese," wrote Diego de Bobadilla, "none is more esteemed than the white,—the snow is not whiter,—and there is no silk stuff in Europe that can approach it." When the first lots of Chinese goods reached Mexico Viceroy Ennquez esteemed them of little value. "I consider the whole business as a waste of effort," he said, "and a trade that is injurious rather than profitable; for all they bring is some very miserable silks, most of which have a woof of grass fibre, some false brocatels, fans and porcelains, and some writing desks and painted boxes." Yet, before the end of the century their increasing excellence and lower prices had created such serious competition for penin* The Chinese work known as Tung hsi yang K'ao says as follows of the arrival of the junks at Manila: "As soon as the ships arrived they sent out men to hurry with all dispatch to the chieftain (i.e. the governor) to bring him presents of silk. The duties which they levied were rather high, but the meshes of their nets were so close that there was no escape." Berthold Laufer, The Relations of the Chinese to the Philippine Islands, p. 279. THE CHINESE 73 sular silks in the American colonies that a strong movement was set on foot in Spain to limit or ban altogether the importation of Chinese silks. Some of the early governors, like Sande and Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, and viceroys like Villamanrique, wrote of the actual or imminent threat to metropolitan industry and trade and of the loss to the empire in the draining away of so much silver to China. Dasmarinas advised Philip II in 1592 that the exports to America from the Orient already exceeded those from Spain, adding the weighty argument that this "would interfere with your Majesty's royal revenues from the silks to Granada, Murcia and Valencia." The next year the system of restrictive legislation was instituted, with the object of limiting the volume of silks which the galleon might carry. And though the Manilenos might continue to sell in Mexico, the rich market of Peru was closed to them. Though every illegal resource was invoked to defeat the purpose of the restrictions, and not without considerable success, the principle had been put into effect and at times was to give much trouble to the galleon traders during the next two centuries. Antonio de Morga, who was familiar with the commerce in its heyday, gives a catalogue of the rich and varied wares that were brought to Manila by the Chinese: "Raw silk in bundles, of the fineness of two strands, and other silk of coarser quality; fine untwisted silk, white and of all colors, wound in small skeins; quantities of velvets, some plain and some embroidered in all sorts of figures, colors and fashions, others with body of gold and embroidered with gold; woven stuffs and brocades, of gold and silver upon silk of various colors and patterns ; quantities of gold and silver thread in skeins; damasks, satins, taffetas, and other cloths of all colors; linen made from grass, called lengesuelo; and white cotton cloth of different kinds and quantities. They also bring musk, benzoin and ivory; many bed ornaments, hangings, coverlets and tapestries of embroidered velvet; damask and gorvaran tapestries of different shades; tablecloths, cushions and carpets; horse-trappings of the same stuffs, and embroidered with glass beads and seed-pearls; also pearls and rubies, sapphires and crystal; metal basins, copper kettles and other copper and cast-iron pots; quantities of all sorts of nails, sheet-iron, tin and lead; and saltpetre and gunpowder. They supply the Spaniards with wheat flour; preserves made of orange, peach, pear, nutmeg 74 THE MANILA GALLEON and ginger, and other fruits of China; salt pork and other salt meats; live fowls of good breed and many fine capons; quantities of fresh fruits and oranges of all kinds; excellent chestnuts, wal nuts, and chicueyes (both green and dried, a delicious fruit); quantities of fine thread of all kinds, needles and knick-knacks; little boxes and writing cases; beds, tables, chairs, and gilded benches, painted in many figures and patterns. They bring domestic buffaloes; geese that resemble swans; horses, some mules and asses; even caged birds, some of which talk, while others sing, and they make them play innumerable tricks. The Chinese furnish numberless other gewgaws and ornaments of little value and worth, which are esteemed among the Spaniards ; fine crockery of all kinds; canganes, or cloth of Kaga, and black and blue robes; tacley, which are beads of all kinds; strings of cornelians and other beads, and precious stones of all colors; pepper and other spices; and rarities, which, did I refer to them all, I would never finish, nor have sufficient paper for it." As the ships of Tarshish brought to King Solomon ivory and apes and peacocks, so did those of China bring them to the Spaniards at Manila. Padre Casimiro Diaz wrote in 1669: "One cannot imagine any exquisite article for the equipment of a house which does not come from China." "These Chinese merchants are so keen after gain," said Diego de Bobadilla, "that, if one sort of merchandise has succeeded well one year, they take a great deal of it the following year. A Spaniard who had lost his nose through a certain illness, sent for a Chinaman to make him one of wood, in order to hide the deformity. The workman made him so good a nose that the Spaniard in great delight paid him munificently, giving him twenty escudos. The Chinaman, at tracted by the ease with which he had made that gain, loaded a fine boat-load of wooden noses the next year and returned to Manila. But he found himself very far from his hopes and quite left out in the cold; for, in order to have a sale for that new merchandise, he found that he would have to cut off the noses of all the Spaniards in the country." For the purchase of the Chinese imports the Spaniards adopted an arrangement of wholesale bargaining known as pancada. The distrustful Spanish system did not favor leaving to individuals the chance of indiscriminate trading with aliens and assumed that the abuses inseparable from such an exchange THE CHINESE 75 could be reduced to a minimum by close official supervision of the transactions. The concentration of the dealings between the two parties in a few responsible hands would make it easier to control a traffic whose possibilities of expansion gave so much concern to the central government in Spain. At this point it might have been possible to confine the volume of goods pur chased within the limits fixed, but the local demand for Chinese merchandise offered a convenient loophole and an irresistible in centive for the evasion of this restriction. Other circumstances of the trade seemed to justify the resort to the pancada. It prevented the seller from taking advantage of the eager competition of many buyers to raise prices. The use of interpreters that was possible under the pancada assured more satisfactory conclusions than could result from private trad ing between men who could have understood one another but imperfectly. Even as it was, the dearth of reliable interpreters conversant with the current speech of the Kuang Tung and Fuhkien traders hindered the operation of the pancada. More over, the Chinese were not buyers, but sellers, and they de manded silver in exchange for their goods. This constant pas sage of so much silver into another country, from where it never returned into circulation, always alarmed the Spaniards, as the same circumstance did in Spain itself, and they believed that such a regulative device as the pancada could somehow restrict its export. Thus, the system was not generally applied to the traffic with the Japanese, who usually traded by barter. The large number of Chinese who annually came in the junks and constituted an unwelcome addition to the already large population in the Parian also disquieted the Spaniards. They believed that the more expeditious pancada would enable them to rid themselves of their presence sooner than would the custom of long drawn out haggling at which the Oriental is so apt and which might end in altercations that would lead to more serious disturbances. "Also many other injuries, expenses, secret sins, scarcities and witchcrafts will thereby be avoided," added the royal instructions to Governor Tello in 1596. Finally, the adoption of the pancada was partly prompted by the Spaniard's own lack of confidence in his ability to cope with the Chinaman in the field of trade. The Spaniards frequently testify to the shrewd and devious ways of the Chinese 7* THE MANILA GALLEON merchants and probably wished to safeguard their interests from the effects of their own inferiority in this respect by limiting as far as possible their mercantile relations with the too wily Sangleys. In a letter to the viceroy in 1576 Juan Sanchez Diaz called the Chinese "most subtle merchants." On the other hand, he said that a prominent Chinaman had told him that the Spaniards were very brave and proud, but "without any industry." Bishop Salazar complained to the king in 1590 that the Spaniards could not be regulated or restrained in their trading, and that conse quently "everything is going to ruin." "It is a singular thing how poorly the Spaniard governs himself," wrote Medina, the historian; "wherever he halts prices immediately go up." In 1729 Pedro Gonzalez de Ribera and six other citizens of Manila wrote of the Chinese to the king: "Their astuteness and skill in assuring themselves of what they consider their profit and ad vantage are remarkable." During the first few years of the trade the commercial rela tions of the two peoples were virtually unrestricted. Then in 1586 a junta of citizens petitioned the Council of the Indies that purchase from the Chinese "and other foreign vessels" should not be made by individual arrangements, "as is the custom at pres ent," but by some form of wholesale agreement. This fact that the original initiative came from the Spaniards in the islands shows that the pancada was not entirely instituted by the central government for the purpose of keeping the silk trade within bounds. Such a plan had already been adopted at Manila when the royal decree sanctioning the arrangement was issued by Philip II in 1589. A second law of four years later elaborated the first provision and added a necessary corollary in the prohibition of Spanish trade in China or even the importation in Chinese ships of goods expressly consigned to particular Spaniards at Manila. The audiencia and the governor's legal adviser, Pedro de Rojas, opposed the adoption of the plan, as Governor Dasmarinas al leged, "in order that the consignments of money sent by them to China for merchandise might not be known." He charged that they enlisted the support of the clergy against the measure, and added that "if by your Majesty's command it be ordered that the Chinese merchandise be bought at one price, theology de clares that no such thing can be ordered." In both decrees the pancada is made to apply to the Chinese alone. For other THE CHINESE 77 branches of the trade were as yet comparatively insignificant, and the conditions which led to its establishment were largely attendant on the special circumstances that accompanied the influx of the Chinese, greedy for silver and potentially so danger ous by their numbers. To conduct the pancada the governor and the municipality of Manila were to appoint two or three suitable persons. These men would then negotiate with representatives of the Chinese importers the prices to be paid for the cargo of each incoming junk. With the usual official anxiety to provide against corrup tion, the members of this committee were prohibited from hold ing the position a second year. A rigid inspection of incoming vessels was intended to make evasion difficult. If carried out to the letter, these provisions would have pre vented any discussion of price between the individual Chinese seller and the Spanish buyer. But here the wide inconsistency between law and fact, which so frequently prevailed in Spanish colonial administration, militated against the rigorous observance of the pancada. Officials or influential citizens often forestalled its operation by having specific consignments of goods brought to them from China at a prearranged price. They were either received by the consignee before the junk reached Manila Bay or they were surreptitiously landed and stored through the con nivance of those entrusted with the surveillance of the arriving junks. Chinese goods were often hoisted on the galleons on their passage out of the islands. Individual merchants would make their purchases before the official prices were fixed, as the latter was a leisurely process, involving extended examination of the goods or samples of them, with an elaborate classification and grading. Some of the wealthier merchants, in the hope of driv ing a better bargain, would make their investments after the termination of the pancada and the completion of the galleon's cargo for the year. These silks were tWrn stored in private ware houses to await the sailing of the next year's galleon. The rigid operation of the pancada, which would have made the whole transfer of the large quantities exchanged a matter to be settled summarily by the small committee appointed for the purpose, proved to be unfeasible. As the Spaniards acquired greater familiarity with the business they gained more confidence in their ability to deal with the Chinese on their own ground. 78 THE MANILA GALLEON There were too many on both sides who preferred to trust to the chance of freer trafficking. Individual initiative asserted itself against the bonds of official regulation. Early in the seventeenth century Morga said the goods were "freely sold" in the Parian. A royal decree of 1594 virtually limited the pancada to the finer goods. In 1599 no pancada was held, but Governor Tello in formed the king that the sales were made satisfactorily to both sides in another way. The pancada gave way gradually to the feria or fair. In 1677 Fray Placido de Angulo informed the king that the China man ordinarily took his goods wherever he wished and sold them at his own price. A royal decree of 1696 declared the original motives for the pancada no longer existent, and the substitution of feria for pancada was ratified by a royal order of 1703. In another order of 1777 Charles III declared that the pancada had not been used for over a hundred years. In this document the king reiterates a belated sanction to the actual method so long employed. The feria was to be opened on the fourth of June, after the Chinese merchants had contributed the lump sum of eight thousand pesos to the royal treasury. During the fair both parties were left without restriction to the chances of individual trading. This method prevailed until the cessation of the galleon trade. The Spaniards had early attempted to apply the pancada to the Portuguese from Macao, but the Macao traders strongly re sented this restriction on their freedom of trading. The Manilenos, in their eagerness for the silks, quickly agreed to waive its opera tion. One year when it was resorted to the Portuguese merchants refused to abide by the prices agreed on between their representa tives and those of the Spaniards. The trade with the Chinese must have given rise to con siderable questionable dealing on both sides, for Morga says that the audiencia and lower courts were kept busy settling cases that arose therefrom. "The Chinese are very skilful and intelligent traders," he said, "and of great coolness and moderation. They are ready to trust and accommodate freely whomever they know treats them fairly and does not fail in his payments to them when they are due. On the other hand, as they are a people without religion or conscience and so greedy, they commit in numerable frauds and deceits in their merchandise. The pur THE CHINESE 79 chaser must watch them very closely and know them, in order not to be cheated by them. The purchasers, however, acquit themselves by their poor payments and the debts which they incur." The Spaniards accused the Chinese of adulterating their wares and of other frauds—the famous trampas de China, or "Chinese frauds," that Humboldt spoke of long afterward. The Chinese complained, among other things, of the difficulty of securing payment for their goods. The non-arrival of a galleon from Acapulco with its return of silver or any other circumstance that might produce a scarcity of money in the colony always increased the difficulties, as did the strained relations which some times existed between the two peoples. "All this business was accustomed to be done on credit alone," wrote Governor Cruzat to the king in 1701. And though credit played a large part in the trade in early years, with a succession of losses and longdelayed payments the Chinese came to insist on cash. The advent of other European trading peoples into the Chinese market made the latter less dependent on the Philippine galleon traffic and so enabled them to press more strongly for their own terms of sale. The Chinese trade brought with it probably the most serious problem in the internal administration of the colony. It was the first instance on any considerable scale of a Caucasian-Mon golian race question, with all the phases of economic, political, and social antagonisms that the contact of peoples so different has so often carried with it. It is a chronicle of suspicions and fears, of risings and sanguinary retaliations, and of restrictions and expulsions, with long periods of quiescence between the outbreakrof panic and violence. jThe Spaniards early realized the peril that accompanied the presence of so many Chinese in the city and took measures to prevent any disastrous situation. For this reason Governor Gonzalo Ronquillo built the Parian, or quarter where the Chinese, who were then scattered about the city, were henceforth required to live. At first four large buildings were reserved to their use on a site well up the river above the walled city. The settlement grew rapidly, as new houses were built and shops were opened, and shortly came to cover a large area of ground, which was enclosed by a stockade. By the end of the century there were over four hundred shops in the Parian and more than eight thousand men were generally engaged in trade there. 8o THE MANILA GALLEON Here they created a teeming community of their own, with all the movement and color and the noises and smells typical of a Chinese city. The principal difference was in the fewness of women, though many of the Sangleys made unions with native women of the lower classes, from which sprang the chino-mestizos so prominent in Philippine affairs in later times. The men of the Parian wore long blue garments with wide sleeves—or white for mourning—but the chief men dressed in black or colored silks. Underneath all wore wide drawer-like trousers of the same material and half hose of felt. They went shod in broad shoes of blue silk or other materials, embroidered with braid and with very thick soles. All this was topped with a high round cap of horse-hair, made in different fashions accord ing to the person's occupation or rank.5 The Chinese in Manila conserved the festivals and diversions common to their home land. They were particularly given to gambling, and William Dampier wrote of this habit of theirs: "The Chinese are very great Gamesters, and they will never be tired with it, playing night and day, till they have lost all their Estates; then it is usual with them to hang themselves. This was frequently done by the Chinese factors at Manila, as I was told by Spaniards that lived there. The Spaniards themselves are much addicted to Gaming, and very expert at it; but the Chinese are too subtle for them, being in general a very cunning People." In 1628 the king noted that many Chinese were living out side the Parian, "to the great peril of the Spanish population." At this time Christian Chinese, or those married to Christians, were permitted to reside across the Pasig in the Binondo and Tondo quarters of the city. Considering the usual motives for conversion among the Chinese, this liberal concession soon re sulted in the settlement of a numerous colony of highly doubtful orthodoxy and of dangerous possibilities for the safety of the colony. For Christian Chinese were exempted from the payment of the customary tribute for ten years after conversion and after that time they paid at the low rate at which the natives were as sessed. Chinese also settled in the provinces surrounding Manila 5 A Chinese work of the 18th century, the Huang ch'ing chih k.'">g ''«, has this to say of the Spaniards at Manila: "The barbarians inhabiting Luzon are of tall stature, and have high noses, pupils like those of cats' eyes, a mouth like that of a hawk, and their clothing is much adorned." Berthold Laufer, op. cit., p. 276. THE CHINESE 81 and were even more widely scattered about the other islands, among which they traded with their smaller junks and sampans. Though the law required that the Chinese who came to Manila on the junks should return with them as soon as the favorable monsoon arose after the discharge of the cargoes and their delivery to the pancada committee, this was early relaxed. Licenses were then required for permission to remain in Manila, but in 1620 the number of those who might stay was limited to six thousand. The failure to enforce even these restrictions brought about the condition that was to lead to the extreme and violent expedition of expulsion. —By 1586 there were ten thousand Chinese in Manila and when Morga sent twelve thousand back to China in 1596 he de clared that as many more remained in the city. In 1621 there were over ten thousand licensed Chinese in Manila and five thou sand unlicensed. Fifteen years later Grau y Monfalcon informed the king that there were over thirty thousand Chinese and Japa nese in the city, but of this total the Japanese could have made up only a minor part. In 1749 there were more than forty thou sand Chinese in the city, many of whom had recently been driven from their country by the pressure of famine. When such num bers are compared with the few hundred Spaniards in Manila the potential gravity of the situation for the latter is evident. Benevolent provisions were made to protect the rights of the Chinese, just as, the famous New Laws were issued earlier to se cure good treatment of the Indians in the Spanish American colonies. The governor was constituted the special protector of the Chinese until an official was created, in 1629 for that particular purpose. The Chinese community was under the immediate jurisdiction of its own head-man or governor, who was required to be a Christian , and who could appoint the necessary retinue of officials and assistants from his own people. He had the power to settle disputes among the Chinese, though appeals from his decisions might go to the alcalde mayor of Tondo or of the Parian, or higher to the audiencia. The Dominican friars always exerted their great influence in favor of just treatment and main tained a hospital for the treatment of Chinese. However, with the usual admirable legal provisions for safe guarding the rights of an "inferior" race, there was the same customary evasion by those interested in their violation. Spanish 82 THE MANILA GALLEON officials were often arbitrary in their treatment of the Chinese. The inspectors of the junks harassed the merchants with exac tions on their arrival, and at times even went to the extent of removing the masts from the Chinese vessels and substituting inferior ones, with which it would be difficult or impossible to make the return voyage. Bishop Salazar wrote in 1583 that the prices of Chinese goods had lately quadrupled because of the scarcity due to the dislike of the Chinese to come to Manila, where they were subjected to "annoying restrictions." In a law insisting on more consideration for the Chinese the king said: "We have been informed that the Sangleys who come to the Philippines to trade receive injuries and bad treatment at the hands of the Spaniards." One of the commonest forms of abuses was in connection with the license of residence required of each Chinaman who remained after the junks had cleared for home. A non-Christian Chinaman paid sixty-four reales or eight pesos for such a license, besides five reales as tribute, and twelve reales as house tax. In one decree on the question the king said : "The Chinese have been allowed to increase in numbers, because of greed for the eight pesos which each one of them pays for his license." However, some of the officials who had the collection of this money were in the habit of exacting several times the same amount during the year on the pretext that a renewal of the license was necessary. The Chinese resorted to just what was expected of them— wholesale bribery—and the atmosphere of deceit and suspicion generated was unfavorable to the harmonious relationship of the two races. The merchant class, with their interest in order and authority, might be depended on to show a passive endurance of the vexations to which they were subjected and might even give their support to the Spanish government in a serious crisis be tween the two peoples. On the other hand, the great mass of those who flocked to the islands in the train of the traders were an uncertain element and constituted the real crux of the prob lem. Twenty-four Chinese merchants, in a protest which they presented against being included in an expulsion order of 1687, said that the risings in the past had been limited to the lower classes. "Those who have risen," they said, "have been vaga bonds and idlers, and the Chinese of position and settled occupa tion have never cooperated with them." They declared that the THE CHINESE 83 first uprisings had originated among Chinese who had left their country in a time of confusion, caused by internecine and Tartar wars, and had sought to found an independent state in other parts. On one side, the confidence bred of numbers and discontent at grievances, and, on the other, superior race pride and a panicky fear made collision almost inevitable. Chinese conspiracies, real or imagined, and sudden outbreaks, accompanied by looting and bloodshed and quickly followed by sanguinary repression by the small but effective Spanish force, make up several dark chapters in the history of the two races in the islands. Governor Anda said in 1768 that there had been fourteen insurrections of the Chinese since the founding of the colony a little over two cen turies before. This was an average of one every fourteen years, though the most serious troubles occurred in the early decades of Spanish rule, before a fairly satisfactory modus vivendi had been established between the two races. The Spanish terror of the descent on Manila of an over whelming force from the Chinese mainland was in a measure justified by a series of incidents which took place in the first fifty years of the colony. In 1574, during the governorship of Guido de Lavezaris, the newly-founded Spanish settlement at Manila was attacked by a fleet of seventy large junks under the pirate chieftain, Lin Tao K'ien, whom the Spaniards knew as Limahon. The Chinese swarmed over the town, which was as yet unpro tected by fortifications, and by force of numbers beat back the little band of Spanish defenders. Martin de Goiti, the veteran master of the camp, and many others were killed in their valiant struggle to beat off the horde of Chinese. The survivors of the garrison resisted for days every attempt to annihilate them, until they were saved by the arrival from Vigan of the young con quistador, Juan de Salcedo, Legaspi's grandson. Salcedo's little relief party attacked at once and forced Limahon and his men to take to their ships. The Chinese fled up the west side of Luzon to the Pangasinan coast, whither the Spaniards followed them and burned their fleet. The superb heroism of the Spaniards in defending the colony against such overwhelming odds is worthy of a bright page in the epic of the conquista which gave Spain her great empire. Relations between Spaniards and Chinese were again strained 84 THE MANILA GALLEON in 1593, when Governor Gomez Perez Dasmarinas was slain by the Chinese rowers of his galley. "Two days before leaving," wrote Bartolome de Argensola, "while a guest and dining at the house of Pedro de Rojas, his assistant, where he was wont to amuse himself by heavy gaming and merriment, he became so gay, beyond his custom and contrary to the harshness of his character, that many interpreted it as his last farewell and an omen of what happened." The governor, unmindful of a similar fate that had befallen a Spanish force sent to Cagayan a few years before, was on his way southward into the Visayas, where he was to take charge of an expedition destined for the conquest of the Moluccas. His galley lay to one night under the full moon off the island of Maricaban, while it awaited the morning in order to follow the devious channels among the islands. There had been festivities on deck in the evening and the Spaniards were all deep in sleep, when at the signal of a shrill whistle they were attacked by the Chinese, some of whom were merchants of the Parian impressed by Dasmarinas. Each Chinaman had put on a white shirt over his clothes, so that his fellows could readily identify him in the confusion that was to follow. Carrying a lighted candle in one hand and a cutlass in the other, they cut down the sleeping Spaniards before they could offer any resis tance. "It was done so quickly," wrote Argensola, "that when some of those asleep in the stern awakened, the other Spaniards were already dead." The bodies of the governor and his men were thrown into the sea, while the Chinese turned the ship about and made for the coast of Indo-China. Only two of the eighty Spaniards on board had escaped the slaughter. There was great consternation in Manila when the news of the murders reached the city. Feeling ran high against the Chinese population, mingled with fears of a general uprising, for most of the city's forces were absent in the Visayas, awaiting the governor's arrival to proceed against the Moluccas. One of the first acts of his son, Luis Dasmarinas, who took over the govern ment, was to send Fernando de Castro to Canton and other cities on the Chinese coast, to search for the murderers and ask their return to Manila. He failed in his mission, but shortly afterwards some suspects were sent back from Malacca to Manila, where they were beheaded as a warning to the Chinese of the far-reaching hand of Spanish vengeance. THE CHINESE 85 Early the next year a fleet of war junks, which carried no merchandise but were in charge of seven high mandarins, ap peared before Manila. Though the mandarins claimed that they had come to take back certain renegade Chinese, who were re ported to be wandering about the islands, their appearance at a time when the colony would otherwise have been defenseless put the Spaniards on their guard. However, the return of most of the forces that had been intended for use against the Moluccas discouraged the Chinese from carrying out any aggressive designs they may have harbored. Ten years after the murder of Governor Dasmarinas the Spanish colony was again thrown into a state of great uneasiness by the circumstances which attended the mysterious hoax of the island of gold. One day in June 1603, the sentinels on Mariveles signaled down the bay to the city to announce the arrival of a ship from China with three mandarins on board, sent by their "king" on business of state. When the junk had cast anchor before the newly walled city Governor Acuna gave permission to the mandarins to land and awaited them in the audience hall of the palace, surrounded by an impressive retinue of his captains and soldiers. The three Chinese noblemen were carried through the streets "in very curious chairs of ivory and fine gilded woods, borne on the shoulders of men, crimson-garbed, while their at tendants carried the plumes, lances, and other insignia of their high rank." At the palace there was a ceremonious reception and then the mandarins stated the object of their coming. They had come, they said, at the command of their ruler, to investigate the report of an island of gold, called Cavite, which was said to be near Manila and to be the property of no nation. They had with them a Chinaman bound in chains, who they said "had asked for a quantity of ships, which he said he would bring back laden with gold, and that if it were not so they could punish him with his life." As the grim-faced Spaniards listened to the bizarre tale of their visitors, their minds were filled with suspicion of the real motive of their mission. Their apprehensions grew during the next few days, as the mandarins began to exercise authority over the Chinese who resided in the city. The Spaniards also heard through Chinese who were friendly to them that the mandarins were only the precursors of a great armament of a hundred thou 86 THE MANILA GALLEON sand men whom the emperor of China planned to send against the Philippines before the end of the year. Meanwhile the Spaniards made feverish efforts to put their defenses in order against any emergency that might arise. In another interview with the mandarins the governor made light of the fantastic rumor which had prompted their visit and in order to be rid of them as soon as possible sent them down the bay to Cavite, so that they might ascertain for themselves how they had been duped. As they landed at Cavite they were received with a salute of all the guns in the fort, which threw the mandarins and their party in terror. When they had recovered their composure they examined the land on the point for evidence of gold and then solemnly ordered a basketful of earth to be dug, to take back to their superior lord in China. "The interpreters said that the prisoner, when hard pressed by the mandarins to make suitable answers to their questions, had said that what he had meant to tell the king of China was that there was much gold and wealth in the hands of the natives and Spaniards of Manila, and that if they gave him a fleet with men he offered, as a man who had been in Luzon and knew the country, to cap ture it and bring the ships back laden with gold and riches." After the departure of the mandarins the Spaniards were seri ously disquieted by the anticipation of a descent from China. The feeling of suspense and nervous tension which prevailed in the walled city was communicated to the minds of the natives and foreigners who lived in the outlying quarters of Manila. The atmosphere of unrest and suspicion threatened to precipitate an explosion of the highly charged local situation, independently of the danger that seemed to threaten from the mainland. "Fear of the Sangleys became universal," wrote Morga, who was an eye witness of the terrible events to follow, "and suspicions were cur rent that the Sangleys were about to commit some mischievous outbreak." Some of the Chinese themselves, in order to win favor with the Spaniards, carried tales of a seditious movement that purported to be on foot in the Parian. The disorderly ele ments about the city spread the rumors, because of the oppor tunity that an uprising would give them for looting. Some of the natives and the Japanese mercenaries of the garrison took advantage of the unsettled state of affairs to annoy and persecute the Chinese. They accused the Chinese of an intent to revolt THE CHINESE 87 and threatened to forestall their uprising by a general massacre. The Japanese, "a race hostile to the Sangleys," and whose aid the governor had solicited in case of eventualities, apparently took every occasion to provoke the Chinese. As Morga wisely re marked, "This alone was sufficient to make it necessary for the Sangleys to do what they had no intention of doing." Fearful of an attack, the Chinese secretly began to make plans for their defense, while some of their more violent leaders urged them to strike and seize the city before their enemies could act. Convinced that the Spaniards and Japanese planned their sudden extermination, the Chinese resolved to rise on the eve of St. Francis' Day. At this point a wealthy and influential China man, named Eng-Kang, took over the direction of the incipient conspiracy and organized it. The fact that this man, who was known to the Spaniards as Juan Bautista de Vera, was a Christian and highly esteemed by all classes in Manila seemed to make his leadership of the plot a particularly formidable threat to the safety of the colony. "He had become an excellent Spaniard and was courageous," said Morga. Though the details of the insur rection were worked out in his house, when two thousand Chinese had assembled on the night of the third of October pre paratory to an onslaught on the city, he went to Governor Acuna and informed him of the rising of the Sangleys, though the gov ernor had already received prior information from a native woman who was married to a Japanese. Shortly after the Chi nese had risen Acuna, suspecting Eng-Kang's duplicity, had him placed under arrest and summarily beheaded. As the evening set 6,000 Chinese withdrew from the Parian, crossed the Pasig, and began to set up fortified works. From this base armed parties of them quickly scattered over the nearby quarters of Binondo, Tondo, and Quiapo, setting fire to all the buildings in their path and slaughtering indiscriminately the de fenseless natives. Meanwhile, the bells in the churches were ringing a tocsin of warning and all that sleepless night the Spanish soldiery were silently moving to their positions and pre paring the defenses. From the walled city the Spaniards could see the flames of the houses fired by the Chinese and hear the infernal din made by their horns and gongs as they swept over the doomed suburbs beyond the river. The next day, says Morga, "all was confusion, shouting and 88 THE MANILA GALLEON outcry in the city, particularly among the natives and the women and children, who were coming thither for safety." Throughout the night a small company of men-at-arms under Luis Perez Dasmarinas beat off wave after wave of Chinese from before a stone church in Binondo. When morning came 130 men com prising the very flower of the Spanish chivalry in Manila left the walled city to relieve their beleaguered comrades who were still holding the church in Binondo against hundred-fold odds. They were headed by Tomis Bravo de Acuna, the governor's nephew, and included such hard-bitten soldiers as Juan de Alcega, who had fought with Morga against the Dutch, and Fernandez de Avila, a knight of the Order of Santiago. Leaving the quarter of San Gabriel, the mounted company soon fell in with a large body of Chinese. After cutting down great numbers of them, the Spanish drove the remainder into a cane field and impetuously followed them into the low swampy ground. Unable to ma neuver their horses as before and losing their close formation, they were set upon by fresh detachments of Chinese from the Parian. In the melee which ensued every Spaniard, including Dasmarinas and his men, was killed. The Chinese then set up the heads of the Spanish captives on the stockade of the Parian as a warning to those in the walled city of what they might expect. Sunday, the fifth of October, was a day of terror in Manila, as the victorious Chinese swept down the left bank of the river, "burning and destroying everything in their path." In the Parian they killed many peaceful merchants who had refused to join their cause, while others hanged themselves out of shame for the madness that had seized their people. By now all the able-bodied priests of the city were under arms. One of them, Bernardino Meneses, formerly a captain in Flanders, guarded one of the gates. One prodigious friar, An tonio Flores, also a veteran of the Flemish wars, was credited by popular imagination with having slain six hundred Sangleys in the fighting under the walls. However exaggerated the figure may have been, his single-handed exploits were enough to make him the outstanding hero of those terrible days. An expert crossbowman and arquebusier, Fray Antonio was commissioned by Governor Acuna to keep the Chinese shipping in the harbor from joining the revolt. For this purpose he was assigned only a small THE CHINESE 89 boat and a few natives. Concealed in a mangrove thicket near the mouth of the river he could watch the movements of the junks in the bay as well as any hostile craft which might attempt to cross the river. During the onslaught on the walls, as boat loads of Chinese pushed out into midstream from the right bank, the redoubtable friar kept up a steady and accurate fire through out the day. Firing almost continuously as two servant boys re loaded his guns with double charges he fired into the crowded boats, many of which were overturned, and then calmly picked off those who swam about in the water. A few who landed he killed before they could reach the walls with their scaling ladders. When the fighting was over he withdrew again to the peace of his monastery, only to leave it again to accompany Acuna on his victorious campaign against the Dutch in the Moluccas. When the main body of the Chinese withdrew from before the walls Juan Juarez Gallinato, most famous of the Spanish cap tains of the time, followed then with a small troop of infantry and a force of Japanese auxiliaries. When they had reached the quarter of Dilao the Sangleys turned on them and threw the Japanese into disorder. Gallinato then retreated, fighting all the way, back to the protection of the walls, but not before he had set fire to the Parian. At this critical juncture the arrival of Captain Luis de Velasco with reinforcements from the Visayas decided the issue of the fighting. He threw his fresh troops at once on the flank of the Chinese and utterly routed them. When the Chinese fled into the interior, he followed them relentlessly and cut up their forces in detail. When he fell in a skirmish in the Batangas hill country others went out from Manila to continue his work. Two hun dred Chinese, who were brought back to Manila to serve as galley slaves, were all that were left of the thousands who had risen against the Spaniards. It was estimated that over twenty-three thousand Chinese were killed as the price of the savage retribu tion which the Spaniards exacted. "At the beginning of the war," wrote Morga, "there were not seven hundred Spaniards in the city capable of bearing arms." When Velasco arrived from the south more than half of them were dead or severely wounded. Sino-Spanish relations experienced another crisis in 1639, when large numbers of Chinese in Manila rose to protest against the efforts of Governor Hurtado de Corcuera to force them to 9° THE MANILA GALLEON work in a newly-opened area of rice plantations outside the city. The tension between the two peoples developed with the usual rapidity into armed conflict, that only ended after many thou sands of Chinese had been slaughtered. Again in 1662 Manila was thrown into consternation by the famous Chinese leader, Kue-Sing or Chang Ch'eng-Kung, whom the Spaniards knew as Koxinga. At that time the Manchus had only recently established themselves in power in China. During the turmoil which accompanied the overthrow of the Ming dynasty and the overrunning of the empire by the Manchus Koxinga offered a bitter resistance to the conquerors that has won him a high place among Chinese patriots. He gathered a vast armament of war-junks, with which he harried the Tartar positions along the coast and inflicted heavy losses on their fleets. At last he drew off to the island of Formosa, from which he drove the Dutch, and there set up an independent state. It was from Formosa that he despatched the Jesuit priest, Vittorio Ricci, to Manila with an arrogant demand for tribute. At the same time he threatened that if the Spaniards did not recognize his sovereignty he would build a bridge of junks from Formosa to Luzon, over which his invading army would march to the conquest of the Philippines. The Spanish authorities at Manila well realized the seriousness of their position but, faithful to the tradition of more heroic days, they as haughtily defied the formidable power of the great adventurer. It was inevitable that the threat from Formosa should create a dangerous internal situation in Manila. The more violent spirits, among whom were said to be many debtors of Chinese merchants, called for a general massacre of the Chinese. How ever, Governor Manrique de Lara used his influence in favor of moderation and conciliation and personally reassured the mer chants in the Parian of his protection. "Those in the Pari£n," wrote a Jesuit chronicler of the time, "displayed no courage for any measures, for as their interests are so involved in peace they never have incurred the hazard of war, except under compul sion." Those Chinese who had taken up arms and attacked iso lated Spaniards in the outskirts of Manila were put down without mercy and other more doubtful elements among the Chinese were expelled from the islands. One junk carried back over 1,300 and its decks were so crowded with the fugitives that the pas THE CHINESE 9* sengers could scarcely sit down. Though the armed forces were put in order for resistance, the colony was saved by the death of Koxinga, who died in a fit of wrath shortly after the return of Father Ricci from his unwelcome mission to Manila. During the times of stress and interruption of the peaceful intercourse with the two peoples the galleon trade would decline to very low proportions or even to temporary cessation. It was thus, in a sense, a barometer of local conditions in the Philippines. On the other hand, the depression of the commerce, due to losses of galleons or a momentarily diminished demand in the American market, was liable to cause serious discontent among the Chinese in Manila. The. authorities of the city wrote to the king in 1643 of a recent insurrection of the Chinese: "The lack of business occasioned the rising of the Sangleys." Unable to adjust peacefully their relations with the Chinese, the Spaniards resorted at intervals to the radical measures of expulsion or exclusion, but the frequent repetition of these ex pedients shows what a temporary recourse it was. The fears of the Spaniards quieted for a moment, the Chinese would begin to return, usually welcomed by the Spaniards themselves. For the Spaniards recognized the economic dependence of the colony on harmonious intercourse with the Chinese. After the bloody rising and reprisals of 1603 Governor Acuna feared that the Chinese would not come again to Manila, "which," he declared, "would be of irreparable damage to this common wealth." Later he wrote to Philip III: "This country has been greatly consoled at seeing that the Chinese have chosen to con tinue their commerce, of which we were much in doubt." In the interval Acuna had sent an envoy to Canton, to urge the Chinese to renew their trade, and thirteen junks had arrived at Manila shortly afterwards." Not only was regular intercourse with the Chinese necessary to the galleon trade, but to the very sustenance of the Spanish community, which depended on the Chinese for nearly all its food and services. Antonio de Morga said on the same occasion : "After the end of the war, the need of the city began, for, because of not having Sangleys who worked at the trades and brought in * The Chinese annals known as the Ming Shih say of this occasion: "After that time the Chinese gradually flocked to Manila; and the savages (i.e. the Spaniards), seeing profit in the commerce with China, did not oppose them. For a long time they continued to gather again in the city." Berthold Laufer, op. cit., p. 272. 92 THE MANILA GALLEON all the provisions, there was no food nor any shoes to wear, not even at excessive prices. The native Indians no longer exercise those trades and have even forgotten much of farming, the rais ing of poultry, cattle and cotton, and the weaving of cloth, which they used to do in the days of their paganism and for a long time after the conquest of the country." In another place he wrote: "It is true that the city could not be maintained or pre served without these Chinese; for they are the mechanics in all trades and are excellent workmen and work for suitable wages." Hernando de los Rios Coronel, a contemporary of Morga and an enlightened and sympathetic observer, said: "The mainte nance of commerce with the Chinese and the good treatment of those of that nation who dwell in those islands are of so great importance that that community cannot be maintained without them. For that reason it is advisable to treat them well." After a royal order of 1686 had commanded the expulsion of the Chi nese, the audiencia protested to the king that it would be impos sible and unwise to carry out the provisions of the decree. "The Chinese are absolutely those who maintain the islands," they de clared; "they control the provisioning, the retail business and the trades of the community, for the natives are so useless that they only give themselves up to indolence. The Chinese," they added, "seem to have been born with a special faculty for every thing."7 After the expulsion of 1755 the Frenchman, Legentil, re marked : "These islands, in the state in which they are, cannot do without the Chinese. ... I did not know any Spaniard in Ma nila who did not sincerely regret their departure and who did not frankly admit that the Philippines would suffer for it." His countryman, Mallat, in commenting on the fact that the exclu sion ordinances had never been carried out, said: "There are many people who believe the Chinese necessary to Manila and are of the opinion that they cannot be dispensed with." A remarkable feature of these long series of racial conflicts is the singular indifference displayed by the Chinese authorities at home to the treatment of their subjects who had left the empire. 7 Said Father Chirino: "From China come those who supply every sort of service, all dexterous, prompt, and cheap, from physicians and barbers to burden-bearers and porters. They are the tailors and the shoemakers, metal-workers, silversmiths, sculptors, locksmiths, painters, masons, weavers, and finally every kind of servitors in the com monwealth." THE CHINESE 93 After the famous insurrection of 1603 the Spaniards were amazed at the apparent callousness and lack of interest at the sanguinary reprisals that had been taken on the Sangley population of the islands. When the viceroy of one of the coast provinces urged the emperor to avenge the slaughter of so many Chinese there was no response to his appeal. Two years had already passed, and the lethargy and pacific inertia of the huge empire, the strong stand taken by Acuna, and his despatch of an embassy which flattered while it impressed, had warded off whatever danger of retribution there might have been. This attitude was in marked contrast to that of the Japanese government, which was quick to demand explanations and satisfaction for any harsh treatment of its subjects. Padre Conception, the famous historian of the Philippines, explained this insensitiveness by the fact that the Chi nese who lived in foreign countries were held as ingrates, or even as traitors, to their country and as such could expect no redress for persecution endured abroad. Though both peoples were noted for their inhospitality to foreigners, each accused the other of xenophobia and of having initiated the exclusion policy. Pedro Calderon Enriquez, a mem ber of the audiencia, advised the governor in 1741 that the em peror of China could not consistently object to the expulsion of the Chinese from Manila, since the exclusion policy followed towards foreigners in China only justified like treatment of the Chinese in the Philippines. However, it is more likely that the Chinese copied their policy of exclusiveness from the Spaniards; and the rigor with which Spain excluded foreigners from her overseas dominions certainly shows that the Spaniards could have learned nothing from the Chinese in that respect. Consideration of religion and morals played an important part in the Spanish attitude towards the Chinese. On the one hand, some of the powerful clerical element in the colony fa vored a conciliatory and liberal policy towards the Chinese, on the ground that their presence in Manila offered a favorable op portunity for their conversion to Christianity. In this stand they were generally supported by the pious zeal of the monarchs in Spain and by the heads of the regular orders, who always cher ished the hope of using the Philippines as the base for missionary activity in China. On the other hand, the alleged vices of the Chinese made them in the eyes of some Spaniards a grave menace 94 THE MANILA GALLEON to the moral life of the community, while their obdurate heresy or frivolous conversion were believed to set a bad example to the native Filipinos. The royal solicitude for the christianizing of the Chinese appears on many occasions. One of the thirteen laws in the Code of the Indies, or Recopilacidn de Lcyes de las Indias, providing for just treatment of the Sangleys, begins as follows: "It is just that when these people come to trade, they should be made much of and well received, in order that, by carrying back reports of the good treatment and welcome offered them by our subjects, others may decide to come. Through this channel they will re ceive the Christian Doctrine and profess our Holy Catholic Faith, to which our principal desire and intention are directed." Again, although the Spaniards had previously been forbidden by royal edict to go to China to trade, the king granted permission for such trade in 1690, in response to Governor Vargas Hurtado's representations that direct trade with China was necessary for the perpetuation of Christian missions in that country. Only four years before another decree had ordered all Chinese to be ex pelled from the Philippines within two months, if they did not accept Christianity and promise to remain Christians—not a seri ous hindrance to the average Chinaman's continued residence in the islands. Many Spaniards testified to the lightness with which the Chinese espoused the Christian faith. In the early years of the colony Morga said: "Their having become Christians is not through the desire for salvation, but for the temporal conve niences that they have there." In 1695 the audiencia said of their Christianity: "Although they arc not very good Christians, they make very good Catholics and loyal vassals of your Majesty." As to the possible effect of exclusion on their conversion, its mem bers remarked that if the Chinese were forced to be more tran sient traders, who yearly came and went with the monsoons, their conversion would be difficult, on account of their lack of a fixed habitation. And they added: "Because he who travels al ways takes things lightly, and seldom seriously." Four years later the archbishop of Manila himself accused the insincerity of the Christianity of the Chinese. The outspoken Governor Anda de clared in 1768 that "even the padres" confess that the Chinese accept conversion only to be allowed to marry in Manila and to THE CHINESE 95 carry on business there. As evidence of the insincerity of their conversion Anda cited the relapse of the Chinese during the Eng lish occupation in 1762. "They all apostatized," he said, "if that can be said of those who receive the baptism without intention, and worshipped the Pig's Head, the Serpent, the Confucius, and other Reptiles of this tenor." "In Manila I have seen," he added, "God and Belial together on an altar, hand in hand and very friendly." The Spaniards also objected to some of the moral ideas and practices of the Chinese. However, in extenuation of some of the moral peculiarities and deficiencies with which the Chinese were charged, it must be recognized that the large Sangley population in the Philippines was mostly composed of men whose back ground was the Canton waterfront. As such, they could not be expected to bring with them the best traditions of Chinese cul ture or the higher Confucian standards of conduct. In the islands they lived without political security, distrusted by the Spaniards for their numbers, and envied and hated by the natives for their superior material lot that was the reward of their in dustry and skill. Their social status lacked the safeguards and the restraints that in China were provided by the family and age long custom of the community. Exiles, pariahs and celibates— too much was expected of them. A memorial written in 1677 by Diego Calderon Serrano, a judge of the audiencia, insists on the evil influence of the Chinese over the natives. He charged them with inviting and even forc ing the natives to eat meat on fast days, of dissuading them from hearing mass or sermons, and ordering them to work on feast days, "without the least regard for the things of the other life, or for God or his law." A detailed report presented to the governor by Pedro Calderon Enriquez, after a tour of inspection through the provinces, was more damning to the Chinese. "The wealth," he said, "which they derive from trade, the vice of lewdness which is common among them, and their excessive perversity and cunning are the source of grave detriment to the community." And he added: "Their general conduct, as it is now, in no way conforms to divine right, and is expressly contrary to royal laws, ordinances and decrees." When three years later a royal edict of 1744 ordered the absolute expulsion of all heathen Chinese, it accused the Chinese, among other things, of "idolatry and athe 96 THE MANILA GALLEON ism, lasciviousness and sodomy, craftiness, slyness and cunning, and usury and deceit." On the other side, the remark of a Jesuit friar stationed in China is worth quoting, as illustrating the rec ognition of the worth and attainments of the Chinese race by those better acquainted with their civilization. Writing to Juan Bautista Roman, the Spanish factor at Macao in 1584, he said: "It is a cause for wonderment that this people, who had no com munication with Europe, should have advanced almost as much by themselves." In the second half of the eighteenth century important changes in the galleon trade and in the general economic life of the colony introduced a new factor into the periodic agitation against the Chinese. The commerce with Mexico had come to be controlled by a relatively few affluent merchants and had ceased to be the direct mainstay of the whole body of Spanish citizens. Meanwhile in the two centuries in which the interests of the Spaniards had been engrossed by the galleon the Chinese had so completely monopolized the trades and retail business of the colony that the Spaniards who now wished to enter those oc cupations found the competition of the Oriental a barrier to success. As a result, those who were thrown between the two monopolies began to clamor for the expulsion and exclusion of the Chinese as the only means of restoring industrial opportunity. As early as 1586 Governor Vera and other prominent Spaniards of Manila had petitioned the Council of the Indies to forbid the Chinese from remaining in Manila to retail their goods, since this business should be in the hands of the Spaniards. Their recommendations were incorporated in the instructions given to Governor Gomez Perez Dasmarinas three years later, but were observed only fitfully. In 1722 the fiscal of the colony observed to the king: "The Sangleys have gained control of all the commerce in provisions and other supplies and of the me chanical trades. For this reason the Spaniards here have neither engaged in retail business nor in the trades, as they have done in other provinces of the Indies." Five years later, in a plea on behalf of both Spaniards and natives, Pedro Gonzalez de Rivera and six other citizens denied that the Chinese were essential to the welfare of the islands and appealed to the king for the execution of the expulsion decree of 1686. "The Sangleys," they said, "are those who take nearly THE CHINESE 97 all the silver that comes from New Spain and who buy up all the products of these islands. The natives are those who labor in the cutting of timbers for the galleons, and who drag them from the forests and carry them in rafts to Cavite and the other yards. They are those who do the work in the construction and over hauling of the galleons, and who serve as seamen in the naviga tion to New Spain. They labor in the foundries and forges, and finally, on them falls all the heavy work of this country, even in those trades which the Sangleys control." The foremost champion of this policy was Simon de Anda, one of the ablest and certainly the most aggressive and fearless of the governors of the period of revival. Anda favored not only the expulsion of all Chinese who might be spared from hanging, but even of those Spaniards who should oppose such a measure. He named as the influences against expulsion the few merchants who were interested only in the galleon trade, the regular clergy and the governors. The position of the first, who were largely dependent on the Chinese in making up their shipments to Acapulco, is easily understood. Anda accused the friars of mer cenary motives in their support of the Chinese, whom he charged with being a large source of revenue for the Church. He said that when the order came for the expulsion of the non-Christian Chinese in Arandia's time two friars had baptized four hundred Chinamen in one day. The Chinese had also served as "a most abundant milk cow for the government." Unscrupulous gover nors had levied contributions on the Sangleys, while holding over their heads the threat of expulsion—the old recourse of medieval rulers with the Jews—but by systematic "adulation and subordi nation" of the governors the pliant Chinese had defeated the pur pose of several orders for their expulsion which had been sent out from Spain. It was utterly untrue, Anda protested, that the welfare of the islands depended on the Chinese. However, the positive fea ture of his scheme was the creation of an exclusively Spanish in dustrial community, which could only be realized by first rid ding the colony of the Chinese. On his first entrance into office as governor a petition against the Chinese had been presented to him by "those Spaniards who wish to work in order to live." Henceforth, this large element, hitherto an object of charity and in a state closely bordering on vagabondage, though once 98 THE MANILA GALLEON participants in the galleon traffic, found a spokesman in the governor. They had no part in the existing economic regime, but once the Chinese were gone, they might take their place as shop keepers and make up the personnel of Spanish business houses. As for the trades now monopolized by the Chinese guilds, the natives and such Spaniards as wished would be free to enter them. For the benefit of the galleon merchants the Chinese might still come each year to Manila, sell their goods under the restrictions of the old sixteenth century law, and catch the mon soon for the Chinese coast; or preferably the Spaniards might reopen direct trade with China. The next year after Anda had presented his memorial to Julian de Arriaga, Minister of the Indies, the order of expulsion was put into execution. In 1778, two years after Anda's death, and during the governorship of Basco y Vargas, the Chinese were permitted to return to Manila. When the United States took over the Philippines in 1898 it inherited the perennial Chinese question from the Spaniards. However, by a military order of September 1899 me exclusion policy in force in the United States was applied to the islands, though it did not affect the residence of the many Chinese who were natives of the Philippines. The order was put into effect against the protests of the famous Chinese diplomat, Wu Ting Fang, who represented the antiquity and importance of the Chi nese connections with the islands. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>»<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 2 THE JAPANESE IN former times, when the trade with Japan flourished," said Padre Delgado, "Manila was the marvel and the pearl of the Orient." However, the trading connection with Japan was of short duration and many vicissitudes. Beginning several years after the traffic with China, it was cut off in the thirties of the seventeenth century by a combination of circumstances unrelated to the conduct of the trade itself. For the determinant factor in Spanish-Japanese relations was, after all, religious and not com mercial. The character of these relations was further qualified by a third factor,—the mutual fear of the aggressive designs of the other. The missionary and the ambassador-spy thus played more important roles than did the merchant, who could not flourish in an atmosphere of chronic suspicion and untempered zeal. The period of Spanish intercourse with the Japanese coin cided with the most remarkable epoch in pre-Meiji Japan. Dur ing the last decades of the sixteenth century there succeeded to the anarchy of the Ashikaga regime a new order. Japan was unified as never before. And whereas daimios and bonzes had long worked their lawless wills in the face of the impotence of both shogun and emperor, the militant Buddhist monks and the feudal lords were now beaten into subjection to the mon archy. Even the redoubtable Shimadzu clansmen of Satsuma had to submit to the centralizing forces that were directed by Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu. At his death in 1582 Nobunaga, a veritable super-sumurai, was master of thirty-two of the sixty-eight provinces. Hideyoshi greatly extended the authority of the central government and reduced Kiushiu as well as the Kuanto lands above Yedo. Though he never assumed the title of shogun, this extraordinary figure was in an unprecedented sense lord of Japan at the time when Iyeyasu succeeded to the newly accumulated prestige of the monarchy in 1598. With the 99 IOO THE MANILA GALLEON latter the work of consolidation was done. In 1600 he routed the western rebels on the field of Sekigahara and fifteen years later broke the last serious resistance to his power by taking Osaka castle from the house of Toyotomi. Like Richelieu, a great administrator, he founded a system of government that en dured until the changes of the Meiji period, while the Tokugawa shoguns, of which he was the first, ruled the nation until the restoration of the imperial authority in 1867. Among other characteristic manifestations of national life during this period was the impulse to expand beyond the seas. The rise of the low-born Hideyoshi to mastery is an example of the rampant individualism that also found outlets in foreign adventure and in maritime and commercial activities. Radical improvements were made in shipbuilding and Japanese crossed to America, as well as to the coasts and islands to the west and south. And besides the overseas military enterprises of Hide yoshi, there were many Japanese adventurers at the courts of East Indian potentates, especially among the kingdoms of Farther India. This outward expansion of the nation encountered a similar movement that had its origin in Europe,—a movement whose aggressiveness was so repugnant to the Japanese that the nation returned, after a few decades of adventuring and inquir ing, to the old isolation and provincial content. The most disturbing element in the occidental invasion of the Far East was the influx of Christian missionaries. For it was the dual fear that the efforts of the priests would undermine the native culture and that they were the forerunners of armed conquest which brought about the reaction against the foreigners and the eventual closing of Japan to the outside world. "It was recognized," says Lafcadio Hearn, "that the triumph of the for eign religion would involve the total disintegration of society, and the subjection of the empire to foreign domination." For several decades after the coming of Francisco Xavier to Kagoshima in 1549 the Japanese mission field was worked exclu sively by the Portuguese Jesuits. This monopoly was facilitated by the close trading relations that sprang up between Macao and the new port of Nagasaki. It was, moreover, confirmed to the Society by a bull of Gregory XIII, which was in turn recognized by Philip II, then monarch of both the Iberian kingdoms. Goa and Macao were the only authorized gateways into Japan until THE JAPANESE 101 the brief of Paul V, which was issued "at the instance of. the king of Spain" in 1608, opened the field to the three most im portant orders at Manila. However, the Christian propaganda was already on the defensive, and the ardent and militant Span ish friars never had such success as did the labors of the Jesuits. Yet, in spite of the rising sentiment of hostility to the whole Christian movement, which broke out in martyrdoms and edicts of expulsion, the missionaries from Manila continued to find their way into Japan, either openly or through one secret guise or other. Eleven went as late as 1632, five in 1637, tne vear °^ me Shimabara outbreak, and four in 1642, after the nation had sealed itself to the outside world. This disquieting element in SpanishJapanese relations made impossible the continued prosecution of trade and friendly diplomatic intercourse. The Japanese did not consider the preservation of the trade with the foreigners as worth the sacrifice of much of their newlywon domestic tranquillity and their national culture. The long closing of Japan to the world, in fact, resulted above all from dislike of the aggressive proselytism of the subtle Portuguese Jesuits and of the undaunted zealots from Manila. Among the influential class whose religious attitude was Laodicean the contentions between the different orders and between Portuguese and Spaniards only aroused disgust, while Date Masamune's em bassy returned from the distracted lands of western Christendom, disillusioned of the moral superiority of the new faith, and, to the added confusion of the padres, spread the report of their awak ening. For several years the results of the Christian propaganda had been remarkable. Even Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, whether out of curiosity or to secure an offset to the hostile bonzes, had temporarily patronized the missionaries, and influential daimios, like Takeyama, known to the Spaniards as "Don Justo Ucondono," either espoused Christianity outright or held out tantaliz ing hopes of their conversion. Its extraordinary success among the masses of Kiushiu greatly disturbed the Buddhist priesthood and those who still loyally performed the rites of Shinto. However, the growing sense of the anti-national character of the foreign sect doomed the efforts of the missionaries to ulti mate failure. Though the reaction had long been developing, it did not definitely triumph until the time of Iyeyasu and of his son and successor, Hidetada. The former, although a Gallio in IQ2-. : THE MANILA GALLEON giattefs of faith, adopted the policy of the proconsul Pliny in his attitude toward the Christians. Little concerned with their reli gious dogmas as such, he came to believe them a serious menace to the state. It was the same problem that the Catholic Kings and their successors faced with the Moors, or Richelieu with the Huguenots, and that brought about the incorporation of the cujus regio principle into the Peace of Augsburg. Dutch and English agitated against the friars, alleging that here, as always in Span ish history, the missionary was the precursor of the soldier. Since neither of those peoples attempted religious propaganda, but were mere traders, their reiterated charges of Spanish intentions had the desired effect. The rash disclosure of the Spanish pilot of the galleon San Felipe only confirmed the suspicions of the Japanese. This too frank seaman, in order to impress the Japanese with the might of his royal master, produced a mappe-monde on which were represented the territories of the Spanish empire. When asked how the king of Spain had come to rule so much of the world, the pilot replied: "Nothing is easier. Our kings begin by send ing into countries which they desire to conquer some friars, who engage in the work of converting the people to our religion. When they have made considerable progress, troops are sent in who are joined by the new Christians. They then have little difficulty in settling the rest." When the incident was reported to Hideyoshi, he swore to purge Japan of the Christians. "What!", he said, "my states are filled with traitors, and their numbers increase from day to day." There followed an out burst of persecuting fury, and though Christianity was not ex tinguished for a few decades, the further toleration of it was only by way of reprieve. There had been sporadic and local cases of persecution from the beginning of the Christian movement. From 1587 the cen tral government took occasional measures against the friars, all of which proved more or less ineffectual, or at most of but tem porary efficacy. In that year Hideyoshi decreed the expulsion of the missionaries. However, this edict was carried out in desul tory fashion and an influx of Spanish friars was to follow a few years later, further to aggravate the situation. After the San Felipe episode, twenty-six missionaries and native neophytes, in cluding six Spanish Franciscans and three Jesuits, suffered mar THE JAPANESE 103 tyrdom at Nagasaki in February 1597. There was a further series of anti-Christian edicts in Iyeyasu's time, beginning in 1606. In 161 1 conversion to Christianity was forbidden. The next year it was further proscribed, while in 1614 the radical decree of Hidetada, the acting shogun, was issued against the Christians, order ing all friars from Japan. "The Emperor of Japan," the English trader, Richard Cocks, wrote in his diary, "hath banished all Jesuits, priestes, friers and nuns out of all his domynions, som being gon for the Philippines and the rest for Amacon [Macao] in China." Retaliation at the refusal of the Spaniards to permit the cherished trade with New Spain doubtless had something to do with the promulgation of this peremptory order. Some priests who went out to Japan the following year were promptly commanded to return to Mexico. In December Robert Cappindall, one of the English traders in Japan wrote: "Certain Jesuites come out of Nova Spania in embassage unto the Emperor, with a letter and a present from the King of Spain, which, after a month or 6 weeks' attendance, the Emperor rec'd, but none of the embassadors admitted to his presence. All the answer to this embassage was, to gett from foorth of this cuntry with speede, upon paine of his displeasure." The persecution was particularly intense in 1616, the year of Iyeyasu's death, and during the next few years. However, members of the orders persisted in entering Japan in defiance of the authorities, lay and ecclesiastical. In 1622 they paid the extreme penalty for their zeal in the "Great Martyrdom" of Naga saki. Ten friars went to Satsuma in 1623 and by 1629 a con siderable number of religious were in Japan. For the next few years they carried on a vigorous and all too open propaganda. In 1638 they and their work were swept away in a general mas sacre of Christians that followed the Shimabara rebellion. Chris tianity was extirpated and Japan returned to her ancestral gods. With it ended all intercourse with the foreigner, save for the restricted and ignominious concessions under which the Dutch were permitted to trade at their post on Deshima in Nagasaki harbor. Inextricably bound up with the missionary campaign and overshadowing the commercial connections was the course of diplomatic relations. The sensitive racial pride of the Japanese was a match for the peculiar soberbia and altaneria,—the pride 104 THE MANILA GALLEON and haughtiness,—of the Spaniard ; and in view of the contact of two such inflammable national tempers as were embodied in the respective ideals of bushido and pundonor, or "the point of honor," relations were always delicate and chronically unsettled. There was thus generated a highly charged atmosphere of mu tual suspicion. Intensified by occasional untoward incidents and by the irritating religious question, this threatening atmosphere could only be temporarily cleared by the frequent despatch of embassies on both sides. The usual state of the Spanish mind is reflected in Padre Casimiro Diaz' account of the coming of the Japanese embassy in 1630: "They secretly came as spies of the state and forces of Manila, and to see if they could carry out their intention of making themselves lords of these islands. They were received by Governor Tabora with the ostentation which the occasion demanded, the governor making a show of the power of Spaniards to resist any enemy. Meanwhile they carried on in secret their duties as spies, and noted the forces of Manila, making plans of its walls and fortifications." The Span iards were perpetually disquieted by fear of military complications with their powerful and uncertain neighbor of the north, and were correspondingly anxious to maintain the friendship of Japan as the price of their own continued security. On the other hand, the Japanese were disposed to regard any unusual accretion of forces or warlike preparations at Manila as designed for their own undoing. The warlike renown of the Japanese greatly troubled the Spaniards, whose sense of the peril was aggravated by the con sciousness of their own numerical weakness. Expressing the cur rent fear of a Japanese descent on the north Luzon coasts, the royal treasury officials in a letter to the king called the Japanese "a most warlike people of great military strength and capable of great efforts." This bellicose people gave the governors of the Philippines far more concern than did the more pacific, if more numerous, Chinese. Governor Dasmarinas informed Philip II in 1591 that the very conservation of the colony depended on the friendship of the emperor of Japan. Seven years later, when Hideyoshi died, the Spaniards were trying to conclude an alli ance with the Chinese, in order to offset the common danger from Japan. Fray Diego Aduarte, writing to the Council of the Indies in 1618, said: "The Japanese are those who are more feared THE JAPANESE 105 in the islands than all the neighboring nations, for they are very courageous and arrogant." Another Spanish writer of the time said of the Japanese: "There is no people more given to conceal ing their real designs; what they say is very different from what they feel in their hearts." "The Japanese are an energetic race," said Governor Vera, "skilled in the use of our weapons." The Council of the Indies resolved in 1607 that: "It is well to keep the king of Japan friendly. For if he were not so, he would be the greatest enemy that could be feared, on account of the num ber and size of his realms, and the valor of the people therein, who are, beyond comparison, the bravest in all India." Spanish fears of conquest by Japan appeared well justified by the belligerent temper and threats of Hideyoshi. The dread re gent's pretensions to tribute and vassalage, whether veiled or expressed with arrogant bluntness, while at the same time they were mingled with protestations of friendship and desire for trade, kept the Spaniards at Manila in a state of apprehension for years. In such circumstances normal intercourse between the two peoples was impossible. Moreover, Hideyoshi suspected the daimios of Kiushiu of leanings towards some arrangement with the Spanish government at Manila as a counterpoise to his own encroachments. After subjecting the most of Japan to his au thority, Hideyoshi embarked upon a career of conquest on the mainland that was to comprehend the subjugation of Corea and China. It was suggested to him, while in this aggressive frame of mind, that he undertake an enterprise against the Spanish establishment in the Philippines; for it is virtually certain that the project was not his own, but originated in the brain of one Faranda, or Harada. This sinister figure, who had been a pupil of the Jesuits, had ventured to Manila on trading voyages. He had gained the confidence of some friars, to whom he had held out hopes of a favorable reception among the people of Japan. He at the same time carefully noted the situation about the colony and estimated its probable capacity for defense. He fi nally concluded that here was a promising field for a facile con quest. Faranda communicated his project to a man about the Japanese court, who was high in the regent's confidence, and through this channel found in Hideyoshi a sympathetic response. In 1592, a Japanese Christian, known to the Spaniards as "Gaspar," acting as Faranda's agent, brought to the governor io6 THE MANILA GALLEON at Manila what purported to be a letter from Hideyoshi himself. The letter contained a "demand for recognition and obedience, made with arrogance and barbaric haughtiness." "We are not harboring suspicions," Dasmarinas informed the king, "but veri tably expect him here by October of this year or the beginning of next." In the face of the peril the governor resorted to the only adequate weapon at his command—diplomacy. In his reply to Hideyoshi he doubted that the emissary, who had represented himself as Faranda, was really the envoy of so mighty a poten tate "as the great Kwambaku must be." However, he was send ing to Japan Fray Juan Cobos to treat with the regent for the maintenance of peaceful and friendly relations. Meanwhile, he would submit the whole question to the king of Spain, "the greatest monarch in the world." At home he was careful to make every possible effort to prepare the colony against trouble from the side of Japan. "Not only should the arms be ready," said the governor at the time, "but the soldiers experienced in and accustomed to them; the galley not only finished, but the rower skillful at the oar; food collected; and even money, which is the sinew of war, ready and assigned for the expenses of war —in order that the enemy, who spies on all our actions, may see how well prepared we are, and be restrained and intimidated. For many times battles are fought as much by means of reputa tion as with forces." Cobos delivered to Hideyoshi the reply of Dasmarinas and left Japan the next year as the bearer of further overtures from the regent. Faranda came to Manila at the same time, repre senting himself as Hideyoshi's ambassador, though he declared that his credentials had been lost on the ship which had gone down with Cobos on board. As in the former case, Dasmarinas was incredulous as to Faranda's authorization to represent the lord of Japan, but none the less did not relax his customary vigilance. Faranda assumed an amicable and conciliatory tone that was evidently calculated to quiet the suspicions of the Span iard. He expressed regret that the governor should have "mis interpreted" the communication of the year before as a threat of attack, and as a guarantee for the greater security of the Spanish colony he even offered to bring about a voluntary restriction of emigration from Japan to the Philippines. Dasmarinas showed himself disposed to accept these overtures, whatever may have THE JAPANESE 107 been their ultimate source. In notifying Hideyoshi of the ap pointment of Fray Pedro Bautista as his envoy to the regent's court, the Spaniard said: "He has power from me to accept and establish the peace and amity which are offered in your royal name and requested from us by Faranda." During the next year the governor was killed by the Chinese rowers of his galley while bound on an expedition against the Moluccas. His son and successor, Luis, was left to continue the trying negotiations with the Japanese. Meantime, Hideyoshi sent to Manila by Fray Pedro Bautista a reply so haughty that Span ish pride could not accept it. After a lofty declaration of his own prowess, he made a blunt demand for friendship that but thinly veiled the real significance of his message. "After going to China," he said, "Luzon will be within my reach. Let us be friends forever. Write to that effect to the king of Castille. Do not, because he is far away, let him slight my words." The let ter was discussed in a council of war called by the new governor, and while it was decided to refuse recognition of Hideyoshi's pretensions, the usual desire for continuation of friendly relations was expressed. The irritation of Hideyoshi at the persistent evasion of his demands was still evident two years later in his attitude on the question of the San Felipe. On that occasion, after the sacking of the galleon and the martyrdom of the friars at Nagasaki, Governor Tello sent Luis Navarrete Fajardo to Japan to see that provision was made against the recurrence of similar outrages. Navarrete carried curious and valuable presents for Hideyoshi, among which a Siamese elephant especially impressed the regent and his people. "The elephant was very well received," the gov ernor wrote to the king, "and they tell me that on the day when he entered Meaco the concourse of people in the plaza was so great—because they had never seen elephants before—that seven persons were suffocated. When the ambassador had ascended to the hall, the king came out to meet him with thirty kings who were his vassals. My letter was then read in public. It was well received and the king said that he would reply thereto. Then he wished to see the presents, which had been put in twelve boxes. Greatly excited and enraged by a picture of myself, which represented me armed and with a cane in my hand, he asked in a loud voice whether this was intended as a threat. He was an io8 THE MANILA GALLEON swered in the negative, but that it is a custom of persons who held high offices to send their portraits as tokens of regard and friend ship when embassies were despatched. Thereupon he was ap peased and ordered the picture to be placed in a large hall, and directed his wives and children to go to see it. After this the ambassador was invited to dine with him three times, and was finally dismissed with a present of twelve coats-of-mail, thirty lances, and two horses." Hideyoshi's replies to the Spanish representations were vague and equivocal. The two governments were no nearer a good understanding than in the time of Dasmarinas. "The king's greed has been much whetted," wrote a friar from Japan to An tonio de Morga, "by what he stole from the San Felipe. It is said that next year he will go to Luzon, and that he does not go this year because of being busy with the Coreans." "There is always suspicion of Japan," said Governor Tello, "and according to the advice which I now have, those people desire exceedingly to come here." "We are every moment fearing some movement from Japan," wrote Bishop Benavides to the king in June 1598. "If, for the punishment of our sins, the Emperor of Japan should attempt the conquest of this land, as he has warned us, only a miracle can save the Philippines," wrote a friar to the dying king, for whom the islands had been named. However, before the fruition of his plans Hideyoshi died, and the menace that had hung over the Spanish colony for several years was averted. In the words of Morga, "between demand and replies, several years were spent, until at last Taico died." The accession of Iyeyasu to power brought about an improve ment in Hispano-Japanese relations. "Peace and friendship with the king of Japan goes on continuing," wrote Governor Acuna to Philip III in 1604. The great shogun's international policy was on a higher plane than had been that of his blustering and imperialistic predecessor. He had no animus against the for eigners as such, and the onus for whatever measures were directed against the outsiders during his time must be borne by that ele ment itself. Iyeyasu was not so much bent on foreign conquest as on the expansion of Japanese commerce and merchant marine. In the prosecution of these aims he showed himself conciliatory and reasonable, and he only changed his policy toward the Span iards when he found they were not amenable to such methods. THE JAPANESE 109 The lay authorities at Manila were sincerely desirous of meeting the overtures of Iyeyasu, except as they held possibilities of ulti mate danger to the colony, though Spanish officialdom at times imposed upon the patience of the shogun. A royal decree of 1609 particularly enforced upon the government at Manila the necessity of maintaining peaceful intercourse with the Japanese. "Let the governor and captain-general of the Philippines," read the order, "aim always to conserve good relations, peace and quietude with the emperor of Japan. He should use for this purpose the most prudent and proper means according to the circumstances of the time, and he should take care not to risk the reputation of our arms and state among the nations and seas of the Orient." Embassies and presents were frequently ex changed and for the time being there was little of the panicky tension that had prevailed in Hideyoshi's time. However, all this good impression was gradually nullified by the growing activity of the friars, to whom Iyeyasu became un compromisingly antipathetic. Zealots like the persistent Padre Sotelo thus undid much of the work accomplished by the Span ish governors and the shogun. The hostile influence of the Dutch and English who estab lished themselves in Japan during this period became increasingly apparent in the growing alienation of Japanese friendship for the Iberians. The Hollanders and Englishmen, like Richard Cocks and Will Adams, lost no opportunity to impress on the shogun and other prominent natives the danger of allowing the Spanish friars to continue their propaganda in the country, always alleg ing that the missionaries were only the forerunners of armed invasion from Manila. According to Cocks, the Spaniards lacked "neither money nor men for thackomplishing such a strattgim." An opportunity came to Iyeyasu in 1609 to treat with the Spaniards for the realization of some of the most cherished phases of his policy. In July the galleon San Francisco, out from Manila and under the command of ex-governor Rodrigo de Vivero, was thrown upon the coast of Kazusa. Iyeyasu treated his Spanish guests with gracious hospitality and both parties improved the occasion to press certain cherished desires on the other. Though a treaty of trade and friendship was concluded with the shogun, its validity was, of course, seriously qualified by Vivero's doubt ful authorization to conclude such an arrangement. Vivero re 110 THE MANILA GALLEON quested: first, assurance of toleration and protection for the Span ish regulars engaged in mission work in Japan; second, confirma tion of the "alliance" between the rulers of the two nations; and, third, the expulsion of the Dutch. Iyeyasu agreed to grant the first two of these requests, but evaded the anti-Dutch article. He could only have tolerated the presence of the friars on condition that it was the price to be paid for obtaining his own desires from the Spaniards. "The profit and benefit to be derived from friendship and commerce with the Spaniards," wrote Antonio de Morga, "are more to the taste of Daifusama than what he heard concerning their religion." As part of his wide plans for the economic advancement of the nation, he requested the services of fifty Spanish miners from Mexico, to introduce west ern methods in the working of some newly-found mines. How ever, Vivero insisted on attaching such conditions to this con cession as would have seriously compromised national control over these important resources. To further his merchant marine program Iyeyasu asked for shipwrights who could instruct the Japanese in the construction of ocean-going vessels. At the same time he expressed his eagerness for increased trading relations, not only with the Philippines, but directly with New Spain. Now, as always, the Spaniards realized the danger of encourag ing Japanese aspirations for maritime enterprise. On this point Morga declared that "the greatest security from Japan has ever been Japanese lack of ships and ignorance of navigation." Bartolome de Argensola, the historian, wrote that "The navigation of the Japanese would be the prelude to the destruction of the Philippines and New Spain." On these more tangible phases of his policy Iyeyasu could gain little satisfaction from the Span iards. However, a general treaty embodying some of the desires of both sides was drawn up with Vivero in July 1610. To seal the agreement Iyeyasu promised to send a mission with presents to the king of Spain. Vivero left Japan for Mexico in the follow ing August. Within the next few years the Spaniards were placed more and more on the defensive and forced to justify their very pres ence in Japan. The net results of all the exchanges of embassies and presents and ceremonies were very small. Iyeyasu was dis appointed in his efforts to bring about increased trading connec tions and increasingly exasperated by the friars. Moreover, he THE JAPANESE in alleged the existence of treasonable intrigues between the Span iards and some Japanese high in the imperial service. When an embassy from Manila under one "Domingos Francisco" appeared in Japan in 1610, with instructions to protest further against the presence of the Dutch, it was ignored for a time and, when re ceived, was commanded to keep silence on the very subject of its coming. Another embassy, sent the same year from New Spain under Nuno de Sotomayor, and carrying a very preten tious set of demands, was only able to secure the concession of a part of its program. Iyeyasu's former attitude of cordiality toward the Spaniards was now rapidly changing to one of impatient tolerance of their advances and to suspicion of their intentions. The next year, wrote Will Adams, was "put downe all the sects of Franciscannes." With Hidetada's edict of that year the persecution of the Christians broke out with a new and systematic fury. When Iyeyasu died in 1616 and Hidetada assumed full control, the last moderating influence had been removed from the government and Japanese policy became steadily more anti-Spanish. The visits of the mysterious Padre Zuniga in 1618 and 1620 were utterly ineffectual, and ended in the martyrdom of the unwel come friar. The fact that he was rumored to be the son of the former viceroy of New Spain, Villamanrique de Zuniga, or even of the king himself, only made Hidetada the more suspicious of the ulterior purpose of his presence in Japan. An embassy from Manila was sent away unheard in 1622, and another two years later from Governor Fernando de Silva was treated with even greater curtness. By an edict of 1624 Hidetada made a deter mined effort to cut off all connections with the Spaniards in the Philippines. The Spaniards had already been hunted out of Japan, or, if friars, dragooned and exterminated. Now Japa nese were forbidden to go to the Philippines for any purpose whatsoever. After three years, relations between Japan and Manila again became acute. In May 1629, Captain Juan de Alcaraso captured and burned a Japanese junk in Siamese waters. Forty-two men from off the vessel were brought to Manila and by Governor Tabora's orders carried to Nagasaki. At news of the incident opinion in Japan was greatly inflamed and a demand was raised for reparation. The Dutch urged on the Japanese to revenge 112 THE MANILA GALLEON and at Manila there was serious apprehension of a combined Dutch-Japanese attack on the colony. In order to avert a breach Tabora disclaimed responsibility for the affair and offered to give satisfaction if the Japanese would consent to the reestablishment of trading relations. Meanwhile the Japanese seized a Portuguese galliot at Nagasaki in retaliation, so that Macao was made an interested party in the affair and pressed the Spaniards to satisfy the Japanese demands. A council called at Manila to consider the situation concerned itself chiefly with drafting an elaborate indictment of Japanese policy and justifying war against that power. However, they recommended no definite measures of indemnification for the aggrieved Japanese. Its ill-timed reso lution naturally did nothing to placate opinion in Japan. Tabora heard two years later that the Japanese were still much wrought up over the burning of the junk "and that they were construct ing large fleets to avenge themselves on our port and fort in the island of Formosa, and on the city and coasts of Manila." In 1631 a Japanese embassy appeared at Manila. The man ner of its reception is thus described by the historian Medina: "The governor granted them audience in very circumspect fash ion. On that occasion he assembled all the infantry in two columns, and had them escort the Japanese, who acted as am bassadors to whom he gave horses and trappings and a fine car riage. In short, they had come, on behalf of the governor of Nagasaki, to confer about the junk, and the means by which trade could be opened. But it was strictly stipulated that no religious should go, for the Japanese had no liking for them. The governor satisfied them in everything, and treated them very well in Manila." "But," says an anonymous chronicler of that time, "the city was put in readiness for whatever might hap pen." Trade was reopening with the southern regions of Japan, and by 1632 the now long-standing affair seemed on a fair way to settlement. Tabora, if still vigilant, was yet hopeful of an amicable adjustment. "That nation is very cautious," he wrote, "and there is little confidence to be put in them. It is certain that their hearts are not quiet, nor will they easily become so. They take vengeance at a fitting time. May they bring us bread and ammunition, as they are doing now. I give them good treatment here, so that it is now procured that the gains which they make on their merchandise and the lapse of time will ac THE JAPANESE 113 commodate all things." In his last communication to the king in regard to the affair the governor wrote: "I shall endeavor, as heretofore, to promote peace and cordial intercourse, and they may obtain satisfaction for the affair in Siam. If they come to ask for it rightly, satisfaction will be given them and the guilt of the commander who had charge of the galleons will be asked." The efforts of the governor and captain-general of the Philip pines and of the lords of Harima and Bungo at a renewed rap prochement proved abortive. The accumulated feeling of mutual suspicion and the uncontrollable zeal of the Spanish friars made a satisfactory working arrangement impossible. "Our relations with Japan are broken up," wrote Governor Salamanca in 1633, "because the Dutch, with their accustomed scheming, have con verted into hate the old-time friendship." Then, after condemn ing the persistence of the religious in going to Japan in defiance of both the edicts of the Japanese and their own government, he adds: "Now and henceforth I shall endeavor to give Japan to understand your Majesty's desire of good friendship and rela tionship." A year later he says: "Besides the little or no result that they (the friars) obtain that trade is shut to these islands for that reason; and that is what is of greatest importance to your Majesty's service and to the conversion of Japan itself." Governor Corcuera wrote in 1636, when an especially sanguinary persecution had broken out: "The trade with Japan has been spoiled by the indiscretion of certain religious." And he adds by way of comment: "I assure your Majesty with all truthfulness that I do nothing in your service in which I earn more merit than in tolerating and enduring some of these religious orders." In 1640 Diego de Bodadilla wrote that the Spaniards formerly traded in Japan, before the persecution of the Christians was begun. That it was all the result of Dutch agitation, as Spaniards were prone to allege, is clearly to impute to the Hollanders an exaggerated influence in Japanese councils and on Japanese opin ion, even though the Dutch evidently lost no opportunity to prejudice the Japanese against their own late masters. It was rather an anti-foreign movement, a violent effort to return to the old insular isolation, which had been interrupted by Hideyoshi's overseas schemes, and by the entrance of the contentious and un II4 THE MANILA GALLEON sympathetic foreigners into the national life. Above all it was a reaction against Christianity, as propagated by the disputatious and over-zealous missionaries from Macao and Manila. Japan withdrew within herself until the nineteenth century and the coming of the American fleet under Commodore Perry. The isolation could not be quite absolute, for the inadequate policing of the seas made possible a certain small amount of contraband traffic, but for all practical purposes the Spaniards were hence forth as remote from Japan as their ancestors had been from the Cipango of Marco Polo. In contrast to the Chinese branch of Philippine commerce there were two phases of the trade between Japan and the Philip pines, according as it was carried on by Japanese vessels at Manila or by Spanish ships plying to the ports of Japan. Beginning In 1586, its course was never continuous over a long period, but was often interrupted as a result of the chronically unsettled state of the relations between the two peoples. However, it was as often spasmodically renewed through the initiative, either of some independent ship-master, some enterprising daimio of Kiushiu, or of the shogun himself—until it was at last definitely cut off in the final crisis of Spanish-Japanese intercourse. In 1586 a ship from Japan laden with flour and horses destined for sale at Manila was thrown onto the Cagayan coast of Luzon. Gov ernor Vera had the survivors brought to Manila, where much was made of them. "For this they were so grateful," reported Vera to Philip II, "that they published in their country great praises of this land and of the kind of treatment accorded." Some of them, with others from the region about Hirado, re turned the next year with merchandise and with friendly over tures from the lord of that region. The Spaniards also eagerly coveted this trade. Ships came again in 1588 and thereafter with considerable regularity for several years. In 1589 a Japanese vessel that put in at Manila laden with arms for Siam had its cargo sequestered, thereby enabling the Spaniards to secure a much-needed supply of arquebuses and swords. The Japanese trading junks came to Manila at the end of March or at the end of October with the favorable monsoons. In their trading operations at Manila the Japanese enjoyed a free dom from restrictions that was not conceded the more docile Chinese or the traders from the Indian coasts. Greater leniency THE JAPANESE "5 was shown in the collection of duties and they were not forced to submit to the irksome pancada. In 1599 Governor Tello, fearful of the influx of Japanese to the city, attempted to limit to three the number of Japanese vessels that might come to Manila each year. However, two years later there were numerous Japa nese ships, including a number of Satsumese junks, in Manila Bay. As we have seen, this traffic, after successive periods of suspension, was momentarily reopened as late as 1631-32, only to terminate at last as abruptly. A large proportion of the cargoes of Japanese ships consisted of such goods for consumption in the local market as wheat flour, salt meats and fish, and fruits. Morga gives an index of peculiarly Japanese goods, a considerable part of which went onto the galleons. "They also bring," he says, "some fine woven silk goods of mixed colors ; beautiful and finely decorated screens done in oil and gilt, all kinds of cutlery, many suits of armor, spears, catans, and other weapons,—all finely wrought; writing cases, boxes and small cases of wood, japanned and curiously marked; and other pretty gewgaws." The Japanese took back with them "raw Chinese silk, gold, deerskins, and brazil-wood for their dyes,—honey, manufactured wax, palm and Castillian wine, large jars for storing their tea, glass, cloth, and other curiosities from Spain." They attached special importance to the acquisition of the raw silk, since the Chinese were generally forbidden by their own authorities to trade with Japan. "The king of China," wrote the archbishop of Manila in 1605, "seeing that the Japanese did not maintain their trade with the care and honesty they should, did not make war upon them, but took away their trade and commerce under a singularly vigorous penalty, which is that if any Chinese trades with the Japanese, not only he but his father, mother, and rela tions shall be put to death. This has remained the law up to the present, inviolably ; and no Chinese has transgressed it unless it be some villainous and desperate man." "Those two kingdoms bear so mortal a hatred to one another that under no considera tions can they trade with ane another," wrote Martin Castano to the king in 1627. Although the Japanese never came to Manila in such num bers as did the Chinese, yet those who remained in the city were sufficiently numerous to constitute a serious problem for the n6 THE MANILA GALLEON Spanish authorities. While there was a permanent population of from one to four thousand, the peculiar temper of the Japa nese made their presence a much greater source of uneasiness to the Spaniards than did the more numerous, but more tractable, Chinese. They were disposed to be more turbulent and resent ful of any attempt to control; and they generally conducted them selves as though conscious of the support of a government that was very tenacious on points of national honor, in distinction from the helplessness with which an aggrieved Chinaman might look to his home authorities for protection. And though they rendered material aid to the Spaniards on some occasions, as in suppressing the formidable Chinese insurrection of 1603, their known sympathy with the enemies of the Spanish colony, as dur ing the Anglo-Dutch siege of 1621, made them more than sus pect at other times. Moreover, a series of riots or risings between 1605 and 1609 gave grave concern to the Spaniards, especially as the Spanish forces were engaged at that time in enterprises dis tant from Manila. Spaniards frequently complained of these uncomfortable transients and pressed for measures to expel them or to mini mize the danger produced by their presence. Few more per sistently reiterated their objections to the Japanese than did An tonio de Morga and Hernando de los Rios Coronel. "They are a spirited and very mettlesome race," said Morga, "and of noble bearing and behavior. They employ many ceremonies and cour tesies, and attach much importance to honor and social stand ing. They are resolute in any necessity or danger." "Accord ingly," he continues, "they are treated very cordially, as they are a race that demand good treatment, and it is advisable to do so for the friendly relations between the islands and Japan." Sev eral years before Morga had written: "All the Japanese coming hither in their vessels should be sent back to Japan. Not one should be allowed to settle in this kingdom. Those already here should be banished to their own country, for they are of no benefit or utility, but, on the contrary, very harmful." Accord ing to Rios Coronel, the Japanese were "not only of no use to the community, but a signal danger, since they have three or four times placed the city in danger of being ruined." Over twenty years later the same official wrote: "The governor should not consent to Japanese living in that country, as they are a THE JAPANESE 117 great trouble and danger to the country, and the city is continu ally in danger from them." The royal treasury officials de clared that the Japanese were better informed about the islands than were the Spaniards themselves, and were a standing danger to the Spanish colony. For the greater safety of the colony the residence of the Japanese was restricted to a certain section in the outskirts of Manila. Here, between the Chinese Parian and the suburb of Laguio, close by the monastery of La Candelaria, and under the spiritual regulation of some Franciscan fathers, they had their special quarter. However, the Spaniards occasionally had re course to the radical expedient of expulsion, though they were too fearful of going to extremes with the Japanese to try any abrupt ejection en masse. One such attempt by the audiencia during Acuna's absence in the Moluccas in 1605 precipitated a very serious crisis. "This was one of the greatest dangers," said Morga, "that has threatened Manila, for the Spaniards were few in number, and the Japanese more than one thousand five hun dred. Had they come to blows on this occasion the Spaniards would have fared ill." A royal order of 1608, issued in response to the representations of Rios Coronel, charged the governor to restrict the Japanese population, but directed him at the same time to exercise all care to avert any clash with them, or to do anything that would arouse the resentment of the emperor. The important law of July 25, 1609 aimed to remove the danger con sequent on the coming of the Japanese ships to Manila, by re quiring that the trade between the two regions should be car ried on solely by Spanish vessels operating to Japan. "Leave no way open for the Japanese vessels to come to the islands," read the decree, and in the order transmitting the law to Governor Fajardo the king added, "since the Japanese are a proud, turbu lent and incorrigible people." Several years later the municipal ity petitioned the king to force the Japanese to leave each year at the return of the junks. In 1620 Philip III ordered the gov ernor and the audiencia to adopt whatever measures seemed best to them, though they were warned to take care not to injure the relations of trade and friendship then existing. They were vaguely directed to "free the city from whatever could be dangerous or superfluous." Before this order could have been received in Manila, Governor Fajardo wrote to the king: "A large part of n8 THE MANILA GALLEON the Japanese have been expelled, so that for a long time there have not been so few of them as now." However, a royal decree of the following year complained that the Japanese were allowed to stay because of the "negligence and carelessness" of the author ities at Manila. With the then rapidly increasing estrangement of relations between the two peoples and the specific Japanese pro hibitions against leaving the country, the number of the Japanese shortly fell, until they became altogether a negligible element in the life of the colony. Associated with this problem of the Japanese in Manila and with the larger question of Japanese designs on the archipelago were the activities of that people along the north Luzon coasts. Though these activities were generally quite frankly piratical in character, the Spaniards well realized that a pirate base might be the beginning of a permanent territorial occupation. As early as 1581 the Spaniards forestalled such a Japanese attempt on the Nueva Segovia coast. A force sent out from Manila under Cap tain Juan Pablo de Carrion had a desperate encounter with a Japanese vessel near Cape Bojeador. Their musketry won the battle for the Spaniards after the Japanese had boarded the Span ish ship. The Spaniards later found the main Japanese base in the Rio de Cagayan. They landed men and constructed an armed camp which the Japanese repeatedly assaulted with desperate courage, but without avail. "They were so thoroughly punished," wrote Diago de Aduarte, "that they never again thought of com ing to conquer this country." The Japanese continued, however, to make annual descents, in which they preyed on the Chinese junks bound for Manila. A flotilla was sent out against the pirates, who were "in the habit of plundering the coasts of these islands." "The Japanese made a descent almost every year, and it is said, with the intent of colonizing Luzon," Governor Vera wrote to the Council of the Indies in 1586. Three years later Governor Dasmarinas was ordered to maintain a small fleet of galleys and other light craft along the Ilocos-Cagayan coasts, to guard against the depredations of the Japanese corsairs. Gov ernor Tello kept the Cagayan coast garrisoned as a precaution against an anticipated attack in force. In 1599 a Japanese ship was overcome and its crew killed by the Spaniards. At last Tello protested to Iyeyasu against the piratical practices of his people and the shogun, to show his good faith, ordered the seizure of THE JAPANESE 119 six ships that had cleared from southern ports of Japan to plunder in Philippine waters, and had between 200 and 400 of their crews crucified as a dire warning against the repetition of these freebooting voyages. Yet, in 1604 Pedro de Acuna informed the king that Japanese pirates were again operating about the Luzon coasts. The alternative branch of the Japanese-Philippine trade was that conducted by Spanish ships to the ports of Japan. As we have seen, this course was prescribed to the exclusion of the other by the important decree of 1609, as less likely to menace the safety of the Spanish colony. This law was furthermore an effort to legitimize a traffic that was already in operation in con travention of the virtual monopoly of the Japanese trading field which Philip II had conceded to his Portuguese subjects by the Cortes of Thomar in 1581. The Macao merchants strongly re sented the entrance of the "Castilians" into this market, and they were supported by the Jesuits, who objected to having their missionary monopoly invaded by the Franciscans and other reli gious from Manila. On the other hand, friars like Sotelo and Geronymo de Jesus were as insistent on the establishment of Spanish trading connections with Japan, because of the avenue that it would furnish their orders for entering that field. Enter prising governors like the elder Dasmarinas desired the opening of such a traffic, though for the more temporal advantage it might bring to the Spanish colony. The trade in the earlier years largely centered at Hirado and Nagasaki, at the latter of which places the Spaniards had for a time a flourishing post. For the most part the southern daimios were friendly, and the existence of a considerable Christian popu lation in Kiushiu strengthened the Spanish position there. There was little regularity in the course of the trading voyages to Japan. From one to four privately-owned vessels might make the ven ture in a year. Occasionally, too, when the arsenals and public storehouses at Manila were in need of certain materials and sup plies, the governor would send a ship to Japan to make the neces sary purchases. Iyeyasu attempted to divert the Spanish trade from still semiindependent Kiushiu to the more northerly parts of the empire. Here it would be of more immediate profit to his government and could at the same time be more closely controlled. The 120 THE MANILA GALLEON project was all a part of his larger scheme for the promotion of the foreign trade of his dominions. He accordingly invited the Spaniards at Manila to send ships to Yedo Bay. This port was located in the Kuanto region, which was the original seat of the Tokugawa power. In 1603 Governor Acuna sent the Santiago to Japan to initiate the trade. "It was ordered to make its voy age to Kuanto," says Morga, "in order to comply with the wish of Daifusama." The vessel was, however, "not able to make Maga, alleging bad weather," and put into Hirado. From here word was sent to Iyeyasu at Kyoto, with Acuna's presents for the shogun. The latter regretted the failure of this initial attempt, but was reassured by the indefatigable Fray Geronymo de Jesus as to Acuna's intentions in regard to the Kuanto trade. The Spanish governors realized the political value of this trading con nection to Yedo Bay, and, though the pilots objected to the added risk and effort incurred in coasting up the outside of Hondo, for several years sent a ship with considerable regularity. How ever, the Spanish pilots and the merchants from Manila never prosecuted this trade with much enthusiasm. Any temporary slackening of Spanish interest in this cherished traffic only drove the impatient shogun the more eagerly toward the newly arrived Dutch and English. Naturally, the trade suffered from being essentially, at least in its inception, a state enterprise. Occasional Spanish ships appeared at Nagasaki and at other southern ports during this period, and the English narratives of the time testify to the frequent presence of Spanish merchants and seamen in Japan. With the gradual unsettling of political relations and the intensifying of the religious persecution, the continuance of trade gradually became impossible. About 1625 the ports of Japan were closed to vessels that had cleared from Manila, and four ships, which later appeared in Nagasaki harbor, were turned away. The lord of that city threatened one Spanish captain that any of his countrymen who dared to enter the port in the future would have both ship and crew burned. Finally an edict of 1638 forbade the Spaniards, on pain of death, to put foot on Japanese soil or to enter a Japanese port under any pretext. The direct relation of the Manila Galleons to Japan was only accidental and occasional. Sometimes in the earlier decades of their navigation they sailed close enough to make out the Japa THE JAPANESE 121 nese coasts lying far to port, but their usual course lay well out of sight of land. It was only when they were too crippled by storms to proceed that they voluntarily sought the forbidden coasts of Japan, with the hope of finding a port of refuge where they could refit. Iyeyasu's invitation to have the galleons put in to Japan for purposes of trade was never seriously considered by the Spaniards. It was a matter of concern, however, that the galleons should be free to put in at a Japanese port in case of necessity and to be immune from molestation until they were able to continue their voyage. The realization of this need largely furnished the motive for the expedition which Viceroy Salinas sent to Japan in 1611 under Sebastian Vizcaino, the famous explorer of the California coast. Four years earlier the Council of the Indies had resolved that "For the ships which go from the Philippines to New Spain it is of the greatest importance to have a safe harbor in Japan, in which to repair and supply themselves with the necessities for so long and dangerous a voyage." The fate of the San Felipe and the threat to the Espiritu Santo had already made this ques tion an acute one. The first of these galleons cleared from Manila for Acapulco in July 1596, under the command of Matias de Landecho. She was a large ship, with an unusually valuable cargo and a longer passenger list than was ordinary. She encountered a succession of storms and was forced to jettison much of her cargo. In lati tude thirty-seven degrees she lost her rudder when some 150 leagues out from Japan. At this point it was decided to turn back, whereupon a council, largely influenced by the religious on board, determined to make for the unfamiliar coast of Japan rather than attempt to return to Manila. With much of the rigging carried away and her sails blown to shreds, the galleon appeared to be in imminent danger of foundering. After six more days the Spaniards sighted Shikoku and shortly reached the neighborhood of Hirado. A large number of boats came out to the galleon from land and urged the Spaniards in the name of the local daimio to come inside the port. Under the assur ance of good treatment the Spaniards consented to let the boats tow the San Felipe inside. During the process she was run onto a shoal by design, as the Spaniards alleged, and her keel broken. The intentions of the Japanese rapidly became clear to those on 122 THE MANILA GALLEON the galleon, as they saw the cargo transferred to warehouses on shore, where its owners could have no supervision over it. Nor were they encouraged in their hope of repairing the ship and proceeding for New Spain. Meanwhile, the lord of Hirado sent to Hideyoshi for instructions as to the final disposition of the galleon and her cargo, while Landecho at the same time sent an embassy to the regent at Meaco or Kyoto to treat with him for the restitution of the sequestered property. Hideyoshi's cu pidity had been aroused and he sent down one Ximonojo, a favorite of his, to take possession of the cargo in his name. The regent's deputy interned the Spaniards in a stockaded corral and forced them to give up what remained of their belongings. In spite of their protests the cargo was soon distributed beyond all possibility of recovery, and Landecho's appeals in person to Hide yoshi were as unavailing. The arrival of Landecho and the other survivors at Manila in May of the next year gave the colony its first inkling of the disaster. "Great grief and sadness were caused by the news," said Morga, "of the death of the holy religious, and by the pros pect of the disturbances which were expected to take place in future dealings between Japan and the Philippines, as well as by the loss of the galleon and its cargo." "The loss of this ship was a very great one," he wrote to Philip II; "she was worth a million and a half,—a mighty loss for so small a country, hence it is more needy than ever and more wretched." When Luis Navarrete Fajardo was sent to Japan to negotiate for reparation and for security against the repetition of such treatment in the future, Hideyoshi justified the seizure of the galleon on the ground of a national strand-law which made the cargoes of all ships driven onto the coasts the property of the ruler. He prom ised future exemption for Spanish ships from the operation of the law. As to the cargo of the San Felipe, that was already irrevocably lost. In 1602 the Espiritu Santo was only saved from the San Felipe's fate by the resolution of her commander, Lope de Ulloa, "an experienced and courageous knight." When well out from Manila the galleon was driven by stress of storms, which swept her mainmast overboard, to head for a port of Japan. Like the San Felipe, she appeared before the entrance of the harbor of Hirado, and the initial proceedings of the Japanese pointed to a THE JAPANESE 123 repetition of the same treatment which the former galleon had undergone. She was towed up the channel by Japanese boats, and after she was made fast a guard was put on her and anyone going ashore apprehended. Armed men began to pour into the port from the surrounding country and a conflict with the Span iards was rapidly impending. Ulloa refused to grant the Japa nese demand that he give up his sails and kept close watch of every move of his hosts, with the intent of repairing his ship and getting out to sea before a clash were precipitated. He opposed every attempt of the Japanese to remove the cargo and would not allow any of his men to leave the ship; the twenty men who had gone ashore before his order was issued were kept in con finement. Meanwhile he sent his brother, Alonso de Ulloa, and Alonso de Maldonado up to Kyoto to negotiate with Iyeyasu for some way out of the difficulty. Fray Diego de Guevara, the Augustinian superior at Hirado, came on board and informed Ulloa of the bad character of the Hirado men, a fact increas ingly apparent to the captain, and advised him to clear from the port as soon as possible. Fray Diego himself was held up as he returned ashore and robbed of some silken vestments which Ulloa had given him for his church. Ulloa finally determined to make a break for the open sea before it was too late. He drove the Japanese guard over the side, and with only a foresail and spritsail in position, he cleared his ship from the anchorage before the town. The Japanese had stretched a strong rattan cable across the entrance of the inner harbor and were massed in a fleet of small boats to block his egress. When Ulloa observed this situation, he offered freedom to a Negro slave if he would cut the cable with a machete. He first cleared the intervening channel with the fire of his arque buses and cannon, and then drove the galleon against the cable. At the moment of contact with the boom the negro was let down over the bow and by "strenuous efforts" severed the cable. The ship then worked her way out through the tortuous channel, while she kept up a running fire against the Japanese on the hills. When entirely clear of the port, Ulloa improvised a jury mast and with a strong north wind the Espiritu Santo turned to wards Manila and in twelve days crossed to Luzon. Meanwhile Alonso de Ulloa and Maldonado had had audi ence with the shogun at Kyoto. The Spaniards obtained com 124 THE MANILA GALLEON plete satisfaction for the attempt on the galleon. Iyeyasu prom ised them restitution of whatever had been taken by the Hirado men and sent down orders for the punishment of those who bore the principal guilt in the affair. Iyeyasu's attitude throughout the incident was in marked contrast to the conduct of Hideyoshi on a similar occasion. He, moreover, granted the Spaniards written guarantees against the recurrence of such an outrage. These documents were henceforth entrusted to the commanders of the Manila Galleons in order to secure their ships proper treatment in case accidents of weather drove them into a Japanese port. Iyeyasu's assurances to the Spaniards were put to a decisive test in 1609. Both galleons left Manila in company during that summer, but were separated by a typhoon. The Santa Ana reached the region of Japan almost dismantled by the fury of the baguio, and was thrown on the Bungo coast. Though the people of that vicinity were strongly tempted to imitate the predatory habits of the Hirado men, they refrained from taking advantage of the galleon's plight—whether through dread of the shogun's displeasure or through fear of injuring their trade with Manila. The vessel was allowed to refit without serious molestation and later continued her voyage to New Spain. The other galleon, the San Francisco, under the command of ex-Governor Vivero, was struck head on by a succession of sav age gales that left her crippled beyond all power to continue on to her destination. Heading for Japan, she was wrecked on the Kuanto coast. Though some were drowned, most of the 400 on board survived, but only a portion of the cargo could be sal vaged. Vivero visited Iyeyasu at Suruga and was received with every courtesy, while the rest of the Spaniards were treated with consideration. As we have seen, the shogun profited by the occa sion of Vivero's enforced stay in Japan to press upon him an arrangement for the further promotion of Spanish-Japanese trade. The San Francisco was ruined beyond hope of restoration, and Vivero crossed to Acapulco the next year in a ship of Will Adams' making. In 1613 Adams wrote of his ship, "which theay found so good theay never returned agayn, butt sent so much monny ass shee wass wourth, and afterwards wass imployed in the voyages from Nova Spaynia to the Philippines." In 1616 two Acapulco galleons, blown far out of their course by contrary winds, put into ports of the Satsuma country. How THE JAPANESE 125 ever, "both shipps being full of souldiers," the Japanese did not attempt to plunder them of their "greate store of treasure," whose value, according to Richard Cocks, of the English trading post, was rumored at "above 5 millions of pezos." Probably upon no phase of his ambitious foreign policy was Iyeyasu so persistent as in his desire for commercial intercourse with Spanish America. And to no phase of it were the Span iards so consistently opposed, for in the trans-oceanic navigation of the enterprising Japanese they saw a grave threat to the Span ish scheme of things about the Pacific. The shogun desired not only that his people should trade with New Spain, but that Manila Galleons should break their passage to call at a Japanese port. In 1602 Iyeyasu sent to Manila an envoy whom the Span iards call Chiquino, to treat for this privilege. Governor Acuna did not think it politic to give a shogun a direct refusal, but par ried his insistent request for the time, while he referred it to Spain, where it would be eventually lost in the interminable processes of official examination. Chiquino, the envoy, was en tertained with all the splendor at the command of the Spanish authorities, and then dismissed with the usual lavish presents and vague promises. Fray Geronymo de Jesus, who had either suggested to Iyeyasu the idea of the trade, or had at least encour aged the shogun in the project he had himself conceived, was reproved for his indiscretion. For several years nothing further was done. Then in 1609 the question was reopened as a result of the accident which threw ex-Governor Vivero into the hands of Iye yasu. The latter pressed his shipwrecked guest to satisfy his long-harbored desire for trade with America, but Vivero was as loath to yield the point as his predecessor had been. As we have seen, when the Spaniard crossed to New Spain it was in a Japa nese ship of Will Adams' construction. The vessel was largely manned by Japanese sailors, and carried a company of Japanese merchants and an ambassador from Iyeyasu to the viceroy. The Japanese ship was utilized the next year, 161 1, by the viceroy of New Spain to carry a special embassy to Japan. While the diplomatic side of the expedition was entrusted to Nuno de Sotomayor, the actual command of the ship was in the hands of Sebastian Vizcaino. Also twenty-three Japanese, who had crossed to Mexico with Vivero, now returned to Japan. The aims of the 126 THE MANILA GALLEON expedition were altogether too pretentious in view of the current temper of the Japanese government in that age. Its ultimate fail ure was largely due to the attempt of Vizcaino to sound the bays and harbors along the east side of the archipelago. Though this effort at a hydrographic survey of Japanese coastal waters probably had no ulterior purpose, but was intended only to furnish charts for any Manila Galleons that might be forced to put in there, the natives were disposed to regard it as the prelude to an attack by the Spaniards. In this misconception they were enthusiastically encouraged by the Dutch and English in the country. As a consequence of this attitude of suspicion Vizcaino found his work seriously hampered. Moreover, the Basque navi gator was ill-suited for dealing with a people so susceptible as the Japanese, and his clumsy attempts to play the diplomat on the grand scale, instead of adhering to his trade of sailor, would have doomed the expedition to failure, even if other circum stances had not concurred to that end. In fact, in the records of the expedition the assertive sea-captain seems to have dwarfed the real titular diplomatic head of the enterprise. Vizcaino spent about two years in Japan. He arrived at Uraga on July 10, 1611, and did not leave for Acapulco until October 27, 1613. He spent the three months September-November of the first year in a search for the islands of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata in the seas to the east of Japan. There was evidently considerable dis cord among the Spaniards who had come to Japan with Viz caino. Captain John Saris, of the English East Indian Company, wrote in his diary on July 30, 1612: "I entreated Mr. Addams to dynner aboard the shipp, where he made little staye, divers spannyards and portingales of Langasaque [Nagasaki] salors being come to vizite him. . . . These spannyards, as I am credablye informed by the Captain Chinesa, have overthrone their Generall [Nuno de Sotomayor] here, whoe was sent out by the King of Spaine from Perowe [Peru] to discover to the Northward of Japan [Rica de Oro] ; And here been kept in obscuryte by Mr. Addams, whom they use as their Jurebassa and hoste." Iyeyasu himself was early disillusioned of his expectations from the trading connection with America by the obstacle of illconcealed Spanish opposition to his schemes in that direction. The Spaniards discouraged his projects for a Japanese trade to America and the Manila Galleons failed to call at his ports. THE JAPANESE 127 Richard Cocks wrote in his diary for November 6, 1615: "He also hath made proclamation, in payne of death, that no Japan shall goe into New Spaine from henceforward." During the next few years the immediate impulse behind the movement came from an enterprising daimio named Date Masamune. How far either Iyeyasu or Hidetada was concerned in the inception of Date's voyage is difficult to establish. Even at this period the southern lords were accustomed to indulge in such independent activities as this undertaking would represent. And though Christianity deeply aroused his curiosity, it is doubtful if he ever accepted the foreign faith in real sincerity. Yet the first expedition which he despatched to New Spain was largely in the nature of a religious pilgrimage. The em bassy, whose ultimate destination was Rome, was headed by one Hashikura and consisted of sixty-eight other persons. It was accompanied by the irrepressible Padre Sotelo, who had urged the holy venture upon the daimio. The ship reached the coast of New Spain early in 1614, whence Hashikura and his immediate retinue proceeded by leisurely stages on their way to Madrid and Rome. Some of the Japanese remained in Mexico, and the pres ence of these created a difficult situation for the viceroy. This official, with a view to preventing brawls with the natives, directed Antonio de Morga, now alcalde, or mayor, of Mexico City, to disarm all save seven of the strangers. At the same time the Spaniards were warned under severe penalties not to provoke the Japanese or take advantage of them. Moreover, the for eigners were to be allowed to trade freely about the city. They carried back to Japan with them a considerable cargo of goods, which they had traded for in Mexico. However, they had been warned under pain of death never to return unless it be by way of the Philippines,—a warning which in practice clearly amounted to a definite prohibition. Resentment rose very rapidly against the intrusion of the Orientals into the seclusion of New Spain and their departure from Acapulco in 1615 was scarcely regretted. In December Richard Cocks wrote: "A shipp arrived at Kuanto this year, which came out of New Spain and brought good quan tity of broad cloth, kersies, perpetuanos and raz de Millan, which they offer at a loe rate; but I thinke it is the last that ever will be brought from thence, for it is said the Spaniards made procla mation with 8 drums at Aguapulca and other ports that, upon 128 THE MANILA GALLEON payne of death there should never any more Japons come nor trade into New Spaine." Date Masamune was undaunted by the unfriendly turn of feeling in New Spain and in 1616 sent a second ship across the Pacific. The voyage was a hard one and only about fifty of the two hundred who began it survived at the end. The Japanese succeeded in disposing of their cargo at Acapulco before the vice roy's prohibition reached the port, but they were notified that the ban on such further voyages was definite. It was this ship that carried back to Japan the somewhat disillusioned embassy of Hashikura's suite and their guide, Padre Sotelo. The return voyage was made by way of the Philippines, for the Japanese ship was purchased by Fajardo, the new governor, to carry him out to his post at Manila. The arrival of the Japanese travelers in Japan in 1620, after an absence of about seven years, marked the end of direct Japanese intercourse with the new world until the nineteenth century. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>»<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 3 THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS BEFORE the entry of the Dutch and English into the East the Portuguese maintained a flourishing chain of trading stations from the mouth of the Red Sea around the southern coasts of Asia. The key positions in their widely scattered em pire were Goa, on the Malabar coast of India, and Malacca, near the site of the modern city of Singapore. Beyond the Straits of Malacca they had reached up to the Chinese coast and founded Macao down the river from Canton. To the southeastward from the Asiatic mainland they had ventured down among the rich islands of the East Indies and set up their trading posts and mili tary settlements at many strategic points of the Malay archipel agos. Thus, before the Spaniards occupied the Philippines the impulse which began in the fifteenth century with Prince Henry the Navigator and his captains had reached the western edge of the Pacific. For a few brief and opulent decades the whole usufruct of the Orient was theirs to choose from. Then other peoples, with a sounder instinct for trade and a surer feeling for the sea and a greater persistence in their undertakings, broke into the field that had been preempted by their ruthless daring and their diplomacy. They took from Portugal all the empire that the great Albuquerque and his successors had built up in the early sixteenth century, only leaving to her Goa, now an insignificant enclave in the vast body of British India, Macao, a somnolent suburb of Canton and Hong-Kong, and part of Timor, overshadowed by the bulk and wealth of the Netherlands Indies. When the Spaniards first crossed the Pacific from the Americas to claim the remainder of the Pope's prodigal gift, the Portu guese power in the East had not yet begun to wane, though the forces were already at work at home that were to undo the achievements of her merchants and her navigators. In spite of the antipathies which existed between the two branches of the Hispanic race, it was inevitable and natural that trading relations 119 130 THE MANILA GALLEON should spring up between Manila and the Lusitanian colonies in Asia and the islands. Macao A second and minor branch of the all-important Chinese trade centered at Macao, the Portuguese post founded below Can ton in 1557. From here the Portuguese not only tapped the silk industry at its source, but were later able, through the advantage which this position gave them, at times to influence greatly the course of the Chinese traffic to the Philippines. "The trade of Great China has declined, inasmuch as the Portuguese of Macao have become masters of it, as they are so near," wrote Governor Salamanca to the king in 1633. Since they had forestalled the Castilians in that field they bitterly resented the entrance of the latter into the East, virtually all of which, they contended, fell to their side of the Demarcation Line. They tried to expel Legaspi's force from the Philippines as Portuguese territory, and openly clashed with the Spaniards on several occasions. It was in the course of these encounters that the Spaniards heard of their rivals' relations with the Chinese and Japanese. In 1569 Andres de Mirandaola wrote to Philip II: "When the Portuguese were in this harbor it was learned that they were bargaining and trad ing on the coast of China and Japan." The resentment of the Portuguese persisted and they did not formally acknowledge the Spanish right to the Philippines until 1750. The revival of Spanish ambitions in the Moluccas furnished another cause for contention and during the sixty years of the "union" which followed Alba's conquest in 1580 no satisfactory basis for amicable relations was found. The fact of commercial rivalry remained and the Portuguese feared the designs of great Spanish soldiers like Pedro de Acuna and Juan de Silva. The Lusitanians opposed any move toward a close amalgamation of the two colonial empires, and the Spanish government allowed virtual autonomy to the Portuguese Indies, except in larger mat ters of policy. The two peoples only forgot their rivalry in their common danger from the Dutch, and in fact Macao was once saved from falling into the hands of the latter by succor from Manila. A royal order of 1623 required the governor of the Philippines to send aid to Macao in case of need. The Portuguese wished to be the sole intermediaries in the THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 131 Chinese-Spanish trade, and so prevent any direct intercourse between the two races. In this way they would draw a share of the profits from the lucrative galleon commerce, since they were themselves barred from direct participation in that traffic. To accomplish this end it was necessary to keep the Spaniards from the Chinese coast and the Chinese from Manila. As early as 1573 the Portuguese tried to dissuade the Chinese from trading at Manila. Thus, the attempts of the Dasmarinas to spread Spanish power and trading activities to the mainland, and the establish ment of the rival trading-post of El Pinal were met by threats and actual violence from the Portuguese. The Portuguese urged the mandarins to forbid Spanish trading in China. "It is impossible to describe the bitterness which the Portuguese feel at seeing us come here to trade," wrote Rios Coronel to Antonio de Morga from El Pinal in 1598. Purchas, the English geographer, wrote of the conflicting interests of the two peoples: "It [the Spanish en trance into China being likely to prove the destruction of that citie (Macao)], if the Spaniards with their plentie of Silver from Peru and New Spain, should have trade in China; neither did this belong to the Spaniards, but to the Portugals, according to the Composition betwixt the two Kings made by Alexander the sixth; and although they are both subject now to one Crowne, yet their priviledges remayne distinct without confusion." The Portuguese at Macao sometimes went to Canton and bought up the available silk output of the year, which they car ried to Manila, or they offered to carry it thither and sell it for a commission from the Chinese principals. They also tried to deter the Chinese from going to the Philippines by picturing to them the Spanish colony at Manila as on the verge of financial ruin, and so unable to pay for any goods. With a view to keeping the junks off the China Sea they magnified the danger from Dutch pirates. And, finally, they profited by the fitful periods of Chi nese exclusion at Manila. The Portuguese early made a direct effort to tap the market of New Spain. In 1590 Joao da Gama, former governor of Macao, took a ship of 600 tons across the Pacific to Acapulco. He was arrested by the viceregal authorities and the cargo of his ship confiscated as contraband. The next year by order of the king he was taken to Seville for trial by the tribunal of the Casa de Contratacidn, or House of Trade, charged with violation of the THE MANILA GALLEON ban against foreigners trading with the American colonies of Spain. The Manilenos realized that a direct trade route between Macao and Acapulco, by dispensing with Manila and the galleon, would threaten the commercial life of the Philippines, and Gomez Perez Dasmarinas expressed the alarm of the citizens in a letter to Philip II in 1592. The fact that the San Martin, which was sold at Acapulco to some Mexican merchants by Viceroy Villamanrique, had made a trading voyage to Macao three years before made the danger all the more real. A Spanish law of 1593 prohibited Spaniards from going to Macao, among other places—and this after the Portuguese colony had been forced to take the oath of allegiance to the king of Spain. However, a royal order of February 4, 1608, permitted the Manilenos to send one ship a year to Macao to buy supplies for the government storehouses, but this ship was forbidden to indulge in essentially mercantile operations. Some of the early governors, like Santiago de Vera and Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, favored unrestricted and reciprocal trading connections between Macao and Manila. Portuguese ships did come to Manila for several decades with considerable regularity, particularly after 1619. In 1620 ten ships came from Macao, and six years later one vessel brought a rich cargo to the value of over 500,000 pesos. In 1630 Jose de Navada Alvarado declared the usual value of the imports from Macao to be about 1,500,000 pesos. The Portuguese thus carried on at times a large and ex tremely profitable trade at Manila. Though silks constituted by far the larger part of this trade, there were other commodities, among which Morga lists "beds, writing-cases [escritorios], parlor chairs, and other finely-gilded furniture." Fray Gregorio Lopez writes of a vessel from Macao that was "laden with wealth of amber, musk, pearls, and precious stones, and more than 300 slaves." In years when the regular Chinese junks came only in small numbers, or not at all—as for short periods after the expul sions from Manila or during the Dutch wars—the Spaniards were dependent for cargo for the galleon on the supply of silks re ceived by way of Macao. "If it were not for what has come from Macao," said Fernando de Silva in 1626, "the ships for New Spain would have nothing to carry." However, the advantage of this occasional accommodation was largely offset by the higher prices which the Spaniards were forced to pay to their fellow THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 133 Iberians. The Portuguese refused to accept the pancada arrange ment, and whenever they had anything approaching a monopoly of the market at Manila their exactions cut down the Spaniards' profits on the transactions at Acapulco to much below the normal figure. The Spaniards therefore accepted their occasional depen dence on the Portuguese with very ill grace, while many de manded the prohibition of the trade, with the preferable, though precarious, alternative of complete reliance on the Chinese. The latter were also aggrieved at the none too scrupulous competition of the Portuguese. Rios Coronel proposed the deportation of the Portuguese population of Macao to the settlements in India, and as late as 1797 Governor Aguilar advised the forcible occupation of Macao by the Spaniards, on the ground that its possession by the Portuguese did not benefit the latter. At last, in 1636 a royal decree was issued for the suppression of the connection between Macao and Manila. The king alleged against the Portuguese their extortionate prices, which impoverished the city of Manila— the former taking away each year three times as much money as the Chinese had taken. The Portuguese were also accustomed to remain at Manila throughout the winter in case they could not get their first price from the Spaniards, or even sent their goods on to Acapulco by the medium of Spanish agents. Sometimes the Spaniards marvelled at the prodigality of the Portuguese mer chants who visited Manila. "As the Portuguese are so courtly and liberal a people," wrote Padre Diaz, "and inclined to boast of the obligations of nobility, some Portuguese gentlemen usually return quite destitute of funds, as occurred this year to Joao Tabora, a cavalier of the Order of Christ. He spent the wealth which he brought here, which was much, in elegant gallantries and in bull-fights." Four years after the king had issued the order suppressing the Macao-Manila trade the Portuguese gained their independence from the decrepit Spain of Philip IV on the battlefield of Villavicosa. When Portuguese sovereignty was restored in the East and the viceroy at Goa ordered Spanish property at Macao to be seized and the owners deported to Manila, the sequestration of over 300,000 pesos worth of goods showed how well the Spanish had kept their part of the non-intercourse act. Governor Hurtado de Corcuera proposed the union of Macao and Manila under a Spanish governor and the removal of the 134 THE MANILA GALLEON presidio or fortified post from Formosa to Macao. He declared that such a move would greatly strengthen the position of Spain in the Orient. In 1643 the miserable king, who could not recon cile himself to the loss of the Portuguese empire, then three years an accomplished fact, ordered the newly appointed governor, Diego Fajardo, to carry out the project of his predecessor. He advised, however, that the union should be accomplished with great tact, in order not to antagonize the national sentiments of the Portuguese. There was little commercial intercourse between the two cities for many years. Then Manuel de Leon, who was governor from 1669 to 1677, revived the old connection and Portuguese ships came again to Manila. However, each spring monsoon now brought its never-failing stream of junks from the ports of China, and the Portuguese were never permitted again to gain the position they had occasionally held at Manila. They henceforth always constituted a minor factor in the silk commerce, but they sold to the Spaniards goods of local manufacture and some from India and Europe. Like most lines of traffic in the Indies, this one paid little heed to official regulation from the home govern ment, but in February 1727, it was freed from all restrictions by a decree of Philip V. India From the time of Governor Gonzalo Ronquillo (1580-83) trade was carried on between Manila and Malacca. Thence the Spaniards received the products of all the rich and vast region beyond from as far as Persia and Turkey. By the delimitation of the fields of activity of the two peoples that area was reserved to the Portuguese, and Malacca, situated almost on the border between the spheres of each power, was thus well suited to be the place of exchange for the goods of both. Now and then the Spanish authorities at Manila sent a ship through the straits and as far as Goa for naval stores or munitions of war, and during the union of the two governments official correspondence be tween Manila and Madrid often went by the Portuguese galleons around the Cape of Good Hope, but most of the trade between the Spaniards and the Portuguese was carried on by ships which visited Manila from Goa and Malacca. This trade flourished particularly in the time of Governor Vargas Hurtado. Con THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 135 cepcion writes of the ships from the Coromandel coast, Surat and Bengal about 1693. In establishing this branch of trade the Span iards, under the leadership of the Catalan, Juan Ventura Serra, and of Luis de Matienzo, displayed unwonted initiative and en terprise. However, in face of the old obsession for the Chinese silk trade, this new trade was not energetically pursued for a long period; and it was only with changed conditions in the galleon traffic that the Spaniards turned more eagerly to the commerce of the Coasts. But in this latter period the role of the Spaniards was a more passive one than it had been in the last decades of the sev enteenth century. The English had now been long established on both coasts and had superseded the Portuguese as the domi nant trading power of the region. They had largely restricted the Dutch to the great archipelago to the southeast, and were in rivalry with the French East India Company. In their search for markets English ships reached Manila be fore the cession of Bombay as the wedding dowry of Catharine of Braganza, the unhappy bride of Charles II. The Spanish mer chants were disposed to welcome their overtures, but the authori ties frowned upon open commerce with the English as "enemies of the state." The Council of the Indies declared, in answer to the East India Company's proposal, that Spain did not desire trade with the English and ordered Alonso de Cardenas to ascer tain if the latter were actually trading with the Manilenos. To circumvent the Spanish prohibition the English and French from India had recourse to a ruse that was "advantageous to all parties." Since no ships flying the flags of those nations might enter Manila Bay, their owners generally resorted to nonEuropean go-betweens as a cloak for their operations. Vessels destined for the Philippine trade were accustomed to fly the colors of one of the Mohammedan states of India or the islands, though sometimes an Irish flag was used as being politically in nocuous and religiously acceptable. Though the Spaniards ob jected to the faith of the "Moros," as they called all Moslem in the East, they had no fears of their political designs, as they did of the English and French. Accordingly the ship was given a name true to character, such as Omar or Sultana, and was manned with Lascars or other Mohammedan sailors. The super cargo, who had charge of the venture, was an Englishman or Frenchman, and the captain might be of the same nationality, 136 THE MANILA GALLEON though he was occasionally an old Arab seaman, who was half pirate, half trader. As the precautions at Manila became stricter an Armenian was often taken aboard, to act as intermediary in the dealings with the Spaniards. The Armenians had no ships of their own and no political connections to complicate their use fulness. They were poor sailors, but shrewd traders, and their status as Christians eased their way at Manila. However, they insisted on too large a share of the profits and used every oppor tunity to trade on their own account, so that their European em ployers dispensed with them whenever possible. The "Moros," though infidels, were at least more trustworthy, once they had sealed a bargain. Much of the success of the voyage depended on the laxness of the Spanish authorities at Manila. Though the latter were inclined to be meticulously legalistic in the formal observance of their laws and regulations, in practice they usually proved amenable to such material inducements as were offered to them. The ship always carried a supply of "presents" for the different officials who might be expected to obstruct their trading. Espe cially tempting gifts were always held in reserve for the governor, on whom it was accustomed to call on reaching Manila. On these occasions the English or French supercargo and captain were introduced by the "Moro" or Armenian "dummies" as their "interpreters." If they had been sufficiently browned by the climate of India, they might even pass as natives of that country, though a suspicious governor once seriously complicated the ven ture of a French trader by raising the issue of his complexion and features. When the governor had been "convinced" that the cargo of a ship was owned as represented, the arrangements to be made with the minor authorities of the place presented little diffi culty, unless the fiscal should intervene and demand an investiga tion by the audiencia. A perplexing case of this kind arose in connection with the arrival of the Sultanesa Began from the Coromandel Coast in 1766. Though the great bulk of the cargo actually belonged to some Frenchmen and Armenians who posed as passengers on their arrival at Manila, two Spaniards who had come from India by her represented the merchandise as theirs. The governor and the audiencia conducted a lengthy inquiry into the ownership of the cargo, and decided that it belonged to the two Spaniards and THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 137 the Armenians, leaving the Frenchmen to indemnify themselves as best they could. Although the Seven Years War interrupted the course of this trade for the time being, as had earlier wars, the occupation of Manila by the English would most probably have had the same invigorating influence on the commerce that it did at Havana, if the Spanish government had not set about to discourage this increased trading movement. On the other hand, the efforts of the Spaniards to stimulate the movement of shipping toward India had little effect beyond the sending of an occasional ship or two to the Coasts. Governor Anda sent the Deseada to Mala bar in 1771 to establish trading relations with the nabob of the Carnatic, but the venture appears not to have prospered. In 1787 Paxton, Cockerell, Delisle and Company, of Madras made over tures to the Royal Philippine Company for reciprocal trade be tween British India and Manila. They painted a glowing pic ture of the possible advantages to Manila that would accrue to her from this utilization of her splendid position, and Lord Cornwallis, formerly commander of the British forces in the Ameri can colonies and then governor-general of Bengal, promised good treatment to the Spaniards. However, the Spaniards were still loath to concede such freedom of trade to the people who had taken Manila—and might take it again. The year after the receipt of the offer from Madras Governor Basco y Vargas de clared for an open port, and Manila was thrown open to Euro peans in 1789, but only for non-European goods. Under the new regime five Spanish ships left Manila for India in sixteen months of 1792-93, while four French and two English ships cleared from the port during the same period. The Indian cottons came to hold a place second only to the silks of China in the cargoes of the galleons. A junta called in 1768 to inform the king of the advisability of increasing import duties at Manila declared the Bengalese goods "the best sent to New Spain." These cottons, white or figured, were sold as cloth or worked up into articles of clothing. Early in the seventeenth century Morga had listed among the imports from Portuguese India, "slaves, both blacks and Cafres; cotton cloths of all sorts, fine muslins, gauzes, linens, and other delicate and precious cloths; amber and ivory; hangings and rich counterpanes from Bengal, Cochin and other parts; many gilded articles and curiosi i38 THE MANILA GALLEON ties; jewels of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, topazes and other pre cious stones, both set and loose; wine, raisins and almonds; deli cious preserves and other fruits brought from Portugal and prepared in Goa; carpets and tapestries from Persia and Turkey; needle-work in colors and in white, and other fancy-work of great beauty and perfection." Nearly a hundred different kinds of cloth and articles of clothing are enumerated in the cargo list of the Sultanesa Begdn, which arrived at Manila from the Coromandel Coast in 1766, over a century and a half after Morga's time. The English still sent the same Indian stuffs to the Philippines in addition to such goods as woolens, hats and glassware. Some of all these commodities remained with the luxury-loving Spanish inhabitants of the islands, but the bulk of them were forwarded to Mexico by the galleons. The Moluccas Though the early hopes from them were never realized, the Moluccas became either directly or indirectly one of the minor contributing branches of the galleon trade. This group was the most coveted of the islands of the East, because there was found there "that brown gold they call cloves." For nearly a century and a half, from the appearance of Magellan's ships to the final withdrawal of the Spaniards from Ternate in 1662, there was a quadrangular rivalry for the archipelago. Portuguese and Span iards, Dutch and English, fought with singular bitterness to gain the monopoly of the clove production. Of these peoples the English were the first to be eliminated from the field. At the time of Drake's incursion the Spaniards feared that the English intended to take possession of the Moluccas, and English designs in the region did recur after the establishment of the East India Company, until the English withdrew to the Indian mainland and left the exploitation of the islands to the Dutch. Though the Moluccas had been the original Spanish objective in the Orient, they remained for Spain a liability rather than an economic asset. "The chimerical projects of the Moluccas cost us infinite expense," wrote the far-sighted Viana in 1765. Yet he adds, "we would not have abandoned that valuable piece of territory if our Spaniards had been as industrious and assiduous in trading as are the Dutch, or if they had realized what they THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 139 lost, which has been immense treasures that the Dutch have gained. The importance of the Moluccas was not thoroughly understood until we lost them." At the time a party in Spain favored giving up the Philippines, and Viana continued his re flections: "nor will the loss resulting from the abandonment of the Philippines be realized until they are in the power of some other nation less indolent and negligent than ours." The Spanish interest in the Moluccas was complicated by two factors—the peculiar nature of their relations with the Portu guese and the entrance of the Dutch into that area. After the early rivalry between the two Hispanic peoples for possession of the islands the Spanish accepted the Portuguese claims of priority and for a time turned their attention elsewhere. The Portu guese were frequently engaged in hostilities with the native rulers, and in 1581 Governor Ronquillo sent an expedition to the south with the object of helping the Portuguese to reconquer Ternate. The two crowns had already been united in the person of Philip II, and in 1593 Governor Dasmarinas undertook to carry out the policy of military cooperation on a scale that would have involved the complete subordination of Portuguese interests to those of Manila. A great armament prepared by Dasmarinas and de signed to wipe out the last vestiges of opposition in the Moluccas returned to Manila when the ambitious governor was murdered by the Chinese rowers of his galley and before it had reached its objective. Before the end of the century the Dutch had reached Java and cast their eyes eastward towards the Moluccas. Then in 1605 they expelled the Portuguese from Ternate and Tidore. Four hundred Portuguese withdrew to Manila, whence the next year Pedro de Acuna led a formidable armament for the reconquest of the Moluccas. With 1423 Spanish troops and nearly 1000 Filipino auxiliaries Acuna cleared the Dutch from most of the group and left a strong Spanish post on Ternate, whose fortifica tions were taken by storm. "The Spaniards," wrote Purchas, the Elizabethan, "who whilest the Portugall remayned there, was or dered both by the Pope and King of Spaine not to meddle with them, came from the Philippines, beat the Flemmings out of both the Hands,—and kept Ternate and Tydore under their com mand." For a time the Dutch were forced to confine their op erations to the other parts of the East Indies. In 1608 Admiral 140 THE MANILA GALLEON Cornelis Matelief, just returned from the East, wrote as follows: "Of the clove trade it is very difficult for us to render ourselves masters. We have the product of Amboina, Luho and Cambelo; but not that yielded by the Moluccas. The only means of obtain ing it is to drive the Spaniards from Ternate, and it can easily be imagined that the task is not easy." Four years later an order sent out from Madrid placed the government of the Moluccas under that of the Philippines. How ever, another order of the next month reserved the monopoly of the spice trade to the Portuguese. This apparently anomalous arrangement, by which the superior government was to bear all the expenses of maintenance and defense, while a virtually sub ject people were to reap all the profits, was dictated by broader considerations of policy than are immediately evident. The maintenance of the Portuguese strength in the more westerly region beyond Malacca was part of the general scheme of de fense, and the authorities believed that a serious weakening of the Portuguese position in Indian waters would endanger Spain's hold on the Philippines. The Portuguese needed the resources of the Moluccas and this demanded that Manila make a sacrifice of economic advantage to Goa. Grau y Monfalcon said in 1640 that of 2,816,000 pounds of cloves taken annually from the Moluccas, the Dutch took 1,098,000 pounds, and the Portuguese and "Castilians" 1,718,000 pounds. Three years before he wrote that the Dutch exported from Ternate 384,000 pounds of cloves a year, from Motir 468,000 pounds, from Bachian 896,000 pounds, and from Amboina 1,152,000 pounds—a total of 2,900,000 pounds. "Only by virtue of good management and the freedom of their policy," he ob served, "the Dutch derive so much profit that they are able to maintain a large force in those seas." At this time the Spanish and Dutch posts on Ternate were in sight of each other, where "every day they fought on land and sea." There was a keen rivalry between the two peoples to gain the favor of the native "kings," and the overloards of Ternate and Tidore were long under Spanish influence. "The Spaniards by bountie and liberalitie wonne their hearts," wrote Purchas, "and made them averse to the Hollanders. These [the Spaniards] have the chief city in Ternate, and call it now Our Lady of the Rosarie, strong and fortified with all munitions from the Philippines. Here are THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 141 two hundred Spaniards, ninetie Papoos [Filipinos], besides portugall householders, eightie Chineses, sixtie Moluccans with their families,—Tidore they have wholly, and therein three Forts. In Gilolo the Spaniards have first Sabongo, which John de Silva took from the Dutch in 161 1, and fortified strongly, imposing a garrison of sixtie Spaniards; secondly, Pilolo craftily taken from the Dutch also, and well provided with sixtie Spaniards. The third, at the west side of Gilolo, over against Machian, called Aquilano. . . . Half the cloves belong to the King, and the mer chandise is in the PortugalPs hands. The King's costs for sixe yeeres were very great with little profit. Jeronimo de Silva is now Commander in those parts, an old warie souldier." When the spice trade seemed at last to be in their grasp, the Spaniards were compensated for its renunciation to the Portu guese by the possession of the equally lucrative silk trade. Though the dissolution of the union in 1640 released Spain from her obligation to Portugal, the Dutch reoccupation of the Moluccas had proceeded so far that it would no longer have been possible for the Spanish to become a great spice trading power. Yet, for many years after Juan de Silva's gigantic effort to drive the Dutch from the East had failed the Spaniards stubbornly clung to their hold on Ternate, until the threat of a Chinese pirate descent on Manila led to the abandonment of the post in 1662. In 1640 Grau y Monfalcon wrote: "The Philippines and the citizens of Manila derive no advantage or profit from the Moluccas. Their only interest there is in the constant labor of succoring them and supplying their garrisons and presidios." At this time the Moluccas cost over 230,000 pesos a year—nearly all the situado, or subsidy, received by the Philippine government from New Spain. Grau had said of the clove trade of the Manila Galleons: "Only what is necessary is carried to New Spain." Yet Manila did actually become for a time the entrepot whither the Portuguese came from Goa and Malacca for the spices brought from the Moluccas. It is, however, difficult to determine how far the Spaniards really shared in the profits of this arrangement. That some of these cloves passed to America without having gone through the hands of the Portuguese is certain. In spite of the prohibition of 1607, the king sent the following order to Governor Fajardo in 1618: "You will exercise special care and judgment in all ways and means that are practicable and possible 142 THE MANILA GALLEON to introduce the greatest possible profit and benefit that can be obtained from the trade in cloves, by such measures as may appear to you best." As early as 1583 the royal treasury officials at Manila had written to Philip II: "With these communications from the Moluccas soldiers and other persons have begun to bring some cloves here." However, they said further: "We have no orders regarding this business of the spice trade." The fact that Manila was an intermediate stage in transportation to Goa facili tated the evasion of the law of 1607, which many regarded as a too altruistic concession to the unpopular Portuguese. Between 1640 and 1662 the Spaniards, released from the harassing restric tion, collected cloves at their factory on Ternate and part of these reached New Spain by the galleons. Yet in 1656 the City of Manila petitioned the king to remove the prohibition on the clove trade, and this petition was repeated, even after the loss of Ternate. However, the American market was largely supplied from the other direction. From the East Indies Dutch or Portuguese ships carried the spices to Cadiz, where they were transshipped by the flota to Vera Cruz. Thus, the fleet of Fernando Chacon carried 170,437 pounds of cinnamon and 70,986 pounds of cloves and pepper. There appears to have been an arrangement be tween the Dutch and the Cadiz merchants to prevent a large spice trade by the Manila Galleon, for the Spaniards had to pay the same prices at Batavia as at Cadiz. There was also a con siderable smuggling trade with the Spanish colonies in spices, as well as in other commodities. However,- when the Andalusian commercial interests offered to indemnify Manila for her aban donment of the Chinese-American silk traffic by an offer of the monopoly of the colonial spice market, the Manilenos refused to consider the proffered compensation as a sufficient equivalent for the surrender of the lucrative silk trade, in which contention they were eventually supported by the authorities at Madrid. The order of October 27, 1720, which suppressed temporarily the galleon trade in silks, provided that the cargo for Acapulco should consist, among other things, of "cinnamon, cloves and pepper." These commodities were always carried in the galleon, but at no time did they constitute the bulk of their freight. THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 143 Java As long as the wars continued with the Dutch trade between Manila and Batavia was impossible, but after the cessation of hostilities and after the abandonment of the Moluccas, the Spaniards had recourse to the Dutch factories on Java for the bulk of the spices for the American trade and for consumption in the Philippines. This traffic was sometimes carried on by Spanish ships, but usually by Malay craft, since the Dutch seldom entered Manila Bay in time of peace. The Spaniards refused a Dutch request for trading at Manila from Batavia as late as 1744. On their part the Spaniards had begun a promising trade with Batavia in Governor Salcedo's time (1663-8), and though subse quent trading operations were rather desultory, after the third decade of the eighteenth century one or two Spanish ships gen erally made the voyage to Java each year. Although Batavia was the principal spice market of the archipelago, some cinna mon, pepper, nutmeg, and cloves were imported from Sumatra, Banda and Macassar. In describing an embassy from the "Grand Subanco and King" of Macassar in 1658, Casimiro Diaz says: "It had a very rich trade with the Philippines in former times, but it has entirely ceased since 1673, when commerce was first established with the coasts of India." In the later years of the commerce ships proceeding from the Dutch islands, usually from the central entrepot of Batavia, carried, beside Ceylon cinnamon and Moluccan cloves, some cheap cottons of Javanese, or some times of British-Indian, manufacture. Borneo The natives of this great island had trafficked with the Filipinos and practiced widespread piracy in the neighboring seas before the coming of the Spaniards. Imports from Borneo rather supplied native demands than contributed to the cargoes of the galleons, though some goods, such as wax and camphor, oc casionally found their way across the Pacific. This trade between Malay peoples was largely carried on by the light Moro praus, that are so prominent a feature of navigation in those tortuous waters. The bulk of their cargoes generally consisted of trinkets THE MANILA GALLEON of brass, palm nuts, slaves, sago, and black glazed water jars, which were highly esteemed by the natives of the Philippines. There was little in Borneo to attract the attention of the Spaniards. In Governor Sande's time one of the Malay potentates of Borneo came to Manila to ask for help against his usurping brother. In return he promised to acknowledge the overlordship of the Spanish king. In accordance with the agreement Sande took a considerable fleet to Borneo and restored the native ruler, but made no further effort to establish Spain's authority over the island. Governor Ronquillo later sent a small fleet under Captain Gabriel de Ribera to explore the coasts of Borneo and decide on the advisability of making a settlement there. Though Ribera was sent to Spain on his return and named Marshal of Bonbon by the king, no serious effort was made to develop direct relations with Borneo on a larger scale or to make a fact of Spanish claims of sovereignty over the island. Farther India Among lesser feeders for the galleon line were Siam, Cam bodia, Cochin-China, Tonquin, and other minor and now extinct kingdoms of the great southeastern peninsula of the Asiatic main land. These tributary routes were opened at various times, and their operations were very irregular. Francisco Leandro de Viana, writing in 1765, when for several years there had been no trade with these countries, said that commerce was begun with Cam bodia in 1594, with Cochin-China in 1596, and with Siam in 1599. The establishment of these trading connections owes most to Governor Luis Perez Dasmarinas and Juan Tello de Aguirre. The Dasmarinas, like the Silvas, were ambitious for conquest on the mainland and for close commercial relations with that region. Much of the preliminary work in this direction was per formed by two remarkable adventurers, who took advantage of the internal dissensions of those turbulent kingdoms to dominate the dynastic politics which kept them in a chronic turmoil. One of these kingmakers, Diogo Belhoso—Diego Belloso in Spanish records—was a Portuguese; the other, Blas Ruys de Hernan Gonzalez, was a Spaniard. If the Spaniards in the Philippines had not been so preoccupied with immediate problems of defense or more pressing schemes of aggrandizement in other quarters THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 145 it is probable that they would have made a more serious effort to utilize the opening for conquest created by the amazing ex ploits of these two freebooters. Their first appeal to Manila for support for their projects was made during the governorship of Gomez Perez Dasmarinas. The occasion was the despatch of an embassy by Prauncar Langara, king of Cambodia, to the governor of the Philippines. The mission was headed by Diogo Belhoso, who brought with him a gift of two elephants "of noble disposi tion" and offers of friendship and trade. He was also the carrier of a request for Spanish aid against the Siamese, who were threatening to overrun Cambodia. The Spanish governor, en grossed at the time in his designs against the Moluccas, gave little encouragement to the appeal for help against the enemies of the kingdom, but sent back a horse and a few emeralds in return for the two elephants. Meanwhile the king of Siam had precipitated events. He had conquered Cambodia with a large force of men and war elephants and driven its king into exile in the wild kingdom of Laos to the north. Among his captives were Blas Ruys, the Spaniard, and two Portuguese soldiers. The Siamese king put Blas Ruys and his companions on board a large junk and ordered them to go to Manila to open up trading relations with the Spaniards. Siamese guards were put on the ship, which had a Chinese crew, and beneath the hatches were some Cambodian slaves and other goods to be sold in Manila. Once out at sea Blas Ruys and the two Portuguese, aided by the Chinese, seized the junk and killed or imprisoned the Siamese guards. Blas Ruys and the Chinese then came to blows as to who should have the prize and where it was to be taken. The three Europeans over came the Chinese, killing most of them, and took the junk on to Manila. In the meantime Gomez Perez Dasmarinas had been killed and his son, Luis, was now governor. The king of Siam, who still sat in Chordemuco, or Pnom Penh, the conquered capital of Cambodia, had now begun to suspect that all had not gone well with his junk. About this time the ship that had been sent to Manila by King Prauncar arrived bearing Diogo Belhoso and the horse and emeralds intended for that fugitive monarch. The Siamese king kept the presents for his own use and promptly accepted Belhoso's offer to return to Manila to find out what had happened. He put the ship in * 146 THE MANILA GALLEON charge of a Siamese officer of his confidence and sent along two more elephants and some goods which were to be sold in Manila. After leaving the mouth of the Mekong a storm struck the vessel and forced it to take refuge in the harbor of Malacca, where they learned of the fate of the previous junk. On hearing of the death of the guards of the other ship the king's Siamese representative began to lose interest in the trip to Manila and promptly un loaded the elephants and the rest of the cargo. The next morn ing he was found dead on the junk, though he had retired in good health the night before. Diogo Belhoso immediately took charge of the ship, moved the elephants and goods on board again, and cleared for Manila. Here he met Blas Ruys again and together they hatched an ambitious scheme for Spanish intervention in Farther India. They agreed to urge the governor to send a fleet to Cambodia to help King Langara recover his throne from the Siamese. As an in ducement they promised the governor that he would gain a foot hold on the mainland which the Spaniards could use as a base for further expansion. With the aid of some Dominican friars, who had considerable influence over the governor, Luis Dasmarinas was easily won over to the project. He had a ship fitted out for the expedition and placed the veteran soldier, Juan Juarez Gallinato, in charge of the enterprise. One hundred and twenty Spanish soldiers and a body of Japanese and Filipino auxiliaries were to accompany him. The two junks from Cam bodia were to go along, one under Blas Ruys and the other under Belhoso. The squadron left Manila in January 1596. A storm scat tered the three ships shortly before they sighted the Asiatic coast, and the two junks arrived at the Cambodian capital ahead of Gallinato's flagship. Here it was learned that the head men of the country had driven out the Siamese and set one of their num ber, named Anacaparan, on the throne. The disorder into which the land had fallen was favorable to the plans of Blas Ruys and Diogo Belhoso, who immediately began to fish in the troubled waters. Meanwhile, six Chinese trading junks arrived on the scene and engaged in an affair with the Spaniards, who killed many of the Chinese and seized their ships. This incident created a great commotion in the city and much resentment against the Spaniards, who were blamed for the affair. THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 147 When the two leaders with a small party of their men went up the river to explain to the king their part in the incident and to press their overtures for trade on him, he had them locked up in a house on the opposite side of the river and threatened to have them killed. They escaped at night, crossed the river and penetrated into the royal palace, where they stabbed the king to death in his bed. They then set fire to the palace and other buildings, after which they started towards their ships. On their way they were forced to fight off a host of natives, who pursued them with several elephants. Shortly after they reached their boats Gallinato came up the river with the remainder of the expedition. He refused to en dorse their plan for restoring Prauncar Langara to his kingdom and in no uncertain terms expressed his disapproval of their recent actions. Without further ado he washed his hands of the whole business and decided to return to Manila. Some of the principal men of the country wanted to make him king of Cam bodia, but he refused to yield to the temptation that was held out to him. However, a legend of his kingship grew up in Spain, where the famous captain was represented in the theaters as an Oriental potentate. There is little doubt that, given the circum stances of the moment and the force at his command, Gallinato could easily have added Cambodia to the Spanish crown. As it was, he agreed to put in on the coast of Cochin-China on his return to Manila, to inquire about the galley of Gomez Perez Dasmarinas, which his Chinese assassins had carried away from Philippine waters. He also consented to take with him Blas Ruys and Diogo Belhoso, who asked to be set ashore at a point where they might go inland into the Laos country in search of their old friend, King Prauncar Langara. Arrived on the Cochin-China coast, Gallinato was glad to be rid of the two soldiers of fortune, of whose informal ways he so strongly disapproved. He not only failed to find any trace of the fatal galley of Dasmarinas, but had to fight his way out to sea to save his own ship from the natives, who had been set on by their king. Meanwhile, Blas Ruys and Belhoso had traveled around through southern Tonquin and reached Lantchang, probably the old city of Vien Chan, capital of Laos, where they were well re ceived by the lord of the country. Here they found that King 148 THE MANILA GALLEON Prauncar Langara and his eldest son and daughter had died, and that the heir to the Cambodian throne was a younger son, also named Prauncar. However, this prince was still an immature and irresponsible youth, who was governed by a family council made up of his step-mother, grandmother and aunts. Shortly after their arrival in Laos a Cambodian appeared at Lantchang and announced that Chupinanu, son of the slaughtered Anacaparan, was the latest incumbent of the kingship. He also reported that the country had fallen into anarchy and that the majority of the people wanted their lawful king to return. A few days later Ocuna de Chu, a prominent mandarin, reached Laos with ten large boats and orders from his colleagues to bring back the royal family. Young Prauncar thereupon embarked with his female regency on the boats, which set off down the Mekong to Chordemuco. Two very interested passengers in the boats were Blas Ruys and Diogo Belhoso. With the aid of the two companions-at-arms the country was finally subdued and the usurper Chupinanu met the fate of his father. Blas Ruys and Belhoso were made the military chiefs of the kingdom and given two provinces as their private domain. "Whatever we attacked we conquered, with God's assistance," Blas Ruys wrote to Antonio de Morga at Manila, "but where we did not go losses always resulted. Consequently we gained great reputation and were esteemed by our friends and feared by the enemy." Attracted by the disorders in the neighboring kingdom, an army from Laos invaded Cambodia, only to be driven out by the two paladins. Yet their position was always a precarious one. The support of the young king was a slender reed on which to lean. "He is a child and is addicted to drink more than was his father," wrote Blas Ruys; "he only thinks of sports and hunting and cares noth ing for the kingdom." The affairs of state were largely managed by his women, who distrusted the foreigners and used all their influence against them. The sinister Lacasamana, a Moro, who had brought in a large force of men from the islands to the south, had a strong ascendency over these women and was a paramour of the king's step-mother. He was jealous of the "Grand Chofa Captain Don Blas" and his Portuguese companion, and was constantly plotting against them and trying to under mine their prestige with the king and the people. THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 149 Blas Ruys well realized that unless he could receive sub stantial aid from the Philippines his project for adding Cambodia to the Spanish empire would end in failure. If he should fail his life would be worth little in this maze of intrigue and hatred where he had thrown his lot many years before. There was no one he could trust, save his Portuguese companion, and he even suspected Belhoso of treating with the governor at Malacca in an effort to forestall the Spaniards. As for the king, "he fears the Spaniards," he said, "even while he esteems them, for he dreads lest they deprive him of his kingdom." In July 1598 he wrote to Morga, then president of the audiencia at Manila, asking for men to secure his great venture. He wished to hold some stronghold in the country, where he could beat off any force of enemies, and which he could use as the nucleus of his cherished undertaking. "It is very important," he wrote, "to possess a fortress on the mainland, since it will be the beginning of great things." At the same time he transmitted some presents from the harried king. "On account of the many wars, the king does not possess many things to send your Grace. He sends two elephants' tusks and a slave." As for himself, he said: "I am poor, for I have lived hitherto by war and subsisted from its gains." And he adds, "Recollecting your Grace's unique collection, I send you a bottle and a little flask of ivory. You will forgive the trifle, for I promise to make up for it next year." In Manila he had a loyal and tireless ally in the Dominican priest, Fray Alonso Jimenez, who had fought side by side with him in one of his early combats in Cambodia. Also, Luis Dasmarinas, no longer governor, believed as strongly as ever in conquest on the mainland. The government frowned on the idea, and when Dasmarinas organized his expedition it was at his own expense. He fitted out three vessels and manned them with 200 men raised among the unemployed of Manila. He also re cruited some Japanese and Tagalog auxiliaries and took along twenty-one friars, including Padre Jimenez. In order to obtain the official consent to his undertaking he alleged as the motive for his going the conquest of the now-extinct kingdom of Champa, long a refuge for pirates, who preyed on shipping along those coasts. Under these auspices he cleared from Manila too late in the year for favorable weather on the China Sea. His two largest 150 THE MANILA GALLEON ships- were blown north onto the Chinese coast and wrecked. Dasmarinas made his way to Macao by a Chinese junk and there fell afoul of the hostile Portuguese, though he later found succor with some of his countrymen at their new trading post of El Pinal. Only the smallest of the three ships, a galliot under the command of Luis Ortiz, reached Chordemuco and joined Blas Ruys and Belhoso. Events now moved rapidly towards their inevitable con clusion. Though Captain Juan de Mendoza, who had secured permission from Governor Tello to take a trading ship to Siam, put into the Mekong and added his small force to the Spaniards already there, the odds were still heavy against the intruders. Soon after a further element of irritation was added to a highly charged situation by the arrival of a ship from Nagasaki. This vessel, which belonged to a mestizo named Govea, son of a Portu guese and a Japanese woman, had come down the coast of Cochin-China, trading or committing piracy as the occasion offered. Govea's ruffianly company of Japanese and Portuguese conducted themselves in such a high-handed manner with the natives that the position of the Spaniards in the Combodian capi tal quickly became critical. They very unwisely attacked the followers of the Moro Lacasamana, who rallied his men and raised the native population against the Spaniards. Pandemonium reigned in the city, as the multitude closed in on the small band of Spaniards and their allies. The force of numbers was too great for the heroism of Blas Ruys and Diogo Belhoso, who were finally overwhelmed after a long and desperate struggle. They fell sword in hand, as they had lived, among the bodies of their men. The bloodletting in Cambodia continued, as the young king and then the Moro chieftain were killed. Then the mandarins sent to Siam and asked the king to release a brother of old King Prauncar Langara, who had been held captive since the Siamese conquest. The king of Siam not only granted their request, but sent along 6,000 men to install him on his throne. One of the first actions of the new king was to look up Juan Diaz, the sole survivor of Blas Ruys' company, and to despatch him to Manila, where he was to ask for friendship and trade—and for more Spanish soldiers and priests to live at the Cambodian court! Pedro de Acuna was governor, and in 1603 he sent a ship to THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 151 Chordemuco with four priests and five soldiers, including Juan Diaz. The Spaniards never revived their projects of aggrandize ment on the mainland, and future governors, save Fernando de Silva, relied on embassies and presents to obtain the consent of Indo-Chinese kings for trading with their subject. This com merce was interrupted for long periods by internecine wars or by the dissatisfaction of the natives at their treatment by the Spaniards, only to be reopened by the efforts of successive gov ernors. In 1622 a royal decree ordered the governor to prohibit private persons from sending ships to Siam and Cambodia, as well as to other parts within the commercial area of Manila. This was a war measure, for the dispersal of the small force of the colony in too widespread trading activities endangered the colony in the critical times of war with the Dutch. Manila was a presidio, as well as a trading post and mission, and defense was the first consideration during such a period. Moreover, navigation about the western edge of the South China Sea, which was always subject to piratical attacks in ordinary times, became increasingly precarious with the added presence of hostile Euro pean ships in those waters. Though Fernando de Silva's expedi tion thither in 1626 met with failure—most of his force being beheaded by Siamese and Japanese—friendly relations with the states of the mainland were not interrupted for long, nor did the efforts of the Dutch to alienate the friendship of the native potentates meet with success. In Tabora's governorship (1626-32) Indo-Chinese junks came to Manila with considerable regularity. Then, after another interval of non-intercourse, trade was revived by the efforts of Governor Diego de Salcedo (1663-68) and suc cessively reestablished, after two more periods of suspension, by Governors Bustamante (1717-19), and Obando (1750-54). In Obando's time a company was formed at Manila, of which he was the head, with the object of trading with Siam and con structing a galleon there for the Acapulco line. Jose Pasarin, Obando's special envoy for the purpose, has left an interesting account of his ceremonious reception at the Siamese court. After his ship had anchored in the river below the capital the king sent down a delegation of his nobles to greet him and sound out his designs. The Spanish emissary was then conducted upriver to the royal palace by a flotilla of long boats, each manned with 152 THE MANILA GALLEON seventy-eight skilled paddlers. On arriving at the palace he was led through the outer corridors into a large courtyard, where he was filled with "admiration and respect" by two lanes of "mon strous elephants," richly caparisoned with trappings of gold set with stones. He was much impressed by their "vast and rotund corpulence," and by the "silent gravity with which they slowly moved their huge trunks." After passing between two lanes of "splendid and veteran" infantry, he was escorted into a majestic hall, adorned with rich Persian rugs and large mirrors. Here he found himself in the presence of the "most distinguished mandarins of the empire and some others of lower hierarchy," all squatting about on the carpeted floor and without shoes. The Spaniard was struck "by their aspect of mysterious gravity and wisdom," but he refused to accept the formalities prescribed for entering this "strange and ridiculous theatre," which required that one should appear "without shoes, or slippers, sword, cane or hat, and no more seat than the floor itself." As a representative of the "most August Monarch of the Universe and a member of the most glorious nation on earth," he threatened to turn about and return to Manila rather than suffer these affronts to his dignity and indirectly to that of his king. "But," he says, "the Emperor excused me from the impertinent rigor of so many cere monies, and allowed me to go in with my hat, sword, cane, shoes, and two cushions to sit on." When this point of etiquette was arranged to the satisfaction of the proud Spaniard the public audience in his honor proceeded with overpowering solemnity. He first greeted all present in European style, and then sat down on his cushions, where he towered above the whole assemblage. The mandarins shortly relapsed into a profound silence and immobility. Pasarin imi tated their "mysterious and ecstatic posture" the best he could, only to be awakened from his contemplation by the sound of a gong. Looking up, he saw the prime minister of the kingdom, as he took his place on a magnificent throne. At this dignitary's feet there prostrated themselves, "in barbarous obsequiousness," several damsels, "naked from the waist up," while others waved beautiful fans before his face. Meanwhile, the mandarins bent forward to the floor, without daring to cast their eyes in the direc tion of the minister and his attendants. The nobles showed their displeasure at the Spaniard's "serenity and lack of embarrassment," THE PORTUGUESE AND OTHERS 153 as he gazed in wonder upon "a spectacle so rare." However, when Pasarin saluted the minister in his best Spanish manner, he smiled his appreciation and beckoned to him to bring his cushions and sit alongside the throne. Here he answered various questions regarding the health of the Spanish monarchs, their ages and the number and dispositions of their progeny, after which he took his leave with great formality. A few days later he received a written inquiry from the court as to the ages at which the Spanish rulers had married—a question which he learned was always put to foreign envoys in Siam. These ceremonious preliminaries completed, he was able after tedious negotiation to arrange for the reopening of trading relations between Manila and Siam A huge galleon, christened the Guadalupe, was later built at great cost on the Siamese coast, but it proved to be unadaptable to trans-Pacific navigation, and, after the heavy loss incurred in this failure, the trading part of the company's program was not prosecuted. Moreover, the cen tral government held the arrangements made with the Siamese as illegal. Of this never very important traffic with Indo-China Morga wrote in 1609: "Very seldom a few vessels sail to Manila from Siam and Cambodia. They carry some benzoin, pepper, ivory and cotton cloth, rubies and sapphires, badly cut and set, rhinoceros horns, and the hides, hoofs and teeth of this animal, and other goods." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>^ • <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 4 CITY AND COMMERCE HE operation of the galleon trade was unique in the annals X of commerce. This trading system was based on the prin ciple that the entire Spanish community in the Philippines largely depended for its sustenance on the profits from the galleons. As the logical corollary to this rule, every member of that community had the privilege of participating in the freighting of the galleons. The naos themselves were property of the crown. And it was the crown which so minutely regulated the conduct of the trade, with the object of assuring to every citizen of the colony a share in its rich proceeds. Thus, "City and Commerce," which often addressed the king as though they were one and the same person, were for a long time virtually synonymous. The first laws which governed the galleon commerce were issued from time to time in the form of royal decrees. Many of them date from 1593. Most of this body of law was later codified in the "Laws of the Indies." The governors were also accustomed to exercise their ordinance power in matters affecting the trade. Obando (1750-1754) took it upon himself to introduce many revolutionary changes into the proceedings at Manila, and Arandia (1754-1759) was responsible for many salutary reforms. The first comprehensive legislation for the trade was contained in the royal decree of April 8, 1734, which put an end to the long controversy between Manila and the cities of Andalusia. This remained the law of the trade, except for the temporary innova tions introduced by Governor Obando, until 1769. In that year were issued the Adiciones or Supplementary Regulations, which, save for minor changes, served the trade until the end. Between the pancada, the process by which the Spaniards acquired the silks from the Chinese, and the clearing of the galleon there intervened an elaborate series of official transactions. Always given to over-regulation in such matters, the Spanish government was particularly anxious to restrain the covetousness CITY AND COMMERCE i55 of individual traders in the galleon commerce. The inevitable alternative to such a policy would have been the early monopoly of the trade by a small minority of the citizens. As the applica tion of the policy was relaxed in the course of time that is exactly what happened. Since a share in the profits of the galleon was the lodestone that attracted Spaniards across the Pacific, it was to the interest of the crown to maintain equality of opportunity in the commerce. If this stimulus to migration were removed, fur ther retention of the colony would be difficult and expensive. Minute governmental supervision of the operations at Manila was also deemed necessary to keep the galleon commerce within the bounds of the permiso, or "permission." The permiso limited the volume of the trade to a specified sum, and was the basis of the whole regulatory system as applied to the commerce. It had the force of an export quota for the colony, and served the double purpose of limiting the competition of Chinese silks with those of Spanish manufacture in tlie Mexican market and of restricting the passage of Mexican silver to China. Moreover, such a definite limit to the volume of the traffic provided a convenient measure for its regulation. The trade ran unrestricted by laws for a few flourishing decades after its inception. The first permiso was established in 1593, limiting the value of the annual cargo to 250,000 pesos at Manila and with a sale value in New Spain of not over double that amount. The same limitation was reaffirmed by decrees of 1604 and 1619. This legal maximum remained in force until 1702, when the permiso was raised to 300,000 pesos. In 1734 it was increased to 500,000 pesos and in 1776 to 750,000 pesos, at which figure it remained until the cessation of the commerce in 1815. In each case the return value of the cargo was fixed at double the permiso. No allowance was made at either end of the line for the payment of duties, which were to be included in the total of the permiso. At least, such was the law of the trade; its observance was another matter, and there was generally a very wide margin between the two. The first step in regulating the trade in line with the permiso was the apportionment of lading space on the galleon. In the early years of the commerce the governor distributed the lading space without interference from any other element in the colony. However, by a decree of Philip III in 1604 he was forced to share 156 THE MANILA GALLEON his powers with an ex-officio board of apportionment represent ing the principal interests in the community. These interests comprised the royal government, the Church, and the "City and Commerce." The board or junta de repartimiento, as thus or ganized, included, besides the governor, the senior judge of the audiencia, the important fiscal or attorney-general of the colony, two regidores or members of the city council, and the archbishop of Manila. The regulations drawn up for the trade in 1734 sub stituted for one of the municipal councilmen a district judge of the city. By the same law the other councilman was compelled to alternate every other year with one of the eight compromisarios, who represented the "Commerce" or strictly trading interests of the community. The introduction of this latter member into the junta is significant of the next change in the make-up of the committee. For the eight compromisarios were the nucleus of the consulado or consulate, which was instituted in 1769 as the governing body of the trade at Manila. It is also indicative of a division in the colony between "City" and "Commerce," which had long been virtually identical. For by then actual control of the trade had fallen into the hands of a few wealthy merchants. This class wished neither to endure the virtual dictatorship of the governor in the junta, a condition which often prevailed, nor to share its authority with the non-trading part of the citizens. This im portant stage of the trade was henceforth to be directed by busi ness men, with as little intervention as possible from the govern ment. Accordingly the consulado assumed the functions of the old heterogeneous committee and exercised them until the ex tinction of the galleon line in the second decade of the last century. The meetings of the junta were seldom harmonious. The stakes were too large and the interests represented were too irrec oncilable. Francisco Leandro de Viana said in 1767 that the members of the junta considered only their own personal wel fare. There were violent clashes within the committee from the beginning, generally between the "City and Commerce" on one side and the crown, or crown and Church, on the other. Objec tions were frequently made against the inclusion of the governor or of one or the other of the elements represented. Hernando de los Rios Coronel, as spokesman for the colony before the court, CITY AND COMMERCE 157 early proposed that the members should be chosen in open cabildo or town meeting. A petition to the royal council asked that the "City and Commerce" should be permitted to make the distribution of space without the intervention of any official of crown or Church. Nor did each member of the junta exert an equal influence in its deliberations. The governor, who was long supreme in the direction of the commerce, was accustomed to dominate his associates on the board. Governor Hurtado de Corcuera entirely usurped the authority of the junta in 1635, thereby arrogating to himself the prerogatives that had belonged to his office before its transfer to a board in 1604. However, Hurtado's blunt effort to legalize his assumption of powers was short-lived. Governor Obando instituted even more radical changes in 1753. "I pro pose," he wrote to the king, "to cut the Gordian Knot of the repartimiento [distribution of space], which since time im memorial has been located in the temple of private interest." The "City and Commerce" protested against Obando's innova tions as contrary to "customs, rights, privileges and laws." The governor named the senior judge of the audiencia and three other citizens of his confidence to replace the old body, and commis sioned them to "expurgate" the lists of those eligible to receive boletas or licenses for lading. Such an order naturally struck consternation into the whole body of citizens. As naturally, too, they attributed the governor's move to self-interest, charging that his four appointees would be more compliant with his wishes than was the old ex-officio body. With the "City and Commerce" against him Obando's schemes could be only a temporary move to extirpate abuses which too many were interested in perpetuat ing. A few years later Viana declared that the attempts of Obando, like those of Arandia and Raon after him, were entirely ineffectual to reform the evils in the distribution of the galleon's lading space. Though the governor's preponderant position in this business was greatly curtailed by the authority conferred on the consulado in 1769, he still reviewed the acts of the consulado as they related to the work of allotting the boletas. The archbishop, who was expected to exert his influence as mediator and by the churchmen to guard the clerical interest in the trade, seldom took an active part in the sessions of the com mittee. Next to the governor the fiscal was the most influential 158 THE MANILA GALLEON member of the junta. He was nearly always present at the meet ings, where he represented the crown more truly than did his superior, whose trading activities were not always consistent with the royal interest. After his exclusion under the Obando regime, the fiscal seems to have recovered some of his old authority, for he later shared with the governor the revision of the allotment lists drawn up by the consulado. The amount of lading space to be allotted to each citizen de pended on the capacity of the galleon available for the voyage that year. The ship's hold was measured by a committee ap pointed for that purpose, and the volume of space available for cargo was divided into equal parts, each to correspond to a bale of definite and uniform size. These bales or fardos were again subdivided into four packages or piezas. The average measure ments of these piezas in the earlier galleons were 2l/2 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 10 inches deep, though there was no absolute uniformity in these dimensions. Nor was the prescribed division of the cargo space into four thousand shares, each corresponding to a pieza, always adhered to. Some galleons carried six or seven thousand piezas, and the San Jose" went down with 12,000 "packages" in her hold. Of thirty-five galleons that made the eastern passage between 1736 and 1770, only five carried the regu lation number of piezas. According to the official registers the majority during those years carried between two and three thou sand, while the Santa Rosa in 1764, the year after the English occupation, had a cargo of only 389*4 piezas. A boleta, or ticket, was issued as a certificate of ownership for each unit of a pieza. Again, these boletas were sometimes further divided into sixths or other fractions. This often happened when the value of the entire boleta was particularly high. Thus, each person's proportion of the lading space was expressed in terms of boletas. On the basis of a division into four thousand piezas, and assuming the original permitted returns of 500,000 pesos from a voyage, a boleta should have been worth 125 pesos at Manila. Though these two ideal conditions probably never co-existed during the course of the commerce, the arbitrary value of 125 pesos was a convenient standard for the assessment of duties and the keeping of statistics. Yet, when shippers were automatically swearing that each of the piezas consigned by them on the gal leon was worth but 250 pesos, Governor Anda and the fiscal, CITY AND COMMERCE 159 Viana, declared that each pieza represented goods to the value of 1500 or 2000 pesos. As to the eligibility requirements for the recipients of boletas, the law of 1593 provided that the lading should be divided among "all the citizens of those islands, in proportion to their wealth, in order that everyone may share in the advantage and profit of this traffic." The early theory on which the regulations were based was that the merchant class and the body of citizens were one and the same. It assumed that every boletero or recipient of a boleta was a galleon trader, who actually made use of his license to ship. The early state of affairs did approximate closely to this condition. The lists of shippers are much longer in the sixteenth century than in the eighteenth. Those who promulgated the law aimed at stimulating individual thrift by assuring an equal op portunity to all, and so to promote the general prosperity of the community. They probably little foresaw its possibilities in the other direction, when a boleta would be but a dignified form of dole, with a high market value in itself, the sale of which would provide the funds for the support of the original recipient until the drawing of the next year. The law of 1620, ordering a stricter observance of the original regulation, laid down as the basis of distribution the "position" and "means" of the citizens, a very indefinite criterion that could be made to sanction any violation. Actual citizenship in the islands was the first requisite, and preference was given to those of longest residence in the colony. Favoritism and self-interest broke down the law, as they nullified many another salutary ordinance for the government of the Indies. The important series of regulations issued in 1734 an nounced no general principle of qualification for the receipt of boletas. It proclaimed more definitely, however, than had the earlier laws, the inclusion or exclusion of certain classes. The decree of 1769, constituting the consulado, specifically limited the allotment to bona-fide merchants, who were to compose the body of the new organization. The monopoly of the consulado was a recognition of the fundamental change that had occurred since the early decades of the galleon trade, when the large mass of Spaniards in Manila traded with Mexico on their own account. They had gone out to the Philippines to participate in that trade, for the quick enrichment that was promised by the galleon was the only inducement for leaving Spain or Mexico in favor of the i6o THE MANILA GALLEON distant colony. No ordinary motives could lead men to risk the hazardous crossing of the Pacific or the vicissitudes of life in a place so notoriously unhealthy and constantly threatened by enemies from within and without. And for a long period there were not the glaring inequalities of fortune among the citizens of Manila that became so prominent in the eighteenth century. But the number of actual shippers on the galleon decreased in the course of time. Trading families acquired wealth and a settled status in the commerce that no transient investor or ad venturer could obtain, which enabled them, together with the rich endowments of the obras pias, to dominate the course of the trade. These were the "professional merchants," whose impor tance the regulations of 1734 recognized. One hundred ninetyfour citizens, a large proportion of the Spanish lay population, consigned goods on the San Martin in 1586. When the San Andres made the crossing two centuries later, her cargo belonged to twenty-eight men. Among them were rich merchants like Antonio Pacheco and Francisco David, whose names appear on the manifest lists year after year. Of 2,135 Pezas in the hold of the San Andres, 496 bore David's mark. Viana said in 1767 that of seven or eight hundred who received boletas about forty dis posed of sufficient capital to make up a shipment. Seven years before Governor Arandia had informed the king that there were only ten men in the colony who could trade on their own capital. The wide distribution of boletas and the ease with which money could be borrowed from the obras pias for a venture on the gal leon prevented such a condition from having its logical conse quences, in forcing all save the more affluent into utter indigence or into some other means of earning a living. In the original distribution the active merchants did not re ceive lading space enough to contain a consignment of goods in proportion to their superior means. Accordingly, they were forced to purchase sufficient boletas for their purpose. An ex tensive system of trading in boletas grew up, which was more immediately important to the majority of the citizens than was the actual business of freighting and despatching the galleon. The law of 1620 had reproached the governors with granting lading space to non-traders, thus forcing the real shippers to buy at excessive prices the privilege of filling their true quota on the galleons. A decree of 1638, issued in response to the representa CITY AND COMMERCE 161 tions of Grau y Monfalcon, agent of the colony at the royal court, prohibited the transfer of boletas without the intervention of the junta. If any recipient were unable to lade goods to the extent of his allotment, this law required that he return the surplus boletas to the junta, which would dispose of them to any shipper in need of more cargo space and indemnify the original holder at the assessed value of the boletas for the year. The important regulations of 1734 confirmed the general principle of the decree of 1638, but added the exception of the "poor and widows," who might sell their drawings to an active merchant without further ceremony. The supplementary regulations of 1769, although ex pressly reserving to various non-trading elements their customary quota of boletas, suggest that it would be "more useful, equitable and proper" to reimburse these classes in money for relinquish ing actual possession of the boletas, which would then be dis tributed directly to the legitimate merchants of the consulado. The execution of such a plan would naturally have put an end to the old business of trafficking in boletas. However, a decree issued seven years later against trading and speculating in boletas illustrates the futility of these reiterated prohibitions. The charitable impulse which led to the granting of trading licenses to widows and orphans, and the principle of subsidizing the ecclesiastical organizations and supplementing the income of public officials by the widespread distribution of a lucrative gratuity, laid the inevitable basis for a speculative traffic in the licenses themselves. On one side there were a few shippers in urgent need of additional lading space on the galleon; on the other were a large number of boleteros, eager to convert these papers into as much money as possible. It was the bargaining which ensued that an English observer characterized as a "rivalry in roguery," and the archbishop-governor, Rojo, called a "laby rinth of entanglements, complaints and vileness." Viana, who saw in a meeting of the junta a very witches' sabbath of corrup tion, denounced the whole business of the distribution of boletas as "the root and origin of all the disorders tolerated in this com merce." He proposed as a remedy the sale of the boletas out right to those who could utilize them for their real purpose. In making his unwelcome innovations in this stage of the galleon trade Governor Obando wrote to the king that the frauds in the system began in the original distribution, where, self-interest, THE MANILA GALLEON favoritism, or "the claims of flesh and blood" often dictated the list of recipients. Hernando de los Rios Coronel said that in 1613 the governor did not allow the citizens a single ton of space on the galleon, and Viceroy Villamanrique, never a friend of the galleon trade, declared that "the governor and the audiencia permit only those to lade who have their favor." Viana charged further that the governor championed the illegal boleteros in the junta because of a common interest in the frauds of the trade. Such instances as the issuing of boletas to widows who had fol lowed their husbands or remarried had their counterpart in the subsequent transactions, when a speculator collected the price of the same boleta from four different merchants. At times a sys tem similar to the old Roman custom of clientage prevailed, whereby certain active merchants and groups of parasitical boleteros mutually depended on each other for lading space and subsistence respectively. Usually, however, there was no such working arrangement between the two parties, and the holder of a boleta preferred to maintain his independence in the open market, so that he could force the merchants to bid for his hold ings. The price of boletas depended on certain factors: the results of the pancada, or transactions with the Chinese, the prospects for a profitable sale in Mexico, the quantity of ready money in the colony, the total lading space available in the year's galleon, and the number of boletas for sale. Sometimes the majority of boletas were cornered by a clique of the governor's friends, by a small group of wealthy merchants, or by the obras pias, either through influence and favoritism in the original distribution or by buying them from other holders. When the junta allotted the bulk of the cargo space to the religious and charitable establish ments, or to other classes prohibited by the law of 1620, the genuine merchants were obliged to buy at exorbitant prices the lading space essential for a profitable consignment. This led to the common excess of the permiso or the despatch of cargo beyond the legal limit. One of the most serious abuses growing out of the traffic in certificates of lading was the opportunity which it gave to merchants from Mexico or Peru, or their agents in Manila, to participate in the trade at its western end. Plenti fully supplied with silver, their entrance into the market sent up prices to a point where few merchants in the islands could CITY AND COMMERCE 163 compete with them. In response to the loud complaints of the latter new laws were issued, providing for severe penalties against any invasion of the islanders' monopoly of the galleon trade. However, these prohibitions were evaded through the interces sion of the Spaniards in the islands, who, for a commission, were ready to represent the investors from the other side of the Pacific. The whole process of the distribution of lading space, as it was generally carried on, was demoralizing to the mercantile habits of the colony. Viana, to whose active spirit the majority of boleteros were only contentious sluggards and greedy hangerson, could see nothing in the system but an oppressive incubus on the economic life of the colony. The judge, Gonzalez Carbajal, later to be the first intendant of the Philippines, began a me morial to Jose de Galvez, the Supreme Minister, in 1783: "The charity of the king distributes annually for the benefit and sup port of this commerce and of the commonwealth the lading space of the galleon. The purpose of this generous gift, directed to the prosperity of the islands is not realized, nor is the important design of the monarch attained, but the results are entirely con trary." Gonzalez Carbajal divides the merchants into three cate gories. The first class consists of rich men, who satisfy all the qualifications prescribed by the law. These do not need the free donation of boletas, but could well afford to pay an assessment for the lading space which their consignments occupy on the galleons. The second group consists of individuals "who call themselves merchants, but who are not, nor can be such, and who do not possess the requisite property or any of the other qualifications which his Majesty ordains." This class he arraigns as "enemies of work and of all settled occupation." They have acquired the status of traders by "false pledges and proofs," and have thereby founded entailed estates, as it were, with which they are maintained at the expense of the royal liberality, given up to a life of ease and not obliged to gain their living "by the sweat of their brow." He denies to this class any claim in justice to the right of receiving boletas. The third class consisted of men in other employ, who "neither do trade, or could, except in vio lation of the laws." The majority of these were civil or military officials, who already received substantial salaries from the insular treasury. Beyond continuing a certain quota of tickets to eccle THE MANILA GALLEON siastics, members of the municipal council, soldiers, and widows —a custom which few men would have been bold enough to challenge—Gonzalez Carbajal would have used the distribution as an incentive to the development of the islands. He would restrict the boletas to those who were willing to devote their capital and energies to the agricultural and industrial develop ment of the islands and to widening the scope of the colony's commerce, hitherto confined to the galleon trade and its feeders. An analysis of his list of the 150 members of the original consulado, who accordingly possessed the privilege of shipping by the galleon, shows the following results: Twenty-five were active merchants. Fifty-six others commissioned their own trad ing operation on a percentage basis to the twenty-five. Of these eight were women. Among those who had other occupations than their subsidiary ventures in the galleon were ten members of the city council, twenty-one others holding government posi tions, seven employees of the government Tobacco Monopoly, three surgeons, two pilots and a notary. Thirty are classed as "idlers and triflers"—-the drones of the commerce. Some of the members fall into two or three categories, and so accumulate a correspondingly large number of boletas. The status of a member might change from year to year, according to his chang ing fortune or occupation. As to the registered working capital of the members, four are officially credited with a minimum of 100,000 pesos, nine with between 50,000 and 100,000 pesos, and the vast majority with from 2,000 to 50,000 pesos. Their aggre gate working capital was declared on the books of the consulado as 2,558,000 pesos. The widows of Manila were always beneficiaries of this unprecedented bounty. A Dominican friar declared this chari table provision unique in the world. Their claim to this dignified form of pension was not questioned by even the critical Viana or by Gonzalez Carbajal. It is generally confirmed in all the successive ordinances of the commerce, though the law of 1769 proposes the substitution of a money compensation for the quan tity of boletas heretofore allotted to this class. The change was apparently never made, for ten years later Viana, then sitting in the Council of the Indies as the Count of Tepa, was again advo cating the same measure. Gonzalez Carbajal said there were 412 Spanish widows in Manila in 1783, at a time when the population CITY AND COMMERCE 165 of the colony was probably less than 2,000. Three years later the consulado reported to the king that there were only fifty Spanish families in Manila. Each widow customarily received from one-half to two boletas. Of the privileged classes who shared in the proceeds of the galleon trade the clergy probably had the most vital interest. It is difficult, however, to determine the exact extent of clerical trading operations, as it is in the case of the intruders from Mexico. The old distinction between the clergy as individuals and as corporations, between Padre Gomez and the member of the cathedral chapter, or between Fray Domingo and the provincial of the Dominican Order, with their identity merged in the or ganization—makes all the more difficult the problem of cata loguing the commercial activities of the cloth. Furthermore, the prominence of the obras pias, which were charitable institu tions, largely conducted by regulars, only complicates the ques tion. Naturally, too, the churchman who traded in violation of the papal ban was silent as to his investments on the galleon. A convenient lay proxy, to conduct his trading activities, would protect him from the necessity of exposing himself to the remote risk of censure from his overseas superiors. Ecclesiastics were trading long before the royal decree of 1638 gave them the express right to take part in the commerce. A law of 1696 ordered the allotment of lading space to be con tinued to the chapter of the Manila cathedral, "as customary." This provision was re-enacted in 1751, with the more definite specification of 132 boletas as the annual quota for the chapter. Meanwhile, the regulations of 1734 had prohibited the assign ment of boletas "under any pretext or simulation, under pain of the royal indignation, to any ecclesiastics, secular or regular." In its application to churchmen as individuals the language of this clause is sufficiently clear. The law of 1769 reserves to the "churches and obras pias" their customary right to a share of the boletas, or at least to a monetary compensation for the relinguishment of actual possession of the licenses. Thus, throughout the existence of the trade the law concedes the right of certain eccle siastical organizations to trade, just as it as consistently denies the individual churchman the same privilege. As usual, practice was in contravention of law. Viana de clared in 1767 that the interdiction of 1734 was "publicly and 166 THE MANILA GALLEON notoriously transgressed." However, Viceroy Villamanrique's charge that most of the galleon traders were of the clergy cannot have been true at any period. The viceroy informed the king at the same time that he was then sending one such offender to Spain and that the year before three priests had gone out to the Philippines with large sums of money of their own, besides com missions from others. Governor Dasmarinas, writing about the same time and a more competent judge, said that "from the bishop down to the humblest of them, they are as good merchants as the most secular and the most skillful trader." Governor Cruzat y Gongora, who appears to have been fearful of violating papal edicts by allowing churchmen to trade, said that during the seventeenth century ecclesiastics were not always granted the lading license conceded by the law of 1638, or that the allot ment, if made, was small. He declared that the assignment of space to the clergy had been suspended in 1683 and was still lapsed, pending the decision of the king as to its propriety. It was the next year after the writing of this letter, 1696, that a decree from Spain confirmed the ancient "custom" of the grant to the dean and chapter of the cathedral at Manila. As early as 1590 Bishop Salazar had written to Philip II of the extensive trading by his assistants, "to the great scandal and bad example to both Spaniards and natives." However, in the register of the San Felipe the next year "Fray Don Domingo de Salazar, Bishop" is credited with a shipment of fifteen bales and thirty-three boxes of merchandise. The dean of the cathedral chapter consigned in the same galleon thirteen bales and seven boxes, one of the canons five bales and three boxes, and the schoolmaster six bales, besides Padres Cervantes, Morales, Tamayo, and Gutierrez to the total amount of ten bales and eight boxes. In the lists of ship pers on the two galleons of 1635 appear the following entries: the archbishop, eight piezas; the bishop of Camarines, six piezas; the dean of the Manila cathedral, three piezas; and the master of the cathedral school, two piezas. For consideration of their trading operations the ecclesiastical organizations may be classified as the cathedral chapter, the regu lar orders, and the obras pias. As we have seen, the first of these had a traditional claim to an annual donation of boletas. The priests attached to the service of the metropolitan church were early included, collectively, of course, "on account of their poverty CITY AND COMMERCE 167 and their high dignity and character." Two years after the royal government had forced a somewhat reluctant "City and Com merce" to allow the chapter 132 piezas of lading, Governor Obando cut down the apportionment to 40 piezas, but their quota seems to have generally varied between 100 and 132 boletas. The orders, as such, might not receive any lading space, but, given the opportunity for buying boletas, this was not a serious hindrance to commercially-minded friars. The names of friars frequently appear on the manifests of the galleons. For example, two cases of goods were shipped on the San Carlos Borromeo in 1766 by the "very Reverend Padre Fray Pedro de San Miguel, Provincial of the Augustinians." It is not easy to determine the ultimate destination of the proceeds of all the investments made by the convents or the humanitarian bodies which were directed by the regulars, but it is at least charitable to assume that the great bulk of the funds was applied to the ostensible purposes of the foundations. However, the communications of lay officials frequently refer to the trading enterprises of the friars, as in con nection with the controversy over the alleged Jesuit consignments on the Santa Rosa in 1683. But neither the cathedral chapter nor the Dominican order nor the Society of Jesus in their corporate capacity ever held such a place in the economic life of the colony as was occupied by the obras pias, or "pious works." The foremost of these chari table foundations, which at times exerted a dominant influence in the commerce, was the powerful Hermandad de la Misericordia, or Brotherhood of Mercy. Other obras pias of importance were that of San Juan de Dios and the Tertiary Order of St. Francis. The origin of these institutions dates from the early years of the colony, the original endowment of the Misericordia having been established in 1596. They usually originated in the wills of benevolent merchants or affluent churchmen, who left a fund to be administered for various charitable ends. Influential lay men often sat on their boards of trustees. The foundations were to invest the money in commerce and devote the income accruing therefrom to the purposes prescribed in the original bequests. Among the services performed by the obras pias to the commun ity were: the provision of dowers for poor girls, the education of orphans, the giving of relief to the widowed and poor and to the inmates of prisons, the support of hospitals, the burial of i68 THE MANILA GALLEON the dead, the support of missions among the Chinese, and the maintenance of regular religious services. Governor Torre Campo called them "the universal comfort of this common wealth." In 1748 five agents of the commercial interests of the peninsula, always hostile to the galleon trade, made the following interesting observations on the obras pias in a communication to the king: "Although it is certain that the profits which they make in the galleon commerce are devoted to praiseworthy ends and to the service of God, yet it would be more meritorious for them to devote their resources to a business that were more useful to the interests of the islands, since it seems to us a better work of charity to remove the causes of need than to remedy it." Part of the profits from their investments were set aside to increase the original endowments of the obras and the gifts of other philan thropic-minded donors augmented their capital from time to time. In 1589 the fiscal, Ayala, petitioned the king that a certain hospital in Manila should be permitted to ship annually four tons of pepper to Mexico. With this privilege, he says, "which would little affect your Majesty's interests, they can further the work and support themselves." In 1594 Governor Luis Perez Dasmarinas conceded to one of the foundations three tons of lading space on the galleons, a privilege confirmed by Governor Tello three years later. In 1630 the king reproached the governor for granting boletas to the obras pias, who in turn disposed of them to the actual traders, but the law of 1769 recognized the traditional right of the obras pias to receive lading space on the galleons on their own account. Year after year—and century after century—the obras waxed richer and more influential, as their financial hold on the com merce was strengthened. They were favored by several consid erations. They traded with the advantage of organized effort and of a continuous policy which gave a greater steadiness and certainty to their operations than was possible with the trading of the majority of independent merchants, who were usually transient citizens of the islands. Especially was this true before the rise of wealthy creole trading families in the eighteenth cen tury. A layman could scarcely be expected to learn about the trade in a few years what was the traditional knowledge of the management of the obras. Their large capital and reserves, CITY AND COMMERCE 169 which in the Misericordia rose to several million pesos, gave them the command of resources that were lacking to the "merchant adventurers" who went out to the islands, lured by the prospect of rapid enrichment. Not only could they make larger invest ments when the prospects for unusual returns were large, but when the outlook for profits was small they could refuse to risk a large sum. The sense of security which their reserves gave them made the obras in one sense the conservative element in the traffic, while on the other hand their system of loaning to private traders encouraged a speculative spirit that was anything but con servative. It was as virtual commercial banks and marine insurance companies, rather than as active traders themselves, that the obras pias held such an important place in the galleon trade. "The Acapulco ship," declared the city authorities to Governor Berenguer de Marquina in 1788, "created the funds of the obras pias, which, like so many banks of commerce, place their treas ure at the disposal of these merchants." As bankers of the trade, they financed much of its operations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Garcia de Villar, secretary of the Miseri cordia, said that between 1734 and 1766 that body had loaned to traders on the galleons a total of 3,319,787 pesos. The eight minor obras, on the basis of their comparative resources, probably loaned an aggregate of at least 5,000,000 pesos during the same period. Even the richer merchants often had recourse to their loans, while they furnished much of the money for the invest ments of lesser traders. The rate on loans for the Acapulco line fluctuated between twenty and fifty percent. The directors based the current rate on the several circumstances which determined the financial condi tion of the colony at the moment, while their calculations were also affected by the balancing of these conditions over a number of years. The elements of risk were computed by weighing the solvency and personal credit of the prospective debtor, the pros pects for the fair at Acapulco, the chance of shipwreck—a difficult factor to forecast—and the possibility of capture by pirates or enemies. Allowing for some tangible basis for conclusions in any of these factors of probability, there remained, of course, seri ous elements of uncertainty that could scarcely be reduced to a percentage. Thus, the difficulty of securing advance information 170 THE MANILA GALLEON from Mexico as to the state of the viceroyalty, which would not be useless by the time it reached Manila, made it difficult to pre dict the prospects for a profitable sale of the galleon's cargo. The chance of the earlier arrival of the regular fleet from Spain at Vera Cruz might seriously affect the outcome of the fair at Acapulco. Also, an unexpectedly rigorous administration at the Mexican port, as happened in 1635, would nullify any calcula tions based on the habitual leniency of the port officials in regard to the admission of excess cargo. A prosperous year in New Spain—an unusual production of silver or an exceptional harvest in the valleys of Jalisco and Puebla—would bring a heavier de mand for the luxuries of the Orient. The coincidence of a ship newly arrived from Peru would ensure better prices at Acapulco for the galleon's cargo. Beyond taking account of the season at which the galleon would clear from Cavite and the external evidences of her seaworthiness, the obras could not, of course, determine with any approach to mathematical accuracy the chance of shipwreck. The obras were accustomed to carry on their books a special reserve against possible losses from such disasters. However, the rates of interest were maintained on high enough a scale to ensure a safe margin, unless a succession of calamities should draw too heavily on the resources and credit of the community. A series of unforeseen calamities might seriously cripple the colony for several years, as actually occurred during several dark periods of the galleons' history. The amount of money at large in the city and available for investment also in fluenced the rate of loans by the obras. In times of confidence and well-being, when men were eager to invest in the trade, the obras could exact high rates of interest. When the colony throve the foundations flourished, but in periods of depression and mis fortune their revenues and their reserves would decrease and they were forced to lower their rates of interest in order to en courage traders to invest at all or to collect their already out standing debts. "Because of the depression in this commerce during the past few years," wrote Governor Arandia to Arriaga, the Supreme Minister, in 1758, "the obras pias have been obliged to lower their interest charges from 50 percent to 25 percent, in order to redeem some of the claims which they hold against the citizens of this community." The obras received severe blows from the capture of the Covadonga by Lord Anson in 1748 and CITY AND COMMERCE 171 from the depredations of the English in 1762, when they held Manila for ransom and took the great Sant'tsima Trinidad. Under the system which usually prevailed, the person who desired to invest a sum on the galleon would generally borrow about twice as much as he intended to put out in merchandise. He reserved enough to pay the interest in case he might be forced to postpone payment of the principal to another year. The bulk of the remainder he used in purchasing his consignment of goods. In case this were lost as a result of shipwreck or otherwise proved a bad venture, he would invest the third part in the next year's galleon in the hope of recouping his losses and meeting his obli gation to the obras. Though the lucrativeness of the trade in ordinary years insured a considerable gain to both parties, when ever the returns from Acapulco were small or failed altogether a debtor of the obras, who had not providently made plans against such a contingency, might be hard pressed to settle his accounts with them. To repudiate his obligations would mean the loss of his credit in the money market of the colony, and so disqualify him from further participation in the galleon trade. For the purpose of liquidating, investors were sometimes able to borrow money in Mexico at 25 percent, with which they paid debts contracted of the obras at 40 or 50 percent. The influence which the obras pias were able to exert over the commerce was not an unmixed benefit. Padre Zuniga, the his torian, whose order had profited largely from the trade, severely condemned the system. However, he granted the usefulness of the services which the obras could perform to newcomers to the islands who desired to trade but lacked capital and powerful connections in the lay community. The readiness with which they loaned money in good times put a premium on speculation and discouraged investment in the development of local enter prises. An Englishman, who visited the islands during the gal leon regime, said: "More harm than good has been done by these establishments." He declared further that "when, without risking any capital of his own, the merchant might thus share the enormous profits of this trade, with no more exertion than signing the invoices and letters, and receiving the treasure on the return of the vessel, it is not surprising that for nearly two centuries they neglected the other commercial advantages around them, or that such a commerce produced such merchants." The 172 THE MANILA GALLEON severest indictment of the obras pias came from the consulado, which, from its foundation in 1769, represented the lay interest in the trade, as opposed to the traditional preponderance of the powerful foundations. The importance of the obras, it informed the king, proved that the city of Manila was only "a magnificent, useless, unique and extravagant hospital constructed at a dis tance of six thousand leagues from the metropolis, at the expense of the treasury and the commerce of the commonwealth." Yet, the consulado made this concession to the obras: "Each year they put out from 100,000 to 120,000 pesos, so that the poorer mer chants who succeed in making three or four shipments build new houses, and every six years one may count twenty merchants with from 40,000 to 50,000 pesos made solely by means of ad vances from the obras." It would have been impossible to expect, in view of the liberal interpretation of royal decrees customary in the Philippines, that lay officials would deny to themselves the opportunities provided by the galleon trade. The government in the peninsula de manded of its representatives in the Indies an aloofness from the essentially local interests of their jurisdiction which should have confined their attention to the service of the crown. Neither viceroy nor governor, nor official of lesser category was to have a material stake in the land over which he ruled in the name of a far-off king. However, this disinterestedness varied largely in proportion to the particular official's distance from the itinerant court of Spain. Governors and their subordinates in the Philip pines could trade until their coffers were filled with Mexican silver in defiance of a remote government whose long arm was rendered almost impotent by the two oceans and the continent which lay between. Contraband trading under any guise has always been considered a venial peccadillo among Spanish peo ples, all law and theory to the contrary. The dread residencia, or formal reckoning held after his retirement from office, might reach out and enmesh a too flagrantly thrifty governor, but the very accumulation of his investments might insure him from sen tence. A decree of 1598 forbade trading by royal officials, and the regulations of 1734 barred them with the same insistence that it excluded ecclesiastics. The law of 1769 omitted them from those special classes who might receive boletas. The extent to which CITY AND COMMERCE 173 these laws were observed may be illustrated by a few examples. In 1586 the judge, Pedro de Rojas, wrote to Philip II: "Nothing else has wrought such ruin in this country as the trading and trafficking of those who govern it." Yet, in the register of the San Felipe a few years later the same Pedro de Rojas consigned seventeen bales and four boxes of merchandise. At the same time Santiago de Vera, president of the audiencia and former gover nor, was credited with sixty bales and twenty-nine boxes, and the judge, Ribera Maldonado, and the fiscal, Ayala, with respec tively fifty-two bales and twenty boxes, and twenty-seven bales and seventeen boxes. Most of the governors whose administra tion extended over several years left the islands rich men, unless an especially severe residencia of his term of office or such an implacable sentence of the Inquisition as fell on the unfortunate Salcedo drained them of their gains. Hernando de los Rios Coronel, agent of the colony, informed the king that in two ships which had been despatched to Acapulco the governor had not allowed the citizens a single ton of lading space. It was this protest which had its effect in the decree of 1620, reprehending the governor for his maladministration of the galleon trade. Yet this same governor, Fajardo y Tenza, ordered the audiencia to prevent "secret and clandestine" trading by government officials. Viana, writing in 1767, said that in his time the governor usually shipped goods to the value of 100 boletas. This quantity of lading space would imply a return value of 25,000 pesos, but its actual value might be many times that amount. As to the commercial activities of the oidores or members of the audiencia, a petition of the Dominican friars in 1610 for the suppression of the audiencia charges the judges of that high court with using their position to promote their own trading interests and those of their sons, relatives and connections, "to the very great injury of the poor and of the inhabitants of the city." Governor Acuna charged that the members of this body traded through the medium of their "creatures and connections." Yet, in 1753, when Governor Obando, in his radical reorganiza tion of the whole scheme of allotment, assigned five boletas to each judge and the fiscal and five additional boletas to the dean of the audiencia for his services on the new junta, all, save one not too squeamish judge, indignantly returned them as prohibited by law. Such displays of scruples were so rare that one is almost 174 THE MANILA GALLEON justified in questioning the expressed motives of the self-denying judges, who may not have considered five boletas as commensu rate with their office, and who certainly resented the governor's disturbance of the old order in the trade without their coopera tion. Obando declared that the judges were preparing to send their lading clandestinely, as before, rather than to accept his allotment. The regidores, or city councillors, of Manila, did not trade under the ban which deterred the royal officials so little. Their right to receive lading space on the galleon was specifically con firmed by royal orders and was seldom questioned, except by Viana, who proposed that they should be paid forty pesos per boleta, to indemnify them for relinquishing the actual use of their trading licenses. The law of 1769 had recommended this change to the consulado, but it had apparently not been put into practice. The councilmen usually received one ton of space, or the volume represented by eight boletas, which carried the sub stantial legal value of 1,000 pesos in Manila. However, these mu nicipal officials generally had other sources of income, and one case was known in which a councilman received a total of sev enty-eight boletas, by the combination of different qualifications which he was able to offer to the junta. When Governor Obando revised the lists in 1753 there was scarcely a public servant in the islands who was omitted from the rolls. The first official of the treasury received two piezas, on account of his "much work and little pay"; the secretary of gov ernment and war, eight; and the Spanish mayors of distant pro vincial towns, the advocate of the poor, and the officers of the palace guard, from one to eight. Among others, Obando in cluded several foreigners resident in Manila—Edward Wogan, Don Diego O'Kennedy, and a M. Boutet. One hundred and eighteen boletas were given to various persons "for past services." One of the most revolutionary features of Obando's program was that of 2,000 piezas, he assigned 900 to military and naval officers in active service. The "City and Commerce" complained to the king that Obando granted lading space to army officers independently of what they received as citizens, which would seem to show that officers might satisfy the eligibility require ments for shippers by having the qualifications demanded of ordi CITY AND COMMERCE 175 nary citizens. Nearly a century and a half before Antonio de Morga had written: "His Majesty prohibits all who are in his pay in the military forces from engaging in commerce; and orders the governor not to allow them to export goods to New Spain. It would not be amiss if the governors would observe this order." Under Obando's plan the high post of maestre de campo, or master of the camp, was rewarded with eleven and one-fourth boletas. The sergeant-major of the forces was as signed five and infantry captains from two to four. All other grades were included, whether at Manila or Cavite, or in the presidios of Zamboanga, Palawan, Vigan, Dapitan and Cagayan. Liberal allowances were also made to those in command of two expeditions destined for operations against the Moros on Palawan and among the Jolo Archipelago. The concession of lading space to retired officers was not unknown, and was probably the general rule, as a convenient form of pension. In 1620 the king reprimanded the governor for this donation, which he declared detrimental to the interests of the actual merchants. The regulations of 1734 included in the allotment the officers of the garrison at Cavite, and the law of 1769 recognized the "custom" of giving trading licenses to "soldiers," along with "churches, obras pias, widows, orphans and the city council." Viana, raised to a seat in the Council of the Indies, advised in 1778 that, in view of their recent increase of salary, the officers should be deprived of the income which they received from the boletas. About the same time the judge, Gon zalez Carbajal, complained that membership in the consulado was so lucrative that officers abandoned the profession of arms to enroll themselves as merchants, until it was difficult to keep up the quota of officers needed for the command of the forces. "A purely mercantile spirit reigns in this colony," he said, "and riches are preferred to titles of honor." A royal order of 1740 directed that all parts of the islands must share in the trade in proportion to the numbers and wealth of their Spanish inhabitants. This decree was issued on receiv ing a petition from the city of Cebu, requesting that its citizens be allowed 400 of the 4,000 boletas distributed by the junta. Cebu, as well as Zamboanga, was included within the scope of Obando's plan of reorganization. Thus, the galleon came to carry in its hold the material hopes of every Spaniard from the ramparts of 176 THE MANILA GALLEON Zamboanga to the lonely post that guarded the Cagayan coast in the north. Those who navigated the galleons also shared in the proceeds of the cargoes stowed away in the hold and piled high on the decks of their rich argosies. However, in the early legislation for the traffic a law of 1604 prohibited officers of the line from trad ing. The law continued to be generally violated, and in 1703 the "City and Commerce" petitioned the king to order its strict en forcement. In the clause of the regulations of 1734, granting per mission for a chest of lading to each sailor and soldier on the gal leon, officers are excluded. However, the law of 1769 ordered the allotment to officers of "as much lading space as the junta should consider necessary for their aid." A few years later the governor reported to the Council of the Indies that he permitted officers of the galleons to trade in their own names, as though this were a new concession. The Council observed that the prohibition, which they assumed to exist, had been the "cause of false oaths, and of recourse to the employment of a dummy, in whose head the invoice reposes, while it is notorious that the officer is the legitimate owner of the consignment." These inconsistencies can only be explained by the assumption of ignorance of the laws concerned, a condition by no means uncommon in the adminis tration of the Spanish empire. In view of the mass of colonial legislation and the press of business before the Council of the Indies it is only surprising that the legal ignorance of the govern ment was not often more glaring. Whatever the law, the officers of the galleon traded. Her nando de los Rios Coronel complained very early that the officers sometimes owned as much as a third of the cargo, largely "be cause they were appointees of the governor." On the galleons of 1635 the commander had seven tons of lading and the lesser officers and crews a total of 560 bales. In 1753 Governor Obando conferred forty-seven and one-fourth boletas on the commander of the galleon, the Marques de Villamedina, who had been his private secretary. At the same time he granted thirty and threefourths boletas to the first pilot, while the allotment to the rest of the officers was graduated according to their rank, down to one pieza for the "master of the water rations." The crew usually received an allotment of space, the pro ceeds of which were expected to net each of them about sixty CITY AND COMMERCE pesos. This privilege was confirmed by the regulations of 1734, which excluded the lading for the crews from the total of 500,000 pesos, to which the original value of the cargo was limited. Each seaman was permitted to carry a chest, which he might fill to the extent of the above nominal value. However, these chests had a most expansive capacity when Chinese packing methods were applied to their contents. The seamen often loaded more than one chest, under the pretext that they contained their own personal wearing apparel, until they accumulated prodigious and luxurious wardrobes of Chinese silks. Viana complained that the chests belonging to the crews littered the decks of the gal leons, "to the great danger of the ship on the longest and most trying voyage in the world." Long before his time, in 1608, a royal order had attempted to provide against the danger and inconvenience resulting from this abuse, but the violation was so gross and apparently so inevitable that the king issued a blanket pardon for all previous infractions and increased the sailors' allotment from sixty to one hundred pesos. The seamen would often sell the space at high prices to traders in Manila. The authorities at both ends of the trade were particularly toler ant towards disregard of the restrictions by the seamen, for they believed that the possession of a share in the galleon's cargo gave the crew a greater interest in her defense if she were attacked, and that it would induce them to remain in the arduous and trying service of the line. The conduct of the galleon traffic at Manila amounted to a progression of the shipper from one junta or committee to an other. He received his allotment of lading space from the junta del repartimiento, and through the commissioner of the pancada he obtained a supply of goods more or less in conformity with the volume of this apportionment. He next submitted to the junta de evaluo, or board of appraisement, a detailed statement of his consignment. He then had his invoices registered and entered on the books of the galleon in the contadurta or bureau of accounts. The work of valuation was entrusted to a committee made up of the fiscal and one or both of the royal treasury officials, representing the government interest, and two deputies named by the "City and Commerce." The fiscal was charged with the general superintendence of the operations of the body. Beyond 178 THE MANILA GALLEON the primal duty of assuring the limitation of the aggregate con signments within the legal limits, their work also served as basis for the levying of duties and the assessment of the freight. Each shipper was required to present an itemized account of his con signments with a declaration of the volume and contents of each bale or chest. He was obliged to swear that the goods were as described and that he was the sole and original consignor of the shipment. By the law of 1769 a simple assertion was accepted in lieu of the "grievous burden" of taking an oath. Over a century before Grau y Monfalcon, representing the interests of the trade in Spain, had protested against the exacting of a sworn declaration by the board of appraisement. On the basis of a lightsitting perjury or a conventional statement the official valuation was made. The reasonable method for ascertaining the value of the invoices submitted would have been by the actual examina tion of the goods themselves, but any such procedure was impos sible in the face of general opinion. The government was not able to insist on such a measure for long and it quickly fell into abeyance, until the regulations of 1734 expressly disavowed the idea of physical valuation. The formal acceptance of the word or, at least, of the facile oath of a gentleman, was in accord with the tacit and ubiquitous covenant which existed in Manila for the disregard of the restrictive laws. The supreme government in Spain probably preferred the perfunctory observance of its orders to a hopeless effort to enforce a series of regulations which the whole body of citizens were united to ignore. As so often in Spanish history, the purpose of legislation was defeated by the interference of a scrupulous respect for the individual's word, to challenge which would have constituted a serious affront to his person and his "honor." The fiscal was expected to guard against the effects of this atmosphere of illegality, but every fiscal was neither zealous nor incorruptible, though a few like Viana could be veritable scourges against those who offended under the toler ance of venerable traditions. The Council of the Indies recog nized in a decision of 1698 that the weakest link in the elaborate concatenation of provisions made to prevent the exceeding of the permiso was in the low valuation placed on goods at Manila, and the officials sent down to Acapulco by the Visitor-General, Galvez, in 1767 held the same opinion as to the origin of the frauds which confronted them on the arrival of the galleon. CITY AND COMMERCE 179 The valuation set on goods by the official board at Manila was calculated according to a scale of values which was seldom changed in early times, but was later put at intervals of five years for non-Philippine and at ten years for insular products. The appraisal was made with becoming solemnity on the basis of the contents of two bales of standard weight, one of which had been pressed. The results arrived at were publicly proclaimed and posted. The fluctuations in the prices of Asiatic goods in the eighteenth century made it particularly difficult, in view of the rigidity of the permiso, to establish equitable valuations for the goods sent by the galleons. Thus, a vara of Chinese taffeta sold in Manila at about the same price for the decade 1590-1600 as in the ten years between 1640 and 1650; but between 1730 and 1770 there was a great rise in the prices of Chinese merchandise. A chart of comparative prices of oriental goods carried by the galleons for the years 1736 and 1770 gives the aggregate price of a certain lot of similar goods at respectively 1,248 and 3,081 pesos. Governor Anda declared in 1768 that the average increase in prices since 1734 had been about 300 percent. Foreign competi tion at Canton and Amoy had had much to do with complicat ing the original simplicity of the Chinese market for the Spaniards. After being certified in the board of appraisement the in voices were taken to the bureau of accounts. Here they were copied into the galleon register and the duties assessed on the basis of the value sworn to before the former body. Viana said, however, that it was customary for the shippers to substitute false invoices with a much reduced appraisal, which were drawn up by the regular deputies of the city's trading interests. A royal decree of 1583 begins: "It is important to our service always to be informed of the state of the Philippine trade, in order to know whether it is increasing, and of the prices current and what medium of exchange is used." Therefore the viceroy was ordered to send in each fleet from Vera Cruz a copy of the register of the last galleon from Manila. In the early years of the trade these were little more than a few manifest sheets, which had been submitted to the port officials at Acapulco, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries some of them were huge volumes of over three thousand pages. The register contained a list of the merchants of the colony, with the apportionment of boletas made i8o THE MANILA GALLEON by the board of apportionment. The bulk of the register con sisted of the manifests of shipments which made up the cargo. These gave a highly detailed description of each consignment. Besides the name of the original consignor and a reproduction of his private mark, which was put on all his packages, three names were given of those who were consecutively designated to dis pose of the goods at Acapulco. The alternates were appointed to succeed in turn in case of the death of the original representa tive of the owner. The high chance of death on the galleons from scurvy or other cause made such a three-fold precaution necessary. During the first years of the trade no duties were levied on the cargoes of the galleons. However, with the end of the brief period of unrestricted trading duties began to be levied at both terminals of the line. The first form of contribution was a tax on Chinese and other imports into Manila. This actually amounted to an indirect impost on the galleon trade, since the Chinese nat urally shifted the final incidence of the duty onto their cus tomers. The original rate of three percent as fixed by Governor Ronquillo in 1582 was raised to six percent in 1606 and to eight percent in 1714. In 1760 the rate was reduced to five percent for Orientals and to three percent for cargoes owned by citizens of Manila. Total collections from this tax usually varied between 40,000 and 60,000 pesos a year. Direct taxation of the galleon cargoes was so unpopular at Manila that it could never be consistently applied on any appre ciable scale. In 1591 Governor Gomez Perez Dasmarinas laid a two percent export tax on the galleon trade to pay the cost of building a wall around the city, but a royal decree of six years later prohibited the continuation of the assessment after the completion of the wall in that year. In the face of local senti ment efforts to revive the tax were of no avail, though after the end of the Dutch wars in 1648 an export duty, which generally yielded about 7,500 pesos, appears to have been imposed with considerable regularity. The bulk of the duties on the galleon trade was collected in Mexico. This was in the form of a tax called by the Arabicsounding word of almojarifazgo. Here there was no such or ganized and permanent opposition to taxation as impeded the levying of duties at Manila. Apparently on viceregal authority, a duty of twelve pesos per tonelada was early exacted from the CITY AND COMMERCE 181 cargoes that arrived at Acapulco. By an order of Viceroy Villamanrique this rate was raised in 1586 to forty-five pesos, but five years later a ten percent ad valorem rate was established by royal decree. In 1684 Viceroy Paredes substituted a fixed contribution of 74,000 pesos for the old ad valorem basis, but the general law of 1720, reorganizing the trade, set the lump payment at 100,000 pesos. The regulations of 1734 restored the former system and fixed the rate at sixteen and two-thirds percent on the Acapulco valuation. This basis remained in effect until 1776, at which time the permiso was raised from 500,000—1,000,000 pesos to 750,000— 1,500,000 pesos. The same law reduced the rate on the amount of the original permiso to nine percent, while the old rate of sixteen and two-thirds percent was collected on the excess over that figure. This reduction was in force for but a few years, to be revived in 1806, after a return to the old arrangement of a fixed sum in payment. However, by 1808 the Manila consulado was again complaining of the high duties at the other terminal, which, they claimed, amounted to thirty-five percent of the Ma nila valuation. The Philippine trade was subject to other contributions at Acapulco. Some of them were extraordinary imposts, like the averia tax for the occasional defense of the galleons, but others were assessed with greater continuity. Among the latter was a small admiralty tax or almirantazgo. On passing through the internal customs outside Mexico City goods off the galleons also paid an dcabala or sales tax generally amounting to six percent of their value. The proceeds of the almojarifazgo tax were remitted to the insular treasury at Manila as part of the so-called situado or subsidy. At times, the tax thus rebated to Manila constituted the entire situado payment for the year, but an additional sum was normally added from the viceregal treasury. This arrangement represented no special generosity on the part of the royal govern ment, but was a common feature of the fiscal system of the Span ish empire. The silver-producing regions of Mexico and Peru were required to contribute to the support of less productive parts of the empire, such as Florida, whose value was more strategic and sentimental than economic. Of the insular government Antonio de Morga wrote early in the seventeenth century: "These expenses are generally greatly in excess of these duties, and the l82 THE MANILA GALLEON amount is made up from the royal treasury of Mexico." In 1640 Grau y Monfalcon gave as the total expenses of the region under the jurisdiction of the Philippine government 850,734 pesos, much of which was spent in maintaining the costly establishment in the Moluccas. To offset this sum he declared that the total revenue derived from the galleon trade at that time was approximately 300,000 pesos. There was never any uniformity in the amount of the situado, even after the king ordered it in 1700 to be fixed at 140,000 pesos. The figures for a number of years chosen at random will illustrate its fluctuations in quantity: 1666, 85,000 pesos; 1673, 136,138 pesos; 1678, 338,832 pesos; 1680, 120,208 pesos; 1725, 72,801 pesos; 1730, 90,922 pesos; 1742, 211,000 pesos; 1786, 346,912 pesos; 1787, 74,383 pesos. The situado was not abolished until 1804, many years after Governor Basco y Vargas' establishment of the state tobacco monopoly and other innovations had made the Philippines self-sustaining. The merchandise for the galleon was packed with great care, generally by Chinese. The silks were compressed to extreme compactness, in order to take the fullest advantage of the limited space for lading. The Spaniards found in the skill of the Chinese packers one of the most convenient means of exceeding the limits fixed by the permiso. Representatives of the trading interests of the peninsula informed the king in 1748 that a Manila chest con tained twice as much goods as one of similar size in Spain. A mule, they declared, could not carry even two chests of cotton goods packed in Manila, whereas any mule could carry at least two of the larger Spanish chests. To select a few typical packages at random: one chest on the Concepci6n in 1774, containing 250 pieces of pearl-colored Cantonese taffeta and 72 pieces of scarlet gauze, weighed about 250 pounds gross. A chest containing 1140 pairs of stockings weighed about 230 pounds and one containing 9,564 Lanquin combs about 330 pounds. Every package was tightly covered, to protect its contents from the seas which sometimes broke in through the hatches and from the insects bred in the ship on the long voyage. Methods of packing were also devised with a view to the chances of inspec tion at Acapulco. Whenever there was a question of actual examination of the contents the sight of the solid covering in itself discouraged the opening of a bale or chest. Disinclination CITY AND COMMERCE 183 to physical exertion in the climate of Acapulco further insured the immunity of the forbidding packages from handling. In ferior goods were often placed on the outside, and if a package were opened by some overzealous port official, he generally ap praised the entire lot on the basis of a hasty examination of these cheaper stuffs. The rough transportation by mule-back from the coast into the interior of Mexico also necessitated unusually care ful packing. The galleons were sometimes laden in the open roadstead off the city, but more often at the ribera or shore at Cavite, the point of land situated about ten miles across a wide curve of the bay of Manila and opposite the scene of the naval battle of 1898. It was in the yards at Cavite that most of the galleons had been built and here they were repaired and refitted for each new voy age. They were also better protected there under the guns of the fort than they would have been in the open bay, where they would have been exposed to surprise attacks by piratical raiders from the Moro islands or by Dutch or English ships in their occasional descents on the Philippines. When lying off Cavite they were also better sheltered from the force of the typhoons which sometimes swept over the bay. The "Laws of the Indies" provided for almost every detail in the loading of the galleons. The customary provisions were made for this, as for the other stages of the traffic, and with much the same results. Again the fiscal was entrusted with first place in the work of supervision. Occasionally the governor came over from Manila to inspect the operations. Governor Campo y Cosio (1721-29) sent two semi-official watchers to ob serve the process of embarking the cargo and supplies. His suc cessor, Governor Valdes, continued the plan, but the opposition of the "City and Commerce" to the prying of the two inquisitive appointees of the governor led the king in 1737 to "suppress and extinguish" the two watchers. The law of 1769 gave the first officer of the galleon particular oversight of the work of loading the cargo. These different officials were to take account, either in per son or through a subordinate, of every package that was carried onto the galleon. They were to compare it with the entries in the corresponding invoice and to see that it bore the proper marks and did not exceed the prescribed dimensions. For the latter 184 THE MANILA GALLEON purpose they were equipped with a standard bronze measure to which every bale and chest were expected to conform. In case the volume of a package was found to exceed the regulation di mension it was to be rigorously sent ashore. However, their use fulness was greatly limited by their inability to open a suspected package. They were to allow no lot of goods to pass that was not accompanied by a voucher showing that the shipper had paid the prescribed duties to the insular treasury. The fiscal and his col leagues were also required to ascertain if sufficient supplies and stores of every kind were being embarked. With the same view to the safety of the voyage, they were instructed to guard against the overloading of the vessel. With the strict observance of the requirements for measur ing beforehand the capacity of the galleon's hold and for restrict ing the aggregate of lading permits to this volume the cargo could have been automatically confined within the limits of both legality and safety. However, the usual overloading of the gal leon and the exceeding of the permiso can only be explained by the habitual laxness or downright corruption of those charged with the surveillance of the work of embarcation. Furthermore, the officials at Manila were powerless to prevent the loading of goods on the way out of the islands, since their functions ended when the hatches were closed in Manila Bay. A law of 1608 required that the cargo should be restricted to the main hold, while the extra sails and tackle, the provisions and the chests containing the seamen's effects were to be stowed between decks. Every cubic inch of space available in the hold was crammed with merchandise, so that there would be little danger of the packages being thrown about and broken open in rough weather. Not only was this space filled to capacity, but in spite of the law of 1604 the ships were habitually overloaded. Bales and chests were piled in the cabins and passage-ways and along the decks. They were stowed in the compartments reserved for necessary stores and supplies and in the powder-magazine itself, while a flotilla of rafts, laden with water-tight bales, was sometimes dragged after the galleon, to be hoisted on deck when the sea was high. All this not only hindered movement about the ship, but the overweighting of the galleon was the cause of several disasters in the history of the line. Among others, Viceroy Monterey CITY AND COMMERCE 185 ascribed the loss of the Santa Margarita and the San Gerdnimo in 1600 to this cause. Several times captains had to turn their galleons back to Manila in order to unload enough of the excess cargo to prevent their vessels from foundering. Ofter necessary equipment and provisions were left on shore at Cavite in order that the space thus made available might be utilized for the lad ing of a few more of the precious bales of silks. When they thus put to sea without the extra sails and spars for an only too prob able emergency and without the supplies of water and food for a voyage that so often stretched into a fatal seventh month, those responsible for this criminal negligence were sacrificing every consideration of safety for the chance of speedy enrichment. For this they were willing to face the risk, not only of the royal dis pleasure and the sentence of the residencia, but of shipwreck or starvation in the last stages of the long voyage. The elaborate system of regulations which were designed to keep the galleon commerce within the bounds of the permiso remained virtually a dead letter. "By the same difficulty and im possibility in practice," said Pedro Calderon Enriquez, "it has always been permitted on payment of a quota to return to the islands the full yield of the cargo, either under the pretence that the excess is a residue from previous shipments or has a special right to exemption. Sometimes it is with the express tolerance of the viceroys, who recognize that the literal observance of the regulations is impossible." On one side was the universal interest of the Manilenos in circumventing the restrictions. In the other was the central government, struggling paternally and ponder ously to hold a proper balance between the discordant demands of the various parts of the Spanish empire. Between them lay two oceans and the breadth of Mexico—over half the circum ference of the earth. Translated into terms of time, they were separated by years. It required nearly three years for an exchange of communications, a circumstance which strained nearly to the breaking point the sentiment of obedience to the orders of the crown, when those orders conflicted with self-interest. The in struments for the execution of the king's laws were for the most part very fallible men. They were either too venal to resist the advantage of an interested collusion in the violation of the laws or powerless to withstand the unanimous sentiment of the com munity they governed. Governor Corcuera protested that he i86 THE MANILA GALLEON was too busy with other matters to enforce the permiso. Viana told the king in 1770 that if he should oppose the system at Manila "the whole city would rise against me and without doubt they would either kill me, or they would with the greatest ease block any investigation." He gives as the principal causes and manifestations of the irregularities in the trade: (1) the "abuse, disorder and falsity of the valuations placed on the goods in the bureau of accounts at Manila;" (2) the false oaths made as to these valuations; (3) the casuistical opinions held by certain theologians as to the venality of such perjuries; (4) the excess value of the piezas or packages, often worth 500 to 900 pesos instead of the legal maximum of 125; (5) the permission granted by the viceroy and the Acapulco port officials for the embarcation of the excess silver on the payment of a consideration of ten per cent of the silver involved; and (6) the distribution of boletas, "the root and origin of all the rest." Few governors or viceroys exerted any deterrent effect on the illegal practices at their respective ends of the line. Instead, many of them profited greatly from its operations. Sande was one of the first governors to enrich himself by investments on the gal leon. In 1767 Viana said that the governors were accustomed to leave the islands after four or five years with 300,000 to 500,000 pesos accumulated above the expenses of their term of office. The viceroys too, were prohibited from trading. Yet Thomas Gage, the English friar, said of Cerralvo: "This man was thought to get a million a year, what with gifts and presents, what with his trading to Spain and the Philippines." The Marques de Paredes was said to have been interested in the trade to the extent of 50,000 pesos a year. Villamanrique complained as early as 1587 of the laxness of officials at Acapulco and Manila, and took positive steps to secure greater rigor in the port administration at Acapulco. There was as yet no permiso, but the viceroy attempted on his own responsibility to hold the young trade within bounds. Monterey confessed his inability to check the irregularities which he knew to exist in the trade. "The excess of contraband cargo amounts to a large figure," he advised the king. "It would be almost im possible to prevent it, even though I do not grant a license, either express or tacit, for a real more than the permiso." When a royal decree was issued in 1606, ordering the suppression of the frauds, CITY AND COMMERCE 187 Montesclaros did little to put it into effect. And while the younger Velasco declared his willingness to attempt its enforce ment, he had little faith in the results of his efforts. "Nothing can be found out," he said, "and the merchants are not so scrupulous that their conscience gnaws them." He acknowl edged that no remedy was possible so long as the trade existed. Linares in 1714 declared his helplessness in the face of conditions at Acapulco. The tacit understanding among the merchants baffled all attempts to place the responsibility for frauds, while the port officials were "vitiated by self interest." Fuenclara tried with the "greatest rigor" to suppress the frauds, but was able to accomplish little against the ingenuity of the merchants and the avarice of his subordinates. Representatives of Andalusian in terests in Mexico declared in 1748 that Fuenclara was the only viceroy who had ever even partly succeeded in limiting the gal leon trade. Cruillas wrote at length to Charles III of the irregu larities which he declared necessary evils in all commerce, and "much more inevitable in that of the Philippines." The viceroy was so far from Acapulco, he said, that he was forced to trust to the good faith of his agents, whom the merchants deceived rather than suborned. "They labor to seek devices," he said, "for defeating by their contraband dealings all the severities of the laws and all the vigilance of the authorities." The only effective expedient for securing even occasional conformity with the restrictive laws was the extraordinary inspec tion known in Spanish administrative law as the visita. The king might commission a visitador or "visitor" to go out and report on conditions in any part of the empire, even of an entire viceroyalty. As the immediate and special representative of the crown, he held precedence over the ordinary administrative officials within the jurisdiction of his visita, and might take such action as he deemed for the royal interest. Consequently, like the somewhat analogous depute" en mission of the French Revolu tion and the interventor of the Latin American republics, he was an official to be feared—and courted. Most famous of these royal commissioners in the history of the galleon trade was Pedro de Quiroga y Moya. This visitador was sent to Acapulco in 1635 with instructions to inquire into the notorious laxity of affairs at that port and to make provision against continuance of the illegalities. "If the commission borne i88 THE MANILA GALLEON by Quiroga had been fulfilled," declared Grau y Monfalc6n, spokesman for the insular interests, "the islands would have been ruined." As it was, during the four months of his stay at Acapulco he threw the trade into consternation by the unprecedented severity of his actions. He revalued the cargo of the incoming galleon and then collected duties accordingly. He laid an em bargo on the line, requiring a composition of 600,000 pesos to raise it, and then interfered with the return of what proceeds remained from the sale of the cargo. Though "God permitted" that the terrible visitador should die "in the midst of his cruelties," the effects of his mission were felt for several years. When the news reached Manila that its shippers could no longer count on official leniency at the other terminal of the line the merchants refused to freight another galleon until the old regime were reestablished at Acapulco. For two years the only ship to leave the islands for America was a patache with a cargo worth 150,000 pesos consigned to the account of the all-powerful Conde-Duque de Olivares, chief ad viser of the king. A reversal of policy was finally obtained at court and a sec ond visitador, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, was commissioned to reestablish the tranquil operation of the trade, and to fix some equitable arrangement for its future conduct. The conciliatory proceedings of the new agent reassured the Manilenos and the operation of the commerce gradually reassumed the comparative serenity and laxity that had prevailed before the incorruptible Quiroga's harsh irruption into its sphere. The motive of concealment of the real value of the galleon's cargo was so strong that only approximate figures as to the actual extent of the traffic are possible. The ships' registers and the records of the treasury officials at Manila and Acapulco are of little value, as they generally take no account of excess cargo. The accounts of their booty as reported by the foreign navigators who took one of the galleons are likely to be more trustworthy as authorities. Other foreign writers, further removed from actual contact with the trade, and apparently relying on their own imaginations or on sailors' stories, value the cargoes of these mystery argosies at the exaggerated figures of romance. "The trade to Asia by ships from Acapulco was estimated at 10,000,000 CITY AND COMMERCE 189 of dollars," said William Walton, and Savary de Bruslons de clared that five to six million pesos were annually returned to the Philippines. Andalusian agents in Mexico in 1748 declared that the total returns of the Manila Galleon for three years exceeded those of the trading fleet for the same period. Twelve and ten million pesos are the respective figures given. A general junta called in 1723, during the controversy between Manila and the Andalusian cities, declared that the cargo of the galleon regularly amounted to ten or twelve thousand fardos—four thousand was the legal maximum—"whose proceeds amounted to as much as 4,000,000 pesos." According to the Council of the Indies in 1772, the gal leons always returned to Manila from two to three million pesos. The Council adduces as evidence the 3,000,000 pesos worth of goods taken from the Santisima Trinidad by the English. Its members condemn the "culpable frauds committed by the gov ernment of the Philippines and by that community, which have never observed any ordinance, regulation or royal decision relat ing to trade." They characterize the attitude of the Manilenos as "the spirit of corruption which has always been typical of the citizens of the Philippines." The Council declared in 1764 that 2,000,000 pesos were regularly embarked at Acapulco over the permiso. Ten percent of this excess, they charge, was divided among the officials at Acapulco and the viceroy. Without doubt a more authentic basis for computation is the information of Spaniards who were closely conversant with the traffic, either as ordinary officials or as special investigators. Both Antonio Fernandez de Castro and Viceroy Monterey asserted that the Santo Tomds, lost in 1601, carried over 2,000,000 pesos above the permiso. The fiscal at Manila declared in 1688 that the gal leons generally returned at least 2,000,000 pesos. The archbishop said in 1701 that the San Francisco Xavier brought 2,070,000 pesos in 1698, and the Rosario an equal amount the next year, and he declared further that "two millions in fabrics are generally em barked." "What galleon has returned from Acapulco since time immemorial," asked Governor Valdes in 1732, "without a mil lion, a million and a half, and at times more?" Governor Anda said that from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 pesos were taken each year from Mexico to Manila. The San JosS in 1784 carried back to Manila 2,791,632 pesos. 190 THE MANILA GALLEON In ordinary times the yearly returns probably ranged be tween the figures given by Anda. There can also be little doubt that the average for the more prosperous periods was about 2,000,000 pesos, while cargoes of 3,000,000 or even more were quite possible, though not common. There were periods, how ever, when the silver cargo of the Acapulco galleon must have fallen considerably below a million, as when the Dutch inter fered with the trade lanes from China. And instead of the arbitrary eighty-three percent, which the central government allowed, or of the five hundred to one thou sand percent which their rivals alleged, or the five or ten percent which the Manilenos themselves declared to be their meager gain, the rate of net profit must have varied from one hundred to three hundred percent. Many circumstances caused great fluctuations in the proportion of profit. The multifold vicissitudes to which the traffic was subject introduced unusual elements of uncer tainty. The most lucrative period was the early decades of the line, before attempts at restriction had unsettled the steady course of trade, or the effects of Dutch and English competition became evident. The navigator, Sebastian Vizcaino, wrote to his father of his investments in the galleon trade in the sixteenth century: "I can certifie you of one thing: That 200 ducates in Spanish com modities, and some Flemish wares which I caryed with me thither, I made worth 1400 ducates there in the countrey. So I make account that with those silkes, and other commodities which I brought with me from thence to Mexico, I got 2500 ducates by the voyage; and had gotten more if one packe of fine silks had not bene spoiled with salt water. So as I have said, there is great gains to be had if that a man return in safetic." Losses from shipwreck, arribadas [returns to port], and captures, kept down the profits for a time and very materially lowered the general average. The entrance of Dutch, English and French into the Chinese market, with the consequent rise of prices in that field, and at times the wholesale smuggling operations of those peoples on the eastern side of Spanish America, certainly told in diminu tion of the profits of the Manila Galleons. During much of its history the obras ptas, while they largely financed its operations, at the same time levied heavy tribute on the commerce, and much of its returns thus went into the coffers of the charitable and religious organizations. PART II THE NAVIGATION >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 5 THE GALLEONS IN the early years of the line, before regulation from Spain began, there was no uniformity in the number or the size of the galleons. From one to four vessels of various tonnage were despatched yearly. In 1570 three ships arrived from Acapulco under the command of the able Juan de la Isla. In 1602 three ships cleared from Manila; in 1603, four; and in 1604, three. Again, in 1620 there were three Manila Galleons. The laissez faire era ended in 1593 with a decree of Philip II, restricting to two the number of ships that might cross yearly and the tonnage of each ship to 300. A third vessel was to be maintained at the Acapulco terminal as a reserve ship. Henceforth either one or two ships annually made the voyage until the famous decree of October 27, 1720 expressly prescribed that there should be two, and not one, "as has been the case up to this time." Two galleons were the usual rule during the first half century of the line. Woodes Rogers had fought two galleons from Manila only nine years before; but one galleon crossed yearly, in spite of the law of 1720, until 1731, when the Covadonga and the San Cristdbal reached Acapulco from Manila. In 1733 and again in 1736 there were two, but only a few times again in the history of the com merce did two galleons clear from Manila in the same year. The Manilenos usually preferred to risk their entire venture in one hold rather than to support the greater expense of two ships. Their protests led to the regrant of the old privilege, and when the trade was reorganized by the regulations of 1726 and 1734 the two galleons were not insisted upon. When two ships sailed the flagship of the general-commander was known as the capttana and her consort as the almiranta, or the admiral's ship. In spite of the provision for a reserve ship there was often a serious scarcity of bottoms on the line. And at such times the lack of a galleon for the transport of the annual cargo entirely J93 194 THE MANILA GALLEON disrupted the economic life of the colony. This was the plight of the islands in 1589, when of five ships which the colony had possessed two years before but one small tender was able to go to Acapulco. The viceroy had sold the San Martin, Cavendish had taken the Santa Ana, a storm had wrecked another at Cavite, and the fifth was too unseaworthy to be risked away from her moorings. In 1637 there were no galleons in the islands to make the voyage, and a tender of a hundred tons was sent to Acapulco to advise the viceroy of the straitened condition of the colony. Sometimes the trading naos were pressed into service for the wars against the Dutch, or the reduction of the regular number of ships by a succession of disasters might deprive the islands of the annual supply from New Spain. Sometimes in an emergency they were forced to buy a vessel from the Dutch or the Portu guese, or at Acapulco from Peruvian traders, to freight it for the line. The restrictions on the size of the galleons were never en forced. Although the law of 1593 limited their tonnage to 300 each, the citizens refused to confine the volume of their trade to these small vessels. Though probably not so large as the legend created by the tales of English raiders made them, they steadily exceeded the prescribed size. By 1589 there were ships of 700 tons and before 1614 thousand-ton vessels were employed in the trade. Some of the great galleons used against the Dutch and the Portu guese were of over 2000 tons. In Juan de Silva's fleet, designed for the conquest of the East Indies, there was one galleon of 2000 tons, one of 1600, two of 1300, two of 800, and two of 700. In 1718 Governor Bustamante informed the king that the three galleons then in the Acapulco service were of respectively 612, 900 and 1000 tons. It was the smallest of these, the Begona, which beat off Woodes Roger's attack. The legal increase in the size of the galleons to 560 tons in 1720 had no more effect on the history of the trade than did the earlier restriction to 300. The Rosario, which was in the service from 1746 to 1761, one of the most famous ships in the course of the traffic, had a tonnage of 1710. She had space for 18,667 piezas, or packages, whereas the permitted maximum was 4,000. The length of her keel was 156 feet and her length over all was 188 feet. Her beam was 56 feet and the depth of her hold 26 feet. Even this was exceeded, and the Santisima Trinidad, captured by THE GALLEONS 195 the English in 1762 and taken to Plymouth, was of 2000 tons. She drew thirty-three feet of water when laden and her dimen sions were : length of gun deck, 167 feet, 6 inches ; beam, 50 feet, 6 inches; and depth of hold from poop-deck, 30 feet, 6 inches. The following table of dimensions for the building of ships in the royal arsenals gives the regulation measurements of ships of different size and armament, as prescribed in 1724: Tonnage Length of deck Length of keel Beam Depth of hold Number of guns 1095 990y< 488K 4IOJ4 303 K I99# I44K 1 74 feet 156 " 140 " 120 " 112 " 102 " 88 " 78 " 145 feet 130 " 126 " 100 " 73 " 85 " 73 " 65 " 49 feet 43 " 42 " 34 " 31 " 29 " 25 " 22 " 25 feet 22 " 21 " 17 " 15 " 15 " 13 " 11 " 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 The galleons had the high forecastle and poop characteristic of their class. The apparent topheaviness of ships whose ends stood so high out of the water was partly offset by their unusual breadth of beam. Their half-moon appearance was thus very different from the straighter lines of their predecessor, the oared galleass of the Mediterranean, and of their successors, the frigates. It was their unwieldy and lumbering aspect that led Thomas Carlyle to call the heavy coach in which Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempted to flee from France an "Acapulco Ship." In the latter half of the eighteenth century, in accordance with world changes in marine design, the high stern and bow were cut down to approximate the lines of the frigate. Most of the galleons of the line were built in the yards at Cavite on the Bay of Manila, where a great force of Chinese and Malay workmen carried on the work of construction and repairs. However, many were built in other parts of the northern islands, where there were found together the three requisites of a safe port and a plentiful supply of good timber and of native labor. Thus of several naos built in Governor Juan de Silva's time, two were constructed on the Camarines coast, two at Bagatao in the province of Albay, one on Marinduque, and others on Mindoro and Masbate and at Cavite. Many were built at Bagatao and on • 196 THE MANILA GALLEON the Pangasinan coast to the north of Manila. In the seventeenth century Governor Salcedo had the Buen Socorro built on the Albay coast. He entrusted her construction to Diego de Arevalo, a man "most experienced in maritime affairs," and promised him command of her when she was finished. She was said to be the largest and best galleon yet built. Some were built outside the islands. One great galleon, the Guadalupe, was constructed in Obando's time on the Siamese coast, only to prove unfitted for the difficult trans-oceanic service. Diego Fajardo had one built on the Satsuma coast of Japan. The colony agent, Rios Coronel, proposed about the same time (1620) that the galleons should be constructed in India or Cochin-China. He declared the woods of those regions superior for ship timbers and the cost of completion less, while the excellent Lascar sailors could be secured to operate them when finished. However, an order of 1679 prohibited the construction outside the Philippines of vessels intended for the Acapulco line. The hard woods of the islands were very well adapted for ship-building. Casimiro Diaz considered them "the best that can be found in the universe," and added "if it were not for the great strength of the galleons and the quality of their timbers that so dangerous voyage could not be performed." The framework was often made of teak, while other native woods were used in the remainder of the ship. For the ribs and knees, the keel and rudder, and inside work the hard Philippine molave was gen erally employed. The sheathing outside the ribs was usually of lanang, a wood of great toughness, but of such peculiar nature that small cannon balls remained embedded in it, while larger shot rebounded from a hull made of this timber. Excellent cordage for the rigging was obtained from the abaca or Manila hemp. Sail cloth was produced in the province of I locos, while the metal necessary was mostly bought from China, Japan, Macao, or even from India and worked up by Chinese smiths. When completed, these galleons were of unusual strength, "Each one is a strong castle in the sea," said Padre Diaz, hardly a tribute to their mobility, which was sacrified to resistive power. "These large ships are built with excellent timber, that will not splinter," said Woodes Rogers, a competent critic; "they have very thick sides, much stronger than we build in Europe." Pedro Calderon Enriquez says that the English put 1080 eighteen and twenty THE GALLEONS 197 four pound balls into the Santisima Trinidad without penetrat ing her sides. The labor of cutting the timber in the mountains and trans- ? porting it to the coast was performed by great gangs of natives. While the more skilled work of construction was performed by Chinese carpenters, the islanders were used in large numbers for the rough work in the yards. These Filipinos were generally im pressed under a sort of corvee or repartimiento system, and their condition probably represented the most oppressive phase of the Spanish domination in the islands. Sometimes the natives were drafted as punishment for some local sedition or insurrection, while their harsh treatment by Spanish or Moro foremen was in itself a source of riots and more serious commotions. Thus the inhabitants of a part of the Pampanga country rose in revolt in 1660 against the forced labor of timber cutting. Casimiro Diaz said that, while the San Diego cost the king 60,000 pesos, the cost to the natives was 150,000 pesos. Writing in 1676, Fernandez Navarrete tells of the sufferings of the natives from "the infernal fury of some Spaniards," and three years later the king ordered Governor Vargas to see that the native workmen were treated with "benignity." There was often, too, a dearth of skilled ship wrights to direct the work. Instead of practiced naval construc tors, men without any experience in ship-building were some times put in charge of the work. Governor Obando found in the yards at Cavite "a total negligence and a lack of practice and knowledge of modern construction," and he declared the arsenals to be in a "thoroughly grievous state." However, an English man who was in the islands a half century later said that the work at Cavite, though expensive, was "remarkably well exe cuted." Legentil, the French navigator, who spent some time at Manila in the late eighteenth century, said: "The Manilenos have excellent carpenters, and one must recognize that the work at Cavite is very skillfully done. The overhauling of the galleons is very well done, but costs exorbitantly dear." The cost of the galleons and the great expense of main tenance were a heavy burden on the treasury. Governor Vera informed Philip II in 1587 that he had built a 500-ton ship for the trade at a cost of 8,000 pesos, and about the same time Viceroy Montesclaros declared that three ships had been bought for the line at a cost of respectively 3,500, 13,500, and 14,000 pesos. Grau 198 THE MANILA GALLEON y Monfalcon said that in the third decade of the seventeenth century one galleon was built each year at an average cost of 30,000 pesos. By the eighteenth century the cost of construction had increased enormously, far more than proportional to the greater size of the galleons, and taking into consideration the rise in values. The Filipino, which escaped the English in 1762 and furnished Simon de Anda with the sinews of war, was built at an initial cost of 95,857 pesos. The San Carlos, built a little later on the Pangasinan coast, cost nearly 100,000 pesos; the San ]os6, built in the same locality, 180,000 pesos; and the Santisima Trinidad, built at Bagatao, cost the Treasury 191,000 pesos. Legentil was scandalized at the prodigality with which money was spent in building and repairing the galleons. A thirty-gun frigate, he said, cost over 100,000 pesos, or 525,000 livres. "Here," he said, "it is worth observing that the King has the woods, and that he buys none, since the Philippines contain superb timber. Further, the labor supply at Manila costs him nothing. Then whence comes this enormous and exorbitant cost of 680,000 livres for the constructing of a vessel of five or six hundred tons ?" It was only natural that the expense of careening and refit ting should be very large, in view of the trying conditions of the line, but the cost of keeping the ships seaworthy exceeded all reason. In the first place, "no care was taken of them at Manila." "When the galleon returns from New Spain," continues Legentil, "they completely dismantle her. For over six months she is then abandoned to the deteriorating influence of the atmosphere and the burning heat of the sun. One can readily see what damage a vessel receives from the heavy rains and excessive temperature that she endures during the six months from July to February and after a year at sea." From the overhauling, which began in February, the governor reaped a "rich harvest." And Legentil illustrates the corrupt management of this work by an account of the refitting of the Santa Rosa in 1766. On her arrival from Acapulco the directors of the Cavite yards estimated that the work would cost at least 40,000 pesos. At this, De Caseins, com mander of the Buen Consejo, the first vessel direct from Spain for over a hundred years, objected and asked to be allowed to inspect the ship with the purpose of calculating the value of the work. After a ten days' examination he informed the governor that for 10,000 pesos at most he could put the galleon in condi THE GALLEONS 199 tion to make the voyage. With the aid of a capable Spanish officer, Josef de Cordova, De Caseins performed the work most efficiently and at a total cost of but eight or nine thousand pesos. Scarcely had the too scrupulous Frenchman left Manila for Spain when a committee of inspection, appointed by the governor, con demned the work done on the Santa Rosa and recommended a complete overhauling. This was carried out at a cost of 50,000 pesos. "Some Spaniards assured me," concludes Legentil, "that in this incident I saw an example of what ordinarily went on at Manila." It was this same De Caseins who put the new San Carlos in condition to cross to New Spain, when she had put back the same year in imminent danger of foundering. Those at Cavite ascribed her unseaworthiness to the bad arrangement of her cargo, but De Caseins declared that the cause lay in her topheaviness. He cut down the high forecastle and the great poop which were such hindrances to speed and safety and gave her the efficient lines of a frigate, instead of the unwieldy bulk of the old galleon form. Thus reconstructed, she was able to make her voyage in safety. Even before the seventeenth century the operation of the line had cost enormous sums. Though, by the law of 1593, the naos became state galleons, supported at the royal expense, the viceroys of that period urged the great cost to the king as a reason for adopting private ownership of the trading ships. Villamanrique, who sold the San Martin and the Santiago to merchants of Mexico in 1589, constantly recommended the transfer of the line to private ownership. The next year Viceroy Velasco said that the trade at Manila preferred that the galleons should be owned by the king, since private owners would raise the freight rates too high. Viceroy Monterey advised the king in 1596 that it cost about 150,000 pesos a year above the revenue from freights to maintain the Philippine service. Montesclaros said that it cost 130,000 pesos to despatch the galleons in 1607, and recommended that the Manila interests be forced to take over the line and sup port its operations without recourse to the royal treasury. How ever, the governors opposed any such change and put obstacles in the way of private merchants who essayed a voyage on their own account. Thus, when Esteban Rodriguez brought a new ship to Manila to freight it for New Spain, the governor forced him to sell it for "a certain exploring expedition,"—Gali's voyage 200 THE MANILA GALLEON to examine the eastern route to New Spain. Though the outcome of this venture and the arming of the governor with the law of 1593 generally discouraged further attempts, the San Gerdnimo was later owned by Federico de Castro and two others in 1602 belonged to Luis Dasmarinas, Juan Tello de Aguirre and other prominent men at Manila. However, private enterprise could not compete with the subsidized state galleons and it shortly gave way entirely to royal ownership of the line. The personnel of the galleon officers consisted of the com mander, two mates, three or four pilots, two boatswains, two boatswains' mates, two constables, and two surgeons. In the earlier years of the commerce an officer with the impressive title of capitdn de mar y guerra, or "captain of sea and war," was sec ond in command of each vessel. The commander was always known as general, or "general of the sea," and when there were two galleons, the officer in charge of the almiranta, or second vessel, was styled "admiral." Each ship also carried a notary, chaplain, commissary, calker, carpenter, diver, and chief steward. Two officers, who had no concern with the actual work of naviga tion, were the contador, or accountant, and the veedor, or over seer. On the return voyage from Acapulco there was added a maestre de plata, or master of the silver, an alférez, or ensign, and a sargento-mayor, or sergeant-major, and sometimes there were several captains of the troops carried to reinforce the garrisons in the Philippines or the Moluccas. The number of officers was generally multiplied unnecessarily to make places for friends of the governor or of the viceroy. Morga informed the king that the galleon officers were mostly relatives and servants of the viceroys,—"mere youths without experience in naval affairs." For about the first half century of the trade both governor and viceroy shared in the distribution of places on the galleons. A law of 1583 gave the royal treasury officials at Manila a share in the examination and appointment of "pilots, mates and other officers." Viceroy Velasco wrote in 1591 of the "ancient custom" by which his predecessors had appointed all the officers in the Philippine service. Such divided authority inevitably resulted in clashes between the governments in Mexico and in Manila and between their appointees on the galleon. Thus, a commander who owed his office to the viceroy was disposed to disregard the jurisdiction of the governor at Manila, and an officer from the THE GALLEONS 201 islands was liable to act independently of the viceregal authorities at Acapulco. The viceroys usually appointed members of their own official retinue or favorites from outside the viceregal house hold. When the king accused Monterey of appointing his private "creditors, servants and friends" to posts on the galleons to the detriment of the royal treasury and the personal advantage of the viceroy, Monterey replied that of the very few in New Spain competent for such positions a large number were in his service in Mexico,—caballeros and hidalgos of nautical experience. At least one of this viceroy's appointments was worthy of the great confidence placed in him. Lope de Ulloa, a "Galician gentle man" and captain in the viceregal guard, was placed at the age of twenty-seven as second in command of one of the galleons. "Of persons of his quality and talent," Monterey observed to the king, "there is a great lack in the South Sea." Later as general of the Espmtu Santo, Ulloa by his resourcefulness and daring saved his galleon in a Japanese harbor from suffering the fate of the San Felipe. Even after the four decrees issued between 1609 and 1622, transferring the entire appointing power to the gov ernor, the viceroy continued to name officers for the galleons. In 1662 the viceroy removed the general, Garcia del Fresno, and put in his place Andres de Medina. However, because Medina ordered the pilot to try a new route to the islands those on board deposed him from command and reinstated Garcia. Where the galleon did not have a full complement of officers for her western voyage, and no provision had been made from Manila for such a contingency the viceroy was clearly justified in supplying the deficiency. Viceroy Salinas informed the king that it was cus tomary for the officers to leave the galleon at Acapulco to go to Mexico, where they remained or went on to Spain with the pro ceeds of their sales. That they were often mere trading agents of the viceroy was another question. A decree of 1663 established an order of succession by which the ranks of officers could be automatically filled by promotion in case of the death or voluntary disappearance of the commander or any of his assistants. The viceroys persisted in appointing officers, and in 1681 the king wrote to Viceroy Paredes, express ing great wonder at the appointment as commander of Francisco Enriquez de Losada, accountant of the royal treasury, "being a person of so different a profession." A few years later Viceroy 202 THE MANILA GALLEON Moctezuma deprived Francisco de Arcocha of his place as general and named instead Inigues del Bajo, captain of cavalry. A law of 1599 gave the governor the right to name all the officials of the galleons, but the successive repromulgation of this order in 1604, 1608, and 1620 shows the persistence with which the viceroys clung to their appointing power. However, with such occasional usurpations by the viceroys as have been noted, the governors henceforth selected the high officials of the line. The control over the galleon service which this gave them was one of their most important—and lucrative—prerogatives. In its exercise they displayed much nepotism and favoritism. Royal cedulas reiterated the order that only experienced seamen must be appointed to places on the galleons and attempted to hold the governor responsible by means of the residencia, or public ac counting at the end of his office. "It is highly necessary that they be most skillful and expert," ordered a law of 1697. But experienced seamen were scarce in Manila and most governors were venal. They sold the offices to relatives or favorites or to anyone who would pay their price. Sometimes the governor named only the two or three highest in rank and allowed the commander to choose his subordinates by the same process. A decree of 1784 suppressed the title of general and some others, whose occupants it declared to have been "nothing more than merchants subsidized at the expense of the royal treasury." The commanding officer was henceforth to be an experienced seaman. A law of 1800 finally took the right of ap pointment out of the hands of the governor and reserved it for the king and the minister of marine. However, the reform had come too late seriously to affect the history of the line. Many of the governors were veterans of the European wars and had little cognizance of or regard for nautical skill. Banuelos y Carrillo wrote to the king in 1638 that it was "important for the governor to be a seaman rather than a soldier of the Low Countries." When not dictated by interest, their appointments were too often determined by ignorant good intentions rather than by considerations of efficiency in maritime affairs. Most of them had acted as commanders of the galleons on their way to assume office in the islands, and their appointees in subsequent voyages—merchants, soldiers, adventurers, or hangers-on of the THE GALLEONS 203 household—usually possessed as few qualifications for the diffi cult navigation of the line. The Marques de Villamedina, named by Obando in 1753, was his secretary. One governor selected as ac countant of the galleon a favorite of his who could not write. Gen eral Joaquin Gonzalez de Ribero, one of Raon's appointees, de serted his ship at Acapulco to sell his goods in Mexico. Although, as Anda declared, the commanders "usually have no acquaintance with navigation," there were generals who would have been a credit to any navy. Of such were Diego de Zamudio Manrique and Bruno de Hezeta. Governor Acuna said of the former, "No one has ever said anything of him other than that he is a good servant of your Majesty." Hezeta was an experienced sailor and also companion of Bodega in the work of exploring the Pacific coast to the north of California in the latter eighteenth century. Others on the honor roll of the line were Juan de la Isla, Pedro Flores, Fernando Centeno Maldonado, Diego de Arevalo, and Tomas de Endaya. Another was Andres de Arriola, of Seville, a sea man "of great courage and renown." In the work of appointment the governors were to a large extent the victims of the circumstances that surrounded them. The force of traditions in the service was stronger than the ce"dula issued from Madrid or Valladolid, commanding the governor to name only experienced navigators. There was generally lacking a personnel trained on the sea. The very remoteness of the line, the hardships of the long voyage, and the sufficiency of the pro ceeds of a single passage to enrich all, from boatswain to com mander, did not encourage the long service which could have produced a supply of experienced officers. There was no such institution as the Casa de Contratacidn for the training of officers. A scheme to place sons of the Spanish families in Manila on the galleons in order to secure their practice as cadets that would qualify them to become officers was never realized. It is doubt ful if the governors favored the creation of a professional marine, for the esprit de corps of men who followed the sea for a liveli hood would hardly have brooked the role of commercial agent of the governor or of the mercantile interests of the colony. The rate of pay for the personnel of the galleons' officers in the early seventeenth century was according to the following scale: 204 THE MANILA GALLEON Commander (general) Admiral (commander of the almiranta) . . Mate Pilot Boatswain Boatswain's mate Notary Chief steward Master of the water rations Surgeon Constable Cooper Calker Gunner—west bound Sergeant-major Adjutant Ensign 4,325 pesos 2,900 4°° 7°° u 325 225 225 225 225 225 325 325 325 225 600 412 865 " The richest gift within the power of the governor was the command of the galleon. Padre Zuniga said that the governor named as general "whomever he wished to make happy." The salary of some 4000 pesos would have been a very small part of his proceeds from a voyage. Anda said that the commander paid from 600 to 10,000 pesos to the governor for his place, and on such a scale the 4000 pesos of salary was but a bagatelle. A thrifty captain should clear from 50,000 to 100,000 pesos from his various ventures, "a sum," says Gemelli Careri, "that may make a man easy as long as he lives." Woodes Rogers' Spanish pris oners from the Encarnacidn told him that while the lowest sub altern could gain at least 20,000 pesos from a voyage, the general seldom made less than 150,000 or 200,000. This he derived from several sources: gratuities made up for his benefit by the mer chants of Manila ; a commission of four percent on the registered cargo ; an indefinite percentage for the unregistered lading, whose carriage depended on the favor of the commander; his commis sions from Mexican or Peruvian merchants and officials; and the returns from his own private investments. General Arguello told Gemelli Careri in 1697 that he would clear from his com missions between 25,000 and 30,000 pesos. He estimated that the admiral in charge of the almiranta would gain from all THE GALLEONS 205 sources 40,000 pesos, while even the boatswain would reach Acapulco a rich man. Another irregular perquisite of many commanders was their profits from gambling. One general made 12,000 pesos from cards between Manila and Acapulco, and an order of 1679 prohibiting gambling on the galleons declared that in the gaming "the general always comes out rich and the pas sengers ruined." Legentil said of the office of general and his relations to the governor: "As there is no Royal Marine at Manila there are no officers of that body. The vessel is directed by merchants, who have at their head a man of their own number, who bears the title of General of the Sea. This General is then himself a mer chant, and he names his officers and his pilots. The expenses which he is obliged to make are very large, and reach the sum of at least 16,000 pesos. The king gives him 4,500 pesos for the voyage, from which he is obliged to keep his officers, but he does not even touch these 4,500 pesos. The governor appropriates them for the trouble of having appointed him, and for having signed the patent that constitutes him General of the Sea. He pays besides 500 pesos to the Secretary for delivering the decree." A few seasoned pilots were the mainstay of the navigation. Particularly was this true in the eighteenth century, when the operation of the line was on a sounder basis than before. The piloto-mayor, or chief navigating officer, was a personage of great prestige and influence on the galleons, and at Manila he was generally the object of much respect. The pilots were generally the only high officers with any nautical skill, and the actual direc tion of the voyage was usually turned over to them by the lands man commander. As it was, there was commonly a dearth of these professional seamen, for it was impossible to keep the force of trained pilots up to the requisite number of ten or sixteen. A decree of 1603 insisted on the employment of none but experi enced and examined pilots, but again laws had little force in the face of circumstances. The career of pilot on the Philippine line was far more arduous than in the service between Spain and America. The voyage was much longer and more dangerous, and other conditions were less attractive. The compensation for all these was in the ease with which a pilot might enrich him self by trading, but this very opportunity removed the stimulus of further service. It was seldom that a pilot remained on the 206 THE MANILA GALLEON line as long as did Geronimo Monteiro, the Portuguese com mander of the Covadonga, whose career on the galleons covered fourteen years, as pilot, admiral, and general, before his ship was taken by Anson in 1742. The first piloto-mayor was Fray Andres de Urdaneta, who charted the eastern passage in 1565. Cabrera Bueno, whose book supplemented the charts of Urdaneta for the guidance of other pilots, is another name famous in the naviga tion. Like Monteiro, he was also entrusted with command of a galleon. Other outstanding Spanish pilots were Sebastian Vizcaino, Lorenzo Lazcano, who was pilot, admiral, and general, Juan Perez, explorer of the northwest coast of America, and Vicente Vila, who commanded the San Carlos in the Portola expedition to California in 1769. Few pilots saw such long and honorable service as Geronimo Galvez. Certainly the life of none was more dramatic. Galvez was a native of the ancient coast town of Cartagena and from his early years had followed the sea, first on the Mediterranean and later on the Atlantic between Cadiz and the West Indies. There was much Moorish blood in the people of his native city and his own orthodoxy was suspect to the Inquisition. So was that of his young wife, Solina, whose father had died on the rack in the dungeons of the Holy Office, and whose mother had shortly afterwards died of grief. To escape the vigilance of the inquisitors Galvez and his wife emigrated to New Spain and after a year in Vera Cruz crossed the country to Acapulco. Thence, in 1689, the pilot took the Santa Rosa de Lima across the Pacific to Manila, while Dona Solina remained in Acapulco. For three years there was no threat to their happiness, though the intervals between their reunions were long. Then, in 1692, a young courtier from Madrid, named Sebastian de la Plana, arrived at Acapulco on his way out to the Philippines. While he awaited the sailing of the galleon he stopped at one of the inns at the port. Wandering about the town, he discovered the pilot's wife and quickly be came infatuated with her. When his advances were rebuffed, La Plana had her seized by ruffians as she was strolling along the shore of the bay and ravished her. Returned to her home she wrote a last letter to her husband, recounting La Plana's attack on her, and within a few days died, whether from grief or poison was never known. Shortly afterward La Plana boarded THE GALLEONS 207 the west-bound galleon for Manila, and was well at sea when Galvez arrived at Acapulco on the Santa Rosa. When he heard of the circumstances of his wife's death the pilot swore vengeance on La Plana, whom he considered her murderer. He had a monument raised to Dona Solina's memory in the cemetery at Acapulco and on it had carved the unfinished line: "I will repay—." In terror of Galvez' revenge, La Plana, on arriving at Manila, changed his name, grew a beard and had his face altered and scarred by a surgeon in order to conceal his identity. Meanwhile, when the pilot had reached Manila and cleared the Santa Rosa again for Acapulco he left a number of spies commissioned to find La Plana. They searched every recess in the Philippines and carried their hunt overseas to China and Japan, and to Goa and the Moluccas. At last one of the spies found him in Macao, where he had entered the service of the Portuguese. He skillfully inveigled him into returning to Manila by representing to him that his crime had been forgotten and by holding out to him the prospect of marriage with a certain rich widow. The spy accompanied La Plana back to Manila, where he informed Galvez, who had returned again from Acapulco, of the success of his search. The Santa Rosa was tied up at Cavite, pending the usual repairs for her next voyage, and the only persons aboard her were the pilot and a few watchmen. On the pretext that he was to share in some contraband cargo the spy rowed La Plana across to Cavite and up to the side of the gal leon. As they climbed to the deck Galvez seized his man and threw him violently to the deck. He then had the spy tie their left hands together for a duel to the death. When this was done he ordered his opponent to draw his dagger and defend himself. After the pilot had stabbed him several times, La Plana managed to free himself in the scuffle and made a dash for the rigging. Galvez climbed after him, his dagger between his teeth, but the wounded man slipped and fell to the deck, breaking his back in the fall. La Plana was then bundled overboard and into the boat, which Galvez and the spy rowed back to the walled city. It was night when they entered through the postern gate, dragging the form of La Plana after them. They took him to an old house 208 THE MANILA GALLEON in Calle Rada, the haunt of criminals and broken men. Here they propped him up on a pallet, while Galvez showed him a minature of Dona Solina. After the doomed man's request for a priest and for water and a surgeon had been denied, he was informed that he had been brought there to die. While Galvez repeated the story of the crime that had prompted his vengeance, he placed the open locket on a chair facing La Plana, where he could not avert his eyes from the portrait. Here he lingered for three days, the lower half of his body paralyzed by his fall on the ship and always under the eyes of the spy who had tracked him to the Chinese coast. When he died the friars of the Misericordia came and buried him in an obscure spot. Shortly afterward Galvez piloted the Santa Rosa eastward on his last voyage. At Acapulco he quit the sea forever. For a time he wandered over Mexico as a penitent, visiting one shrine after another, but always returned to Acapulco. Then one day peo ple found him dead by the grave of Dona Solina, her miniature in his hands, and the monks of San Hipolyto's convent buried him beside her. At times it was so difficult to obtain Spanish pilots enough that foreigners were employed, even after a decree of 1696 had prohibited their appointment to places on the galleons. A pilot of long experience was Philip Thompson, an Englishman, who served in the latter half of the eighteenth century. John Kendrick, who was sent to Spain in 1796 as interpreter for the Scotch man, Thomas Muir, and six English prisoners taken from Nootka Sound, had been a skillful pilot in the galleon service. The Spaniards feared his sympathy with the United States, which they suspected of designs on the coast of California. On the galleon of 1753 the second pilot was a Frenchman, and the third an Irishman. Montero, or Monteiro, was a Portuguese and Antoine Limarie Boucourt, who brought the great Santisima Trinidad to Acapulco in 1755 and took her back to Manila the next year, was a Frenchman. Legentil tells of another French pilot, Fraslin, in the Spanish service. He says that Fraslin had enabled the galleons to shorten considerably the voyage by in creasing the spread of sail and by following a shorter route to New Spain. "This man has been very useful to the navigation and all the Spaniards have spoken of him in the highest terms;" THE GALLEONS 209 he wrote: "his last voyage cost his life. The General, a brusque man, who disliked him, demoted him en route and put him in second place. He took the affront so hard that he died of it. That was in 1766 and his loss is still being mourned." A third French pilot of the line was Pierre Laborde. Two pilots of other nationalities were Raymond Kelly-Kelly and a German named Heinrich Herman, a man of long and honorable experience in the navigation. Kelly-Kelly was killed while valiantly fighting the English in the defense of Manila in 1762. Another Irish pilot, Richard Bagge, was referred to in a royal decree of 1759 as "a man of evil conduct and a pilot of no skill." A better pilot was William Eagle, whom the Spaniards knew as Guillermo del Aguila. The contador, or accountant, and veedor, or overseer, were charged with the guarding of the register of merchandise and with the duty of seeing that no surreptitious introductions were made either in its pages or in the cargo. With such functions they were naturally personae non gratae to their commercially minded fellow-officers and to the compromisarios, or agents of the trading interests at Manila. They were expected to be per sons worthy of "approbation, satisfaction and confidence," and a salary of 2,000 pesos apiece, higher than that of any other officer, except the general, was intended to place them above the severe temptations of corruption that were so peculiarly attendant on their office. Writing in 1636, Grau y Monfalcon informed the king that his order of 1604 had apparently not been carried out, as he found no record of these officers in the reports of expenses and salaries at Manila. "It is doubtful whether they are pro vided," he adds. The earlier galleons carried a crew of from sixty to one hundred, according to the size of the ship or the supply of sea men available. When experienced sailors could find profitable employment in other parts of the Indies it was difficult to make up the necessary complement or lista for the long and arduous voyage to Acapulco. With the increase of the galleon's tonnage they naturally needed more men for their operation. The City and Commerce advised the king in 1732 that a galleon of 500 tons required a crew of 150 men to handle her properly, though some of the ships of that period carried 250 men. No galleon ever carried the 1200 that the author of Anson's Voyage writes 210 THE MANILA GALLEON of. The huge Santisima Trinidad in one voyage carried a total of 384, classified as follows: forty gunners, a hundred sailors or able seamen and a hundred each of Spanish and native common seamen, besides forty-four soldiers. The proportion of Spaniards to Malays in the crews varied from one to two, to one to five, but was generally nearer the latter ratio. In 1724 hardly one-third were said to be of Spanish birth. Some of these Spaniards were men who worked their passage to and from the islands, while others followed the sea for a living. When it is considered that the outward passage to Manila cost 1000 pesos and for the return 1500 pesos, while the wages of a sailor were never over 350 pesos, this opportunity was a great boon to prospective colonists without means or to stranded Span iards who desired to return to New Spain. It was the small body of professional seamen who formed the strength of the crews. They did the work about the galleons that required any degree of skill, and they might rise to the post of boatswain or even of pilot. The Malay seamen employed—the Indios of Spanish records —were generally Filipinos, though the seafaring Lascars from the Asiatic coasts sometimes served on the galleons. Natives who had gained some experience at sailing among the islands were preferred, but, failing a supply from this source, natives from the interior of Luzon were occasionally drafted by the royal factor. "A wretched people, unfit for the sea," Rios Coronel said of them. At times half of the crew were ineffective and of litttle value at a crisis in the voyage, causing, as the remedial law of 1620 de clared, "a great danger in sailing so difficult a navigation." The City and Commerce said they were generally "unskilled and pu sillanimous," and that as a rule a third of the crew were utterly incompetent. The percentage of incapables among the Span iards was also large. "Many," says Rios Coronel, "have been named as sailors without any knowledge of their duties, but only by favor." "The Sailors are lazy and vagabonds," wrote Viceroy Montesclaros, " but few times have I seen enlisted in any region those who are not such or who do not desire to be such." In a moment of intolerance at the disorderly habits of long-suffering men, Bishop Benavides called the galleon crews, "an ungodly people, guilty of sins of the flesh and of other offenses." THE GALLEONS 211 Nearly two centuries later Francisco Leandro de Viana paid this tribute to the Filipino seamen: "There is not an Indian in those islands who has not a remarkable inclination for the sea, nor is there at present in all the world a people more agile in manoeuvres on shipboard, or who learn so quickly nautical terms and whatever a good mariner ought to know. . . . They can teach many of the Spanish seamen who sail in those seas. . . . There is hardly an Indian who has sailed the seas who does not understand the mariner's compass, and therefore on this trade route there are some very skilful and dextrous helmsmen. . . . When placed on a ship from which they cannot escape, they fight with spirit and courage." The better class of Spanish sailors, the men who could manipulate the sails and rigging and perform the necessary re pairs on shipboard, received from 150 to 300 pesos a year, ac cording to the work done or to the current rate of wages. In Gemelli Careri's time (1697) they were paid 350 pesos for a round-trip voyage. Common Spanish seamen were paid 100 pesos or more, while the natives were to receive from 48 to 60 pesos. A monthly ration of rice was added to the base pay of the common seamen. Part of the sum was advanced at the beginning of the voyage and the rest after reaching Acapulco, or preferably after beginning the return voyage, for the galleon was often left at Acapulco without a crew for the return trip to Manila. In 1618 the Espiritu Santo lost seventy-four of her seventy-five native seamen, who were hired by Mexican Indians to teach their tribe the manufacture of palm wine. Once in port the sailors broke away from the control of the officers, and after submitting to the hard discipline and confinement of the long voyage, became dis orderly and mutinous and frequently deserted. Governor Corcuera said: "They have always had some men under them who have ability and have served well and are very competent, but are disorderly in port." Some of them had real grievances against either the galleon or port officers, generally on account of delays or fraud in the payment of their wages. As early as 1589 Gov ernor Vera complained that the crews often went unpaid, and added: "Therefore the seamen serve half-heartedly and desert." They were often paid in treasury warrants, a form of scrip, which was discounted by those who cashed them. "As for these poor 212 THE MANILA GALLEON men," said Governor Corcuera in 1636, "they have not been paid in one, two, three, or even ten and fifteen years. They sell their vouchers during such times for the fourth, fifth, or sixth part of their face value; and many have been paid at 100 pesos for 1,000. The warrants are bought by the servants of the oidores, royal treasury officials, governors, and other officials, and to them is paid the face value." Governor Manrique de Lara protested to the viceroy against the abuses at Acapulco. "On reaching Acapulco," he says, "after a voyage of seven months or longer, where they expect rest and good treatment, they find everybody in a conspiracy against them." A law of 1633 was aimed to prohibit the maltreatment and fleecing of sailors at Acapulco by royal officials. When men were lacking to take the galleon back to Manila the press was resorted to, and vagabonds and "other men of no occupation" were liable to be hurried over the south road to Acapulco to be mustered onto the galleon. The ablest advocate of the native seamen was Hernando de los Rios Coronel, agent of the colony, whose memorial to the king, written in the spirit of Las Casas, but more tempered in its reasonableness, led to the issuance of orders for the better treat ment of that unfortunate class. The Malays, especially those from the interior of Luzon, could not endure the cold of the higher latitudes. Pneumonia caused a high mortality among them. "When each new dawn comes," said Rios Coronel, "there are three or four dead men." He declared that the Filipino common seamen were "treated like dogs," but that the Spaniards were better cared for and more accustomed to provide for them selves. "It is very pitiful," he said "to see what occurs in that navigation." One of the laws of 1620 attempted to protect the natives from their own improvidence or the officers' disregard of their welfare, by requiring that they be sufficiently clothed and fed and treated with greater kindness. An entry in Gemelli Careri's diary reads: "That day the cloth the king allows the seamen to keep them warm was divided among them." The rations allowed to the Indios were about half that granted to the Spaniards, and near the end of the voyage, when the provisions grew scarce and foul, it was the fare of the native seamen that was most restricted in amount and quality. Besides the seamen proper, artillerymen, and sometimes in the early days, arquebusiers, and later musketeers, were carried. THE GALLEONS 213 Usually the only soldiers in the ships were the prescribed number of gunners, unless imminent danger from pirates or from attack by hostile ships required a larger armed force for the galleon's defense. On the return voyage, however, two or three hundred troops were sometimes carried from Mexico to reenforce the gar rison in the islands. In the first years of the line no provision was made for arm ing the galleons beyond placing small arms in the hands of those on board. It was with such an armament that the Santa Ana tried to stand off Cavendish's Englishmen in 1587. However, the shock caused by the incursions of Drake and Cavendish led to the adoption of more serious measures of defense. The report of Governor Vera to Philip II in 1588 is indicative of the change already produced by the loss of the Santa Ana. "The ships are well supplied with artillery," he said. "All the passengers have arquebuses, swords, and bucklers; the seamen carry at least a sword, and each ship is armed with pikes, partisans, large stores of powder and munitions, bombs and grenades." A law of 1601, designed to prevent the practice of equipping the fortifications with artillery taken from the galleon, forbade the removal at Manila of guns mounted on the nao at Acapulco. A decree of three years later required that each piece of the galleon's battery should have a trained gunner. A more general law of 1608 com pelled the governor of the Philippines to see that the naos were provided "with the arms necessary for their defense, and that soldiers, crew and passengers were well armed." The ordinances of Governors Valdes and Arandia were more detailed in their provisions for keeping the galleons in an adequate state of defense. However, in spite of the excellent cannon cast at Cavite, the galleons seldom sailed with a sufficient equipment of guns. For the sake of the additional lading space which the omission of the guns would permit those in charge were willing to risk the chance of attack. Whatever guns were carried were often stowed away in the hold, while the decks were piled high with bales and chests of merchandise. In case of a sudden attack in such cir cumstances as occurred with the Santisima Trinidad, a sixty-gun ship that fought with only ten in position, the result for the gal leon was calamitous. On the outward passage from Acapulco greater precautions were usually taken to prepare for emergen 214 THE MANILA GALLEON cies. At this time the ship had also the advantage of the small arms of the reinforcements on the way out to the islands. More over, space was not then at such a premium for the accommoda tion of cargo, and the guns could be put into place without dis commoding the mercantile interests of the galleon. Convoys were seldom resorted to, unless the danger to the galleon was quite imminent. Such a regular system of convoys, for example, as was employed in the navigation to the Spanish Main, was never adopted, nor was anything like the armada de Barlovento, or Windward Fleet, maintained. Save for the time of the Dutch wars, and that of the buccaneer-privateer inroads into the Pacific in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the menace was not chronic, as it was for long periods in the West Indies. Armed vessels were, however, occasionally sent up the coast of New Spain to escort the galleon past the dangerous tip of California and on into Acapulco harbor. The governor of the Philippines likewise frequently despatched ships from Manila to meet the galleons from New Spain outside the islands and accompany them through the straits and up to their anchorage before Cavite. Thus, Richard Cocks heard in Japan in July 1615, that "don Jno. de Silva was gon to keepe the straites with a gale and a phriggat, attending the coming of shipping from Agua Pulca." In 1686, when fears were entertained for the safety of the San Telmo, the governor armed the Santo Nino with over 100 cannon and 1,000 men, and sent her to the Embocadero to convoy the Acapulco ship up to Cavite. Sometimes advice-ships, usually small galleys or tenders, were sent out to warn the nao of enemies, and order it to change its course ; or the galleon might carry orders from the viceroy to the same effect. In this case she generally followed the route around the north of Luzon, or put in at one of the bays on the east coast, as Albay, where she could place her silver in safety. A system of fire signals was also devised by the Jesuit, Francisco Colin, with the aid of which galleons were warned by fires built on outlying prominences of the eastern coasts. A code was developed by varying the number of fires or the frequency of the puffs of smoke, in such a way as to indicate the course to be followed, or the strength and location of the enemy. Recourse was had to some such expedient on the American side, where signals were THE GALLEONS 215 made from the Island of Cedros, which was usually the first land fall of the galleons, and also from salient points on the mainland coast. After the founding of the missions on the peninsula the Jesuits in charge were expected to advise the naos which put in there of any strange sail observed off that quarter of the coast. >>>>>>>>>>>>> »» ® <<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 6 THE ROUTE IN the days of sail navigation was at the mercy of the prevail ing winds. To the innovator of the sea it was a puzzling affair of trades and monsoons and of variables that blew from any quarter. His problem was liable to be complicated occa sionally and locally by the extremes of calm and hurricane and was only to be solved by the painful process of trial and error. Seamen often had to resort to stupendous tacks, as did Vasco da Gama when he ran south of the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope for two months before turning north-eastward to round Africa. There were few straight lines in the sea lanes of those days, but often much beating about the ocean to gain a little distance. And frequently the navigator's task was not half done when he had reached his objective. For the discovery of the re turn route required acquaintance with an entirely different set of winds than had originally carried him out from his starting point. So it was with the Pacific. Five separate expeditions had reached the East Indies from the side of the Americas before a single ship had been able to return in the opposite direction. The vaguely recorded trans-Pacific voyages of Asiatics added as little to the permanent fund of knowledge as did the voyages of the Vikings to America. Urdaneta and Arellano were, therefore, as truly pioneers as was Columbus. The eastward and westward paths of the galleons were sepa rated by over twenty degrees of latitude. The westward route lay within the wide belt of the northeast trades, whose southern limit is close to the equator and whose northern limits lie under the thirtieth parallel. During most of the year these winds could be depended on to carry a ship across the Pacific speedily and steadily with all canvas filled. To the north the prevailing west erlies, blowing above latitude thirty, marked the natural path of the galleons on their eastward passage. The discovery of these n6 THE ROUTE 217 winds offered the first serious problem in the history of the navi gation. It was the variables in the western part of the Pacific, blowing uncertainly between the zones of these two primary winds, that accounted for many of the difficulties and disasters incident to the operation of the galleon line. Navigation within the area of the Philippines themselves was governed by the two regular monsoons. The northeast monsoon begins in late September or early October and blows until April. During October, November, and the early part of December it blows strong from north and northeast, with thick weather and squalls of rain. This is the worst season of the year for getting out through the straits. After mid-Decem- \ ber the winds change to east and east-southeast, accompanied by much heavy weather until the equinox in March. During April and May the winds vary from north around through east to south, with occasional thick weather and squalls, alternating with calms. Though in some years it attains its full force in May, by June the southwest monsoon is always well established and blows from south-southwest to west. It is less steady and uniform than the other monsoon. It is a prolongation of the great seasonal movement of air which is so important a factor in the climate of India and is responsible for rains along the west coast of Luzon. The departure of the galleon from Manila ordinarily fell within the first months of this monsoon, which the Spaniards knew as the vendaval. Another, but more irregular, factor in the galleon navigation s was the chance of typhoons, or baguios as they are known locally. These cyclonic storms generally originate over the seas to the east or southeast of the Philippines, whence their course is west or northwest, frequently blowing across the islands and out onto the China Sea. They correspond in their general characteristics and destructiveness to the hurricanes of the West Indies. They are most prevalent between July and October, which explains the anxiety of the Spaniards to have the galleon clear of the Philippines before that season. They may strike the islands to the south of Manila at any time up to December. Efforts of the Spaniards to find a practicable easterly route across the Pacific began with their first expedition into that sea. In 1522 the Trinidad, of Magellan's squadron, tried to reach the Isthmus of Panama from the Moluccas. Leaving Tidore on the 2l8 THE MANILA GALLEON sixth of April with a crew of fifty-four and a cargo of fifty tons of cloves, she passed in a northeasterly direction through the chain of the Ladrones and far beyond to forty-three degrees north. She had, in fact, now covered the most difficult stage of the eastward crossing and was in a position to strike across to the mainland of America. But her crew was already on starvation rations and stricken* with scurvy. She was shattered by storms, one of which had carried away her mainmast. In view of the great distress of his ship, Espinosa, her captain, decided to retrace his way to the East Indies. He put in at Saipan of the Ladrones, whence he reached Gilolo of the Moluccas six weeks later with nineteen of his original crew, and these so enfeebled by scurvy and other afflictions that they could no longer manage the ship. Alvaro de Saavedra, who was sent out by Cortes in 1527 to succor the survivors of Loaysa's expedition to the Moluccas, made two attempts to retrace his way back across the Pacific. However, as he struck eastward into the wide belt of trades that had brought his ships from New Spain, he was forced to beat about across several degrees of latitude at the mercy of the head winds. When he finally turned back to Tidore of the Moluccas he sighted New Guinea and other islands of the Melanesian archipelagoes, but he had done nothing to solve the problem of the return route to the American coast. Again, when Ruy Lopez de Villalobos crossed to the East Indies in 1542 he bore instructions to send a ship for the discov ery of the vuelta, or return route, as soon as he was well estab lished on the Asiatic side of the Pacific. In accordance with these orders, the San Juan de Letrdn of his command attempted to make the eastward passage by the northerly route. She was, however, forced to turn back after touching at the Ladrones, and, like the Trinidad, finally limped into a port of Gilolo, badly weather-beaten and with her crew suffering from disease and privation. Another effort, made close to the equator by New Guinea, failed as utterly after a voyage of over four months. Like Loaysa, Villalobos died shortly afterward, discouraged by the failure of all his endeavors. Though all these attempts ended in failure, much useful information had been gained, particularly on the voyages of the Trinidad and the San Juan de Letrdn. This knowledge became common possession of Spanish seamen and made easier the ultimate attainment of the original objective. THE ROUTE 219 The accomplishment of the great task was reserved to the > better organized and conducted expedition of Legaspi. As soon as Legaspi had gained a foothold for the occupation of the Philippines the early reestablishment of connections with New Spain was imperative. If supplies and reinforcements could not be secured from that source, the nascent colony was as surely doomed to extinction as had been its predecessors. Philip II and the authorities in New Spain showed great concern for the dis covery of the eastward passage and a reward was offered to whomever could find a practicable route. The royal instructions to Viceroy Velasco for Legaspi's guidance read: "You must issue orders to the vessels that they are not to delay in bartering and trading, but to return immediately to New Spain, for the prin cipal reason for this expedition is to ascertain the return route." After Legaspi's arrival at Cebu in 1565 preparations were soon begun for the return attempt. The first ship actually to cross the Pacific from west to east was the patache, or tender, San Lucas, which had disappeared from the body of the squadron in circumstances that strongly pointed to desertion. The char acter of her pilot, the resolute and skilled, but faithless, Lope Martin, lent color to the suspicions of Legaspi, and these were further confirmed by the failure of the San Lucas to appear later at the appointed rendezvous among the Visayas. The renegade ship had separated from the rest of the expedition on the twentyninth of November, and after cruising among some groups, among which were probably the Carolines and Marshalls, reached Mindanao. She remained in that vicinity for several weeks and then proceeded to the northward, passing near Cebu, but avoiding an encounter with Legaspi. Then, in late April Lope Martin and Alonso de Arellano, her captain, resolved to make a desperate dash to gain the American continent. Of this wild cruise across that trackless waste of sea Fernandez Duro, the Spanish naval historian, has said: "We are astounded at the resolution of these men, who, in a crazy bark of forty tons, scan tily provisioned, without extra sails, lacking every kind of sup plies, with a small crew, and those discontented, fearlessly launched themselves upon one of the most daring voyages re corded in the history of navigation." The San Lucas rose to forty-three degrees, but in her east ward crossing kept close to the fortieth parallel, though dropping 220 THE MANILA GALLEON gradually to a lower latitude as she approached the American coast. Provisions and water early ran short, and a plague of rats threatened their scanty supplies. Scurvy developed in the ship and decimated the little crew of twenty. Insubordination broke out under the strain of suffering and two men were thrown into the sea as punishment—and warning. Finally, on the night of the sixteenth of July the pilot made out ahead the coast of the Californias in about twenty-seven degrees and forty-five minutes. On the ninth of August the ship entered the harbor of Navidad, whence she had departed the year before. At Mexico Arellano and Martin convinced the audiencia, which was ruling until the arrival of Peralta, the viceroy, of the legality of their proceedings. They then went on to Spain to claim the reward which had been promised for the discovery of the return route across the Pacific. They were on the point of success when Fray Andres de Urdaneta arrived at court and denounced their desertion of Legaspi's expedition. Though the expedition despatched by Legaspi was under the nominal direction of his nephew, Felipe de Salcedo, the guiding spirit of the enterprise was the veteran navigator, Urdaneta, who sailed in the capacity of advisory pilot. Like Martin of the San Lucas, Urdaneta had accompanied Loaysa's ill-fated voyage to the East Indies in 1525, and had spent eight years in the Moluccas before returning to Spain around the Cape of Good Hope. After a time he had entered an Augustinian convent in Mexico and was living in orders when he was prevailed upon to guide Le gaspi's fleet out to the Philippines. The actual work of pilotage was now in the hands of Esteban Rodriguez and Rodrigo de la Isla Espinosa, but they followed a theoretical course which Ur daneta had mapped out five years before and consulted him in regard to all the larger details of the voyage. Their ship, the San Pablo, cleared from Cebu on the first of June 1565, and mounting with the monsoon past Leyte and between Masbate and Samar, debouched from the group by the Strait of San Bernardino. By July first she was in twenty-four degrees north, above the Ladrones, and, still climbing in a general northeasterly direction, rose to between thirty-seven and thirty-nine degrees. She had now encountered the westerlies that were to carry her-^ over to the American coast, which was sighted oh September 22 in almost the very locality where the San Lucas had made her-— THE ROUTE ry/*1 =7 f ' 221 landfall a little over two months tafore£\From thence she reached Acapulco on the eighth of(September) after 129 days at sea, having lost sixteen of her men, including Rodriguez, the pilot. From Mexico, Urdaneta journeyed on to Spain, where he related to Philip II the story of the San Pablo's voyage, and where, as we have seen, he exposed the misconduct of Arellano and Lope Martin. His route was approximately that followed during the most of the history of the Manila-Acapulco line and his charts long remained the guide of the eastward-bound pilots of the galleons. In the actual practice of the navigation the first stage of the voyage was the leisurely and difficult passage out of the archi pelago. To get out to sea the galleon had to follow the tortuous channel which runs in a general southeasterly direction to the Strait of San Bernardino, generally known in Spanish times as the Embocadero, and sometimes as the Paso de Acapulco. For lying, as it does, on the western side of Luzon, Manila is more advantageously situated for communication with the Asiatic mainland than for connections with America. As a rule, the time consumed in clearing from the straits was inordinately long. The galleon which carried Gemelli Careri sailed from Cavite on the twenty-eighth of June and did not reach the open sea until the tenth of August. The Santtsima Trinidad in 1755 was a month on the way and the San Carlos Borromeo in 1766 took three weeks to pass the straits. Gemelli describes this part of the route as a "Labyrinth of Islands, eighty leagues in length, and very dangerous." Driving squalls and fogs were frequent, while shifting tides and treacherous currents threw the galleon about in the winding channel, where shoals and rocks and low-lying islands menaced her safety.1 "The pas sage is among islands and through channels," wrote the critical chronicler of Anson's Voyage, "where the Spaniards, by reason of their unskilfulness in marine affairs, waste much time, and are often in much danger." A lost galleon is associated with almost every step in the way out of the straits—Lubang, Calantas, Isla Verde, Marinduque, Ticao, the Naranjos, and San Bernardino. 1 In November 1935, the 5,300-ton British freighter, SilverhazeJ, with fifty-four persons on board, was wrecked on a rock in the Embocadero. According to the Associated Press report of the disaster, "Lifeboats sent out by rescue ships were tossed about by the rip tide and heavy swells of San Bernardino Straits, in which the wreck was discovered, and were forced to turn back." 222 THE MANILA GALLEON The passage of the Embocadero was especially feared. Gemelli Careri thus describes his sensations at this point: "As we were upon getting out, there fell such violent storms of Rain, that to gether with the contrary Current, whilst the Moon was above the Horizon, we could not, tho' the Wind blew hard for us, ad vance one Step, but rather lost Ground, so that we are all Night in great Danger, I was Astonish'd, and Trembled to see the Sea have a Motion like Water boiling over a hot Fire,2 understanding that several Ships, notwithstanding the help of their Rudder had been by the Violence of the Current whirl'd about, and at last Wreck'd. Friday ioth, the Tide turning for us, we got out of the Streight before Noon." Sometimes, too, a ship had to lie for days in a dead calm, while the galleon was always delayed at San Jacinto on Ticao, or some other port in the vicinity, where she put in to take on fresh stores and await propitious weather for clearing from the strait. The course as described by the standard pilot's guide of Cabrera Bueno was substantially that followed by nearly all the galleons. The largest variations were in the height at which the eastward crossing was made and in the course laid off the coast of the Californias. The successive stages were as follows : from Cavite on Manila Bay out through one of the bocas, generally between Mariveles and Corregidor; thence SSW, keeping well clear of Fortun to the left and high Ambil to the right; past Cape Santiago on the Luzon coast, and E between Mindoro and Maricaban; by the Punta de Escarceo, or "Tide Rip Point," where currents run strong, and under Isla Verde, outside Subaang Bay, within which there was a fair anchorage in case of need ; SE past the islets of Baco, with a good channel off Calapan; SE by E down the Min doro coast by Punta Gorda de Pola; E by SE between the Tres Reyes and the Dos Hermanas; thence by the wide bocana be tween Marinduque and Banton, out onto the tablazo, or open water, above Sibuyan; SE by E between Burias and Masbate; turning ENE around the Punta de San Miguel and the Punta del Diablo; coasting around the east side of Ticao to the anchorage at San Jacinto; clearing from thence and working out seaward with a "Numerous swirls and eddies are found in the channel between Caput and Luzon, the water seeming to boil up from beneath, the center of the eddy in some cases appearing to be at least a foot higher than the edge." United States Coast Pilot: Philippine Islands, part I, 191. Chirino map of the Philippines (1638). From copy in the Library of Congress. 2*3 224 THE MANILA GALLEON the monsoon; E eight leagues, with the dangerous Naranjos to starboard and the shoal of Calantas to port; NE by N and then ENE seven leagues around Capul; NE with the Sorsogon coast to port and San Bernardino to starboard and NE by E seven leagues to the Embocadero, with San Bernardino now to port and the island of Biri to starboard. At this point, according to Cabrera, "the rapid currents require skilful pilot work." 3 The galleon was now in the open sea. To all appearances the route up the west coast of Luzon should have been much safer and quicker than that by the Em bocadero. Many proposals were, in fact, made to change the route to this more open and direct way. In 1613 the king au thorized Hernando de los Rios Coronel to search for a new and shorter route to New Spain. The procurador had represented that the passage around Cape Bojeador, if undertaken by the middle of June, would enable a galleon to reach Mexico in a little over two months. However, the project bore no immediate fruit and nothing further was done for a century and a half. Agita tion was begun again in 1730 and four years later the king or dered a reconnaissance of the Bojeador route. Governor Obando recommended the change in 1754, but a more serious movement was initiated in 1762. The innovation was indorsed by the most capable officials in the islands, such as Viana, Anda, and Basco y Vargas, and by the most experienced pilots of the line, like Philip Thompson. Governor Anda declared that a ship sailing up the west side of Luzon could climb to the twentieth parallel in two and a half or three days, as against the nearly two months sometimes re quired to reach the same latitude around by the Embocadero. He believed that the average time to Acapulco could thereby be shortened from five or six months to three months. Thomp son, a highly capable navigator, who held the rank of ensign and first pilot in the royal navy, was the most persistent advocate of the Bojeador route. In his appeal to Charles III on behalf of his plan he advised the king that the loss of over thirty galleons during the history of the line had largely been due to the delays and dangers incident to the use of the Embocadero route. He complained that the seasons of the prevailing winds over the 1 "The channels between Luzon, Capul, Dalupiri, and Samar are all subject to strong currents, tide rips, whirlpools, and eddies." United States Coast Pilot, op. cit. THE ROUTE 225 entire course had been ignored, thereby exposing the navigation of the galleons to needless difficulties and to an excessive length ening of the voyage. He pointed to the example of a French ship which had crossed from the Philippines to the Lower Cali fornia coast in 1721 in fifty-one days. "From the circumstance of navigating in the months of September, October, and Novem ber in the eastward crossing," he said, "and in those of April, May, June, and July on the return voyage, contrary to the general rule of the constant and variable winds prevailing in those months, there results the absolute certainty of the navigation in these seas being always doubtful and perilous." Thompson pro posed that the galleons should clear from Manila between the fifteenth and twentieth of May. They should then be among the Bashees to the north of Luzon by the first of June, after which they would take advantage of SSW and NW winds on their easterly course, crossing the Pacific during the summer. He calculated that they would reach the California coast by the middle or end of August. It was his plan that the galleon should put in at one of the new settlements of San Francisco or Monte rey, where they would remain until the first of November before proceeding on to Acapulco. They could utilize their stay on the California coast, not only to refit and to restore their passengers and crew to health after the trying passage from Manila, but to leave supplies needed for the young colony. This schedule would enable tlie fair to be held at Acapulco in December or January and the galleons to leave for Manila again by the first of Febru ary, when the winds would be most favorable throughout the westward passage. His plan then provided for the galleons' reaching Manila by the middle of April. Commenting on Thompson's memorial to the crown, Gov ernor Basco y Vargas declared that a ship, which left Manila in May with winds from the third quarter and coasted north ward off Pampangas, Pangasinan, and Ilocos, would be free from the risks of the traditional route through the straits. A junta of pilots was held in Manila, and though there were violent differences of opinion, the consensus of views was found to be in favor of the projected modification of the route. Meanwhile, the course had been reconnoitered by Juan Rodriguez Montene gro, but though two galleons, the San Jos6 and the Concepcidn, the latter under Montenegro himself, were given orders to go 226 THE MANILA GALLEON via Capes Bojeador and Engano, they turned back and left by the Embocadero. In 1777 a royal decree directed the change of route to be made permanent and, furthermore, for stops to be made at San Francisco and Monterey, the new stations on the California coast. Though a few galleons were actually despatched by the new route, the consulado, which embodied the commercial interests at Manila, was opposed to the change from the beginning, and the loss of the San Pedro north of Luzon in 1782 appeared to confirm their reasoning. The successful navigation of the pas sage largely depended on the galleon's clearing from Manila earlier than was customary, for, after the beginning of July or earlier, a ship was liable to be thrown upon the Luzon coast by a baguio, or typhoon, while the seas about the Bashees above Luzon were famous for their storms. A repetition nine years later of the original royal order of 1777 again brought the question to a head. The merchants who dictated the policy of the galleon trade still refused to accept the revolutionary changes in route and sailing time. They also ob jected strongly to the requirement that the galleons should put in at San Francisco or Monterey, since it delayed their arrival at Acapulco, though the powerful Viceroy Revillagigedo believed the galleons vital to the California colony at this stage of their development. Then in 1791, under pressure from the conserva tive stand made by the consulado, Governor Berenguer de Marquina took it upon himself to suspend the execution of the royal decree. The Council of the Indies reconsidered the whole ques tion in 1794, but the galleons had returned to their old path, which they were to follow for the twenty years that remained to them. To resume the traditional route—when the galleon had left the strait between Luzon and Samar she was driven to the north east before the monsoon, past the Catanduanes, lying to the left, on which so many galleons were lost. Cabrera Bueno gives the route from the Embocadero as follows: E by NE about fifty leagues; then ENE in the general direction of the Ladrones; through Los Volcanes or the higher Ladrones NE by E to thirtyone degrees latitude and longitude twenty-eight and a half east of Manila; ENE to thirty-six or thirty-seven degrees in longitude forty; thence to the region of Cape Mendocino; SE to thirty-five THE ROUTE 227 degrees latitude without sighting land; SE to the landfall at the island of Cenizas in thirty degrees, or at the island of Cedros a degree and a half lower at the entrance to Sebastian Vizcaino. * Bay. The original force of the monsoon, which the galleon caught on clearing from the Strait of San Bernardino, was counted on to carry her up to about the fifteenth parallel of latitude. In her further ascent to gain the required altitude she was liable to encounter variables and storms, which either prolonged her pas sage or might drive her back in distress to the Philippines. When she had beaten up to a sufficient height she fell in with the east ward-flowing Kuro Siwo or Japan current and the prevailing westerlies, which propelled her across the open Pacific within a few degrees of latitude. "The return," said the Jesuit historian, Josef de Acosta, "is like unto the voiage from the Indies unto Spain, for those which return from the Philippines or China to Mexico to the end they may recover the Westerne windes, they mount a great height, until they come right against the islands of Japan, and discovering the Caliphornes, they return by the coast of New Spain to the port of Acapulco." It was the Japan current that may have brought the Chinese to Fusang or Mexico many centuries before, and in our time it has carried at least two dismantled fishing barks from Japanese waters across to the northwest coast of the United States, one of them with all hands dead on board. The height at which the galleon made her crossing varied from about thirty-one to forty-four degrees, but the majority varied between the thirty-second and thirty-seventh parallels. In his instructions to the commanders of the galleons Governor Valdes said: "The success of the crossing probably depends on the greater or less altitude at which it is made, but, as the weather conditions are so variable, it is not known beforehand which may be the best course to follow." Many of the earlier galleons sailed above forty, where the winds were believed to be more depend able. Antonio de Morga says that it was customary in his time for the galleons to go up to forty-two degrees. However, in the later years of the line the tendency was to follow a lower track. Gemelli Careri was told by the pilot of his ship that thirty-six to forty degrees was the highest elevation at which it was the habit of the galleons to cross. In 1703 the Rosario went only to 228 THE MANILA GALLEON thirty-two degrees and twenty-four minutes, and in 1737 the Nuestra Senora de la Guia rose no higher than thirty degrees and thirteen minutes. The Santisima Trinidad crossed in 1755 be tween the thirty-fourth and thirty-seventh parallels, and the San Jos6 in 1773 between the thirty-ninth and fortieth. The orders issued to the commanders of the galleons forbade any greater deviation from the customary course than the particu lar conditions of the voyage might dictate, and any desire on the part of a too inquisitive commander or pilot to turn the voyage into an exploring expedition was discouraged. Some providen tial island might well have lain within close reach of the beaten track, while ships had passed for two centuries and hundreds had died of scurvy or hunger for lack of a port of call in the critical stage of the voyage. Yet accidental discoveries made in the reg ular course of the navigation were always welcomed by the Span ish authorities as of possible utility to the galleon navigation. "If by chance or necessity the galleon should make port in some little known locality," read the instructions issued by Governor Arandia in 1757, "you shall endeavor, if possible to draw up a chart of the place—and keeping always within sight of the coasts of California, or, if it should happen to be another that is sighted —you shall take particular note of the currents, soundings, varia tions of the compass, and make any other observations that might be helpful to subsequent ships." Much was made by foreign navigators of the latter eight eenth century of the failure of the Spaniards to discover the Hawaiian Islands. The appearance on early charts of a group of islands in the general position of Hawaii gave a certain plausi bility to the belief that some Spanish seaman had actually sighted the Hawaiian Islands. Certain vague statements, made by one Juan Gaetan, a minor officer of Villalobos' crews, lent further credence to the theory, which was accepted by the able French navigator, La Perouse, and by the great German scientist, Alex ander von Humboldt. Though the existence of the islands, which usually appear on the maps as La Mesa, or Los Monjes, La Disgraciada, and La Vezina, has never been explained, except by the loose geodesy and cartography of the early Pacific, the strongest evidence is against their identity with the Hawaiians.4 * The subject has been exhaustively discussed by the Swedish scholar, Erik Wilhelm Dahlgren, in his study entitled, Were the Hawaiian Islands Visited by the Spaniards before their Discovery by Captain Coo\ in 1778. (Stockholm, 1916). THE ROUTE The possibility of an unrecorded Spanish voyage remains, but it is too tenuous to form the basis for more than a tantalizing hypothesis. Captain Cook, who discovered the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, did not understand the navigating problems of the Spaniards on their crossing between the Philippines and Mexico. "Here they might have found plenty," he said "and have been within a month's sure sail of the very part of California which the Manila ship is obliged to make." During the same period, Martinez, the principal Spanish figure in the Nootka Sound controversy, wrote in his diary : "The Hawaiian Islands, which abound in everything that is necessary, are placed in the center of the Pacific Ocean at an almost equal distance from San Blas, Nootka, Prince Wil liam Sound, Siberia, Japan, the Philippines, and Canton. The voyage each way requires but a month and they are an advan tageous stopping place, where ships sailing between this coast (i.e., northwest North America) and Canton can take on a store of provisions." Those who would criticize or marvel at the failure of the Spaniards to discover the Hawaiian Islands fail to take account of two basic circumstances in the problem. First, as the islands lie outside the zone of the prevailing westerlies in the north Pacific and almost midway between the eastward and westward lanes of the galleons, it was not to be expected that the Spaniards would find them in the ordinary course of the Manila-Acapulco navigation. Second, in the long Spanish epoch in the Pacific the spirit of discovery was early superseded by a cautious business +,aversion to taking unnecessary risks. For the galleon was, after all, a trading ship, on whose safe voyage depended the welfare of the Spanish colony in the Philippines. Humboldt, though rec ognizing that a chance Spanish voyage may have come upon the Hawaiians, says in justification of the conservative policy of the Spaniards as it concerned the return voyage to the Philippines: "For nearly three hundred years the pilots of the Acapulco gal leons have had the prudence always to run along the same paral lel, for it has seemed to them all the more necessary to follow that route, since they believed they would run onto shallows or shoals if they should deviate from the line to either the north or the south." From the time the galleon left the Philippines until she made 230 THE MANILA GALLEON her landfall on the American side the only islands sighted were during the stage of the voyage when she was rising to gain the necessary altitude for her easting. Though she usually sailed far out from Japan, a galleon occasionally passed close enough to make out the mountains of Hondo to the west. Generally they passed much lower through the broken series of island groups that reach from the coastal waters of Hondo south to the region of the Carolines. At the northern end of the scattered chain of islets are the Shichi-to or Seven Islands, close under Japan, the outermost of which the Spaniards knew as "Cape Sestos." Farther out are the Bonins and the Volcanes or Volcano Islands. Then beyond a wider gap of water begins the long cordillera of the Ladrones, which culminate in Guam on the thirtieth paral lel. The usual easterly course of the galleons lay somewhere be tween Uracas of the Ladrones and the Volcanes, though con trary winds or more serious misadventures might drive them either higher or lower than this zone. Gemelli Careri said that the galleons usually crossed the meridian of the Ladrones be tween twenty and twenty-five degrees. Many crossed higher, the Rosario in thirty degrees and thirty-nine minutes in 1706. None of these islands, not even the larger of the Ladrones, offered a satisfactory port of refuge to a galleon in distress. They either rise abruptly from the sea or present an open roadstead, where a safe anchorage or landing was possible only in good weather. In fact, the Spaniards were more concerned with keep ing clear of them than with making their closer acquaintance or utilizing them as a haven. For this quarter of the sea was full of the bitter memories of catastrophe and both crew and passen gers breathed easier when they were out of it. When ex-Gover nor Vargas died on the Rosario in 1690 an old chronicler wrote : "This occurred in a place which people called Dona Maria de la Jara, of considerable note on account of the many deaths which have occurred in that place; for among those who have died there are four proprietary governors, and some acting governors, and some oidores and the Bishop of Troy. Accordingly this place is the dread of those who sail in that trade, and especially for per sons of so high degree." The Spaniards called this part of the Pacific "the graveyard of Dona Maria de la Jara," for a woman of that name who, in desperation from her sufferings, was said to have thrown herself THE ROUTE into its waters from a passing galleon. At times the name was given to an imaginary island, and when Gemelli Careri sailed across the Pacific in 1697 and a bird came aboard his galleon in the vicinity of the thirty-first parallel, it was believed to have come from "the Island of Dona Maria." Closely connected with this forbidding corner of the Pacific was the mystery of two islands, which the Spaniards called by the alluring names of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata, or "Rich in Gold" and "Rich in Silver." Belief in the existence of these fabulous islands began very early, but the exact origin of the myth is unknown. It probably represented the rebirth of a legend that had its roots deep in the fancies of ancient geog raphers, like Pliny and Ptolemy. Nurtured by the credulity and wishful thinking of successive generations, old tales of gold and silver islands reappeared from time to time in new guises and new places. Early imaginations located them in the distant East beyond the farthest haunts of travellers of each age. As the bounds of the unknown world receded, the locale of the elusive fiction was pushed farther over the horizon. Marco Polo's ex aggerated account of the wealth of Cipango or Japan revived the dormant myth at the end of the Middle Ages. And when the first foreign visitors to Japan in the sixteenth century dispelled the illusions of its riches, the will-o'-the-wisp reappeared in the barren seas to the eastward. Thus, Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata were the natural successors of the Chryse and the Argyre of the ancients. Meanwhile, the discoveries of Aztec and Inca gold in Mexico and Peru had given some substance to the myth of the Greeks. The quest of El Dorado and Mendana's search for the Isles of Solomon in the south Pacific were only other phases of the secular fable of the land of easy wealth. The navigator, Francisco Gali, may first have heard the tale of the rich islands from the Portuguese at Macao in 1582. For Fray Andres de Aguirre, who had evidently talked with Gali and later urged on the archbishop-viceroy, Moya y Contreras, that Gali be sent to find the islands and to explore the California coast, first mentioned the islands in 1584. In a letter to the vice roy the friar, who had been with Urdaneta in 1565, said a Portu guese ship, bound from Malacca to Japan, had run well out east of Japan where she had found two islands with rich deposits of gold. The islands were first called "Isles of the Armenian," 232 THE MANILA GALLEON from an Armenian merchant on the Portuguese ship, who was said to have traded with the islanders. For a time the two names were used interchangeably, but the islands early came to be known as "Rica de Oro" and "Rica de Plata." Gali, who had already made a voyage from Asia to the north west coast of the American continent, died at Manila in 1585, before he could carry out the viceroy's orders. When Pedro de Unamuno, who succeeded to Gali's commission, crossed from Macao to Acapulco two years later he reported no trace of the islands and expressed his disbelief in their existence. For a while interest in the mysterious islands grew with every voyage of the galleons, though many old sailors shook their heads in skepticism. Not only had they taken their places in the lush geography of Spanish fantasy, but a sounder motive came to spur the Spaniards in their search. If such islands really existed in the area ascribed to them, they might serve as a con venient way-station for the Manila Galleons in that critical stage of their voyage. //r~ In this connection they were closely linked with Spanish interest in California. In fact, Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata were responsible for delaying Spanish settlement of California for over a century and a half. "Everything," said the Jesuit, Murillo Velarde, "was thrown into confusion by the fantastic and pernicious islands of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata,—a sort of Barataria of Sancho Panza." For, after Sebastian Vizcaino had explored the upper California coast in 1602-3 and plans had been made to follow up his work with the occupation of Monterey Bay, all initiative was suddenly diverted to the isles of fancy on the other side of the Pacific. Monterey, the viceroy, who had promoted the movement for the occupation of upper California, had been transferred to the southern viceroyalty at Lima. His successor, Montesclaros, had no enthusiasm for the California project and circumstances so played into his hands that the project was definitely aban doned for the time. Monterey had planned to send out Vizcaino as commander of the Acapulco galleon in 1604, with the inten tion of having him examine further the site of the proposed settlement on his return from the Philippines. He took this oc casion to laud the work of Vizcaino, whom he called a skilled and trustworthy navigator. "He will give," said Monterey, "a THE ROUTE 233 very good account of anything he undertakes at sea." However, Vizcaino's removal from his command and his appointment as alcalde mayor of Tehuantepec had already been decreed, and his patron, the viceroy, was then awaiting a ship to carry him to Peru. The court in Spain was evidently ignorant of some of the manoeuvres in Mexico, for in 1606 Philip III, on the recommen dation of the Council of the Indies and of the chief cosmographer, ordered measures to be taken to establish a post on the California coast that could serve as a way-station for the galleons on their eastward passage. The viceroy was commanded to en trust the expedition to the indispensable Vizcaino, who was to proceed by way of the Philippines, where he should receive what ever aid he might need from the governor before returning east ward to the American coast. Montesclaros was, meanwhile, to raise the necessary soldiers and colonists for the peopling of the new post, of which Vizcaino would lay the preliminary founda tions. The royal order did not reach Mexico until April n, 1607, long delayed by shipwreck. It was impossible to put it into execution, as the Acapulco galleon had cleared a month before and Vizcaino had left for Spain on the previous fleet from Vera Cruz. It was on this occasion that Montesclaros made the counter proposal which postponed the occupation of California for more than a hundred and fifty years. He declared against the estab lishment of a post on the California coast, although conceding that Monterey Bay might be used in lieu of anything better. The sailors, he contended, considered their voyage virtually ended when they sighted the coasts of California, and usually passed Monterey Bay with all sail set for Acapulco. The real danger, he declared, lay in the earlier stages of the voyage,— in the seas off Japan and thereabouts. And here, the viceroy believed, Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata were providentially situ ated for the purpose in question. He would substitute for the reality of California two islands whose very existence was prob lematical. The special committee, or junta, of war and the Indies, which was called to consider the viceroy's proposal, endorsed the change and recommended that, "before he does anything else," Luis de Velasco, reappointed to the northern viceroyalty from Lima, should take measures for the discovery of Rica de Oro and 234 THE MANILA GALLEON Rica dc Plata. The 20,000 pesos which were to pay the initial costs of the establishment at Monterey were diverted to finance the wild-goose-chase in the western Pacific. In September 1608, the junta's endorsement was incorporated into law in a royal order to the viceroy, to the effect that Vizcaino should be des patched around by the Philippines to search for the two islands. "Those who have undertaken that voyage," wrote the king, "and have made it declare that both those islands are very well suited to be places for refitting the ships from the Philippines, and that it would be advantageous to find them again and colonize them for that purpose." . It was three years before action was taken on the royal order. A council was meanwhile held in Mexico, composed of Morga, Rios Coronel, Vizcaino, and other qualified persons, who decided on a direct voyage across the Pacific to the waters about Japan. In his History of the Philippines Morga wrote of the galleons: "They sail among other islands, which are seldom seen, in 38 degrees, encountering the same dangers and storms and in a cold climate, in the neighborhood of the islands of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata." The plans of the council provided for the sounding of the bays and harbors along the Japanese coasts, into which the galleons might be driven to seek refuge, as occurred with the San Felipe in 1596, after which Vizcaino was to return eastward in his quest of the mysterious islands. Speaking of Rica de Plata, Rios Coronel declared it was believed to be over one hundred miles in circumference. Ships had sighted it, but none had ever put in there. He called its exploration of the "highest importance" to the welfare of the galleon line, since it would free the ships from the necessity of turning back to Manila to refit when they were too damaged by the storms of that area to proceed on their way across the Pacific. As we have seen, Vizcaino crossed to Japan from Acapulco in 1611. He not only kept a lookout for the islands in the waters to the northwest of the Ladrones, but, after a prolonged stay in Japan, cruised for three months in the seas to the eastward. After riding through a heavy storm, in which the ship lost its mainmast, Vizcaino yielded to the complaints of his crew and put back to port in Japan. When he left for Mexico again the next year he renewed the fruitless search. But he had already declared "that there were no such islands in the whole world, that THE ROUTE 235 he had done everything in his power, and more than the viceroy had commanded him to do." The Dutch also abandoned their normal caution in such matters and became victims of the same fancy. Willem Verstegen, an agent of the East India Company, heard in Japan of the Spaniards' efforts to find the two islands and learned the Japanese version of the myth. In 1635 he reported this infor mation to Van Diemen, the new governor-general at Batavia. Though Van Diemen's curiosity and interest were aroused, it was several years before he found an opportunity to push the search for the islands. Then in 1639 he sent out two ships, under Matthijs Quast and Abel Janszoon Tasman, the famous navi gator, who three years later was to discover New Zealand and the island named for him. In case of failure to find the two islands the alternative objects of the voyage were the exploration of the coasts of Korea and Tartary or the investigation of the Ladrones, with the additional purpose of waylaying the Acapulco galleon on her way out to Manila. Neither object was realized. The Dutchmen wandered about the seas to the east of Japan for nearly five months, much of it in rough weather. When they returned to the Dutch settlement on Formosa, nearly half the original company of ninety were dead. Undeterred by the failure, Van Diemen despatched another expedition to the same locality in 1643. The two ships, under the command of Maarten Gerritszoon Vries and Hendrik Corneliszoon Schaep, sailed up the ocean side of Japan and then struck eastward around the Shichi-tos in quest of the "Rich Islands." During their cruise they rose to higher latitudes than any of their predecesors, but all to no avail. Though it was a century before the project for the discovery of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata was actively revived, they con tinued to find a place on the charts of the north Pacific, and many Spaniards persisted in their credence in the reality of the islands. Pilots of the galleon frequently refer to them in their logs. When the pilot of the Rosario in 1703 saw some sea birds, he noted that they "certainly" came from Rica de Plata. In 1722 the Sacra Familia reported that it passed within 70 leagues of Rica de Plata. Twelve years later the pilot of the San Cristdbal laid his course for Rica de Plata, which he believed to lie in latitude thirty degrees and three minutes and longitude thirty-four de 236 THE MANILA GALLEON grees and four minutes east of Cape Espiritu Santo. Gemelli Careri, who passed through the area of their problematical loca tion in 1697, heard from those on board stories of their existence. When in thirty-one degrees fifty-eight minutes he made the fol lowing observation: "We thought ourselves about the latitude of an Imaginary Island, reported to be rich in Gold, and placed in the Sea Charts as 32 degrees wanting some few minutes, whereas it is certain no Body ever saw any such Island." When a bird settled on the ship in latitude thirty-four degrees seven minutes, he wrote in his diary: "They concluded it certainly came from Rica de Plata, an Island 30 leagues distant southward. The Pilots suppose the Islands Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata, with others about them, to be the Islands of Solomon, but I am of opinion these are imaginary Islands." The next day an entry reads: "We sail'd E. for fear of running upon Rica de Plata, and found the lat. but 33 deg. 30 min." It was the fourth of October and "very cold." The Italian traveller recounts one of the tales responsible for the fame of the islands' riches. "A Galleon sailing from Manila for New Spain," he says, "was drove by Tempest upon an Island. The Storm having remov'd and thrown away all the Earth about the Hearth, or Furnace in the Cook-Room, they took some from the Island to put in the place of it. When the Galleon came to Acapulco, this Earth being remov'd they found under it a Mass of Gold, which the violent Heat had melted and separated from the Earth. The Commander, admir ing at this unexpected Accident, acquainted the Viceroy of Mexico with it, and he the King, who order'd a Squadron to be fitted out to find these islands, the Pilot having taken their lati tude." The question was reopened in 1730, when a royal order di rected the governor to take measures for discovering and occupy ing the islands. It was four years later when the governor in formed the king that a private citizen of Manila, General Pedro Gonzalez de Rivero Quixano, Marquis of Monte Castro and Llanohermosa, had offered to fit out and finance the necessary expedition, on condition that he were granted permission to lade a ship with 300,000 pesos worth of goods and to sell them in Mexico without payment of the regular duties. The nobleman's offer was not given favorable consideration at court, and in 1738 the king asked the governor to inform him regarding the cost of finding the islands and the possible value of their discovery. THE ROUTE 237 On receipt of the order the most experienced pilots of the galleon line were consulted as to their knowledge of the islands and their opinion of their potential usefulness. Of the pilots, Heinrich Hermann, a German, declared the need for such a waystation was as acute as it had been in 1606, when the problem of their discovery was first considered seriously. He said that the galleons were accustomed to pass to the right of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata. Geronimo Monteiro, the Portuguese, was very precise in his testimony and placed Rica de Oro in latitude twenty-nine degrees, forty-five minutes and 600 leagues to the northeast of Cape Espiritu Santo. Rica de Plata he located in thirty-three degrees, thirty-six minutes and 760 leagues from the Embocadero. He said that the galleons, which usually crossed between thirty-six degrees and thirty-seven degrees, generally sailed between the islands. Pierre Laborde, a Frenchman, had marked the location of the islands on his sailing charts in their relation to the volcanic island of San Agustin in twenty-nine de grees, twenty-five minutes. He testified that Rica de Oro lay 342 French leagues to the northeast of San Agustin in twentynine degrees, twenty-five minutes and that Rica de Plata was situated 420 leagues from San Agustin and in latitude thirtytwo degrees, fifty minutes. Manuel Galvez, the only Spaniard of the four pilots, who had made four crossings to Acapulco, affirmed that the galleons always passed between the two islands. He also emphasized the need for such a port of refuge as either of them would afford in this stage of the voyage. When Governor de la Torre reported to the king in July 1740, it was to discourage any further search for the islands which had intrigued so many generations. He estimated the cost of an exploring expedition at 90,000 pesos, but recommended against the expenditure. The skeptical governor adduced the lack of any agreement as to the location of the islands. "The situation of these islands has no fixed point!" he wrote. "Some place them at a higher point and others at a lower latitude, but so far no one has ever seen them. Everybody is ignorant of their size and as to whether they are inhabited or unpopulated."5 The royal decision, rendered in 1741, runs as follows: "From all the information received, there appears no reasonable encour5 Some modern geographers have perpetuated the legend of the islands. For example, Rica de Oro is shown in longitude 140 degrees east of Greenwich and lati tude 29 degrees north on the map of Oceania, in J. G. Bartholomew, The advanced atlas of physical and political geography, London, 1917. THE MANILA GALLEON agement to attempt the aforesaid discovery; since in so long a time as from the year 1606, in which notice was received of these islands, to the present hour, the galleons have navigated this passage without being under the necessity of seeking them; moreover, their situation is not ascertained, for some report them to lie in more degrees than others; neither is their size known, nor the kind of people inhabiting them, nor even whether they are inhabited or not; and the means which the Marquis of Monte Castro has proposed for making this discovery appear imprac ticable. It is therefore ordered, that no alteration shall be made from the route by which the galleons have annually sailed to New Spain." Though the question was officially closed, in 1768 Governor Anda wrote: "It is a well known fact at Manila that many pilots on the way to Acapulco have frequently seen signs of land, but as they have a fixed destination, they have never exerted them selves to investigate a question so important to such a prolonged navigation, nor have the governors done anything to further its exploration. The matter seems to me to merit serious attention on account of the great advantage and utility which the discov ery would produce, both because it would furnish a way-station for the galleons, and also because in those regions it would not be strange if land were found that would be useful for other pur poses." To resume the various stages of the eastward route, the pas sage across "the gulf," as the Spaniards called the open Pacific, offered few serious problems of navigation. Though "the longest from land to land on our globe," the crossing was fairly depend able and much safer than the first stages of the voyage. "The ship," said Antonio de Morga, "can run free in any weather." Long before the galleons were in touch with the American coast they encountered indications on the surface of the sea of its pres ence ahead. The first of these senas or signs of land were usually met with several hundred miles out, and from thence to the proximity of the California coast there was a fairly regular suc cession of them. Due to the usual inaccuracies in the reckoning of longitude, the senas were eagerly looked for in the later stages of the crossing, as they provided the pilot with a means of check ing up his approximate position, which was calculated by dead reckoning. Also their discovery was the occasion for general THE ROUTE 239 rejoicing on board among the passengers, wearied by the trials of the long voyage. The first senas encountered were the fungous aguas malas; then at about a hundred leagues from shore, the "frolicsome" perrillos, or seals, "with Head and Ears like a Dog and a Tail like that they paint the Mermaids with"; next kelp, or porras, which the Spaniards described as a yellowish onion-like herb, with long roots floating on the surface of the water; and finally, close in to shore, the balsas, or "rafts," which were large bunches of matted grass. Morga describes the aguas malas as being "large as the head, round and violet colored, with a crest in the middle like a lateen sail, which are called caravalas [caravels]." In his pilot's guide Cabrera Bueno gives the color of the porras as green or red, and says their roots were from four to six feet long. Padre Cubero Sebastian, who likens them to beets, remarks as to their origin: "They are carried down to the sea by those great rivers, that rise in that unknown part of New Spain, which lies between thirty-eight and forty degrees." Cubero says of the balsas: "As we approach the land these masses of leaves and roots are found in quantities. Certain fish, which the sailors call lobillos [little wolves] play on top of them like monkeys and then plunge under the water. I saw them with my own eyes." There were two courses open to the galleons on the discovery of the senas. One was to continue directly ahead until land was sighted before changing direction; the alternative was to veer to the southeast and make land in the region of Lower California. The former was the usual procedure in the early history of the line, as the other route was generally followed in the eighteenth century. However, there was no uniformity as to the exact course during either period. A convenient and customary point for demarcation in early times was the headland of Cape Men docino, as Espiritu Santo on Samar and San Lucas on Lower California were similar landmarks at other points on the route. "Then the coast is discovered," says Morga, "and it is very high and clear land. Without losing sight of land, the ship coasts along it with NW, NNW, and N winds, which generally pre vail on the coast, blowing by day toward the land and by night toward the sea again." When the galleons followed the upper California coast they kept no nearer to it than was necessary to guide their course, 240 THE MANILA GALLEON that is, to make out the more prominent landmarks. Moreover, after the long and perilous crossing from the Philippines pilots and commanders were averse to taking the further risks involved in the close reconnaissance of a rugged and forbidding coast. Commenting on their anxiety to keep clear of the coast, Diego de Bobadilla wrote in 1640: "The Captain changed his course to the south, to avoid getting caught in the land, or in some gulf, whence he would have a hard time to get out." Writing a cen tury later, the author of Lord Anson's Voyage remarked: "As there are many islands and some shoals adjacent to California the extreme caution of the Spanish navigators makes them very apprehensive of being engaged with the land." A further deter rent to familiarity with the northern coast was the dense pall of fog that often hung over the land, concealing possible reefs and headlands, and which has accounted for many shipwrecks in later times. The loss of Cermenho's San Agusttn near Point Reyes in 1595 and the narrow escape of the Espiritu Santo and Jesus Maria from destruction near Cape Mendocino in 1604 were effective reminders of this menace of the upper coast. For the ships that chose this route Cabrera Bueno gives the points of demarcation, which are practically in the reverse order of Vizcaino's derrotero of 1602. Turning SE by E from off Cape Mendocino, the next prominent landmark was Point Reyes, out side the sheltered harbor of Drake's Bay. They were directed not to follow the bend of the coast at this point, but to stand out a little to sea, in order to keep clear of the Farallones, which lie somewhat to the east of south. "The Philippine ship," wrote Viceroy Branciforte to Diego de Gardoqui in 1796, "sails with confidence as soon as she sights the Farallones off the port of San Francisco in the Californias." Some thirty leagues south from Point Reyes the galleons sailed well out from the broad sweep of Monterey Bay, sighting the familiar Point Pinos. Thence the course lay down the barren coast by Point Concep tion and through the Santa Barbara Channel to the Lower Cali fornia coast. As the pilots became more familiar with the waters off Cali fornia it became customary for them to steer southeast from some point in the zone of the senas. Thus, in the log of the San Pedro for October 22, 1776, an entry reads: "We passed a green porra, and orders were given to steer ESE." The galleon was then THE ROUTE 241 reckoned to be in latitude thirty-one degrees, forty-two minutes and longitude one hundred thirty-eight degrees, thirty-five min utes west of Greenwich. When this course was followed the galleons often made their landfall at one of the three islands, Cenizas, now San Martin; Guadalupe; or Cerros, or Cedros, all of which lie off the coast of the peninsula. In one of the three courses which he describes Cabrera Bueno gives. the following demarcation for a route in volving a landfall in thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes: thence around Point Concepcion and through the Santa Barbara Chan nel, SE by S along about 75 leagues of wooded coast, where an extra spar could be cut in case of need, to make land again at the island of Guadalupe. The San Antonio de Padua in 1679 sighted land in thirty-six degrees, twenty-nine minutes, "some very high, whitish, and treeless mountains." The Rosario made her landfall in 1702 at Point Concepcion, and the Covadonga in 1731 in thirty-six degrees, twenty minutes. From the point of lower California the galleon struck across the mouth of the Gulf to the neighborhood of Cape Corrientes and coasted along thence to Acapulco. She generally hove to off some port along the Guadalajara coast, usually at Navidad, from where she sent off her papers by a special courier to the capital. She also took on fresh water and provisions, and left some of her sick at one of these ports or higher up the coast at the Jesuit mission of San Josef del Cabo on the peninsula. It was only after the district of the Audiencia of Guadalajara had been well settled that these stops became at all customary. Morga gives as the itinerary from Cape San Lucas in the early seventeenth century: "One traverses the eighty leagues intervening to the islands of Las Marias and Cape Corrientes, which is on the other side of California in Val de Banderas, and the province of Chametla. Thence one passes the coast of Colima, Zacatula, Los Motines, and Zihuatanejo, and enters the port of Acapulco without having made a way-station or touched land from the channel of Capul in the Philippines throughout the voyage." The intimate connection between the Manila Galleon and the early history of California has been pointed out above in relation to the problem of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata. Voyages from the west, made by Gali, Unamuno, and Cermenho and those from the south made by Cabrillo-Ferrelo and Vizcaino 242 THE MANILA GALLEON had familiarized the Spaniards with the coast at least as high as Cape Mendocino. The galleons had very probably contributed considerable accidental and unrecorded knowledge of the coast, gained by casual observation and in spite of the pilots' aversion to sailing too close to landward. In the interval between the suspension of the California de sign and its resumption 160 years later the interest shifted to lower California, in which may be included the harbor of San Diego. This region had been better known from early times than was the northwest coast. Attention was again drawn to it by Fray Antonio de la Ascension, who had accompanied Vizcaino on his northern expedition. In June 1609, he recommended to the king the establishment of a settlement on the Bay of San Bernabe by Cape San Lucas, where the galleons could put in—"leaving Monterey, which is to be populated." The proposal was re viewed by the Council of the Indies, and then submitted to the examination of Viceroy Velasco. However, this project bore no immediate results, though it probably furnished the initial impulse for the numerous expeditions which were despatched to the region of lower California during the seventeenth cen tury. Other motives were at work in these movements, too, than the need for a way-station for the galleons. There were lucrative pearl fishing grounds in those waters. The gathering of the pichilingues, or foreign privateers and pirates, in that vicinity from Cavendish and Speilbergen to the later irruptions of the buccaneers exposed a very vulnerable outwork of New Spain to occupation and the Philippine commerce to attacks. In 1712 Woodes Rogers said of the Spanish policy towards Lower Cali fornia: "They are jealous to keep what they have; and though they make no Use of their Land, might be afraid of Rivals." Also, there was a geographical interest in the question of whether California was island or peninsula and in the associated prob lems of Anian and Quivira. And finally the northward mis sionary advance in New Spain was about to reach the field of lower California, especially the Jesuit phase of this movement. These objects, singly or conjointly, formed the impulse for the expeditions of those Spaniards of the period, who undertook voyages to the region of the Gulf of California. But little came of all this for the galleons. It was long after 1700 before they could find a refuge on the southern coast. THE ROUTE 243 With the Bourbons there came a new interest in California. In 1703, and again in July 1708, Philip V ordered the establish ment of a post on the coast, preferably near Cape San Lucas, but the colonial officials failed to carry out the purpose of the royal decree. Then, in 1719, on the advice of Julio de Oliban, a mem ber of the Audiencia of Guadalajara, the king proposed the founding of a settlement on San Diego Bay. This port is de scribed as "capacious, pleasant, and well-situated," and says the king, it should be settled "before the enemies of my crown occupy it." For the immediate impetus of the proposal came from fears of the intentions of the English, who had frequented that coast for the past several years. The settlement of either San Diego or Monterey would, declared the king, preserve the coast from temporary depredations or more serious dangers from foreigners. It was suggested to Viceroy Valero that the new presidio could be garrisoned with idlers from Mexico, an ap parently inexhaustible source of colonists. But this project, too, became a dead letter when it reached New Spain, and San Diego was not settled until 1769, after another half-century of delay. Except for the urgings of the indefatigable Jesuit, Padre Kino, who was pushing the frontier of New Spain landwards up the east coast of the gulf and towards upper California, the impulse for the occupation of lower California during the next few years came from the Philippines, where the lack of such an establishment was keenest felt. The galleons of 1732 carried orders to unite in San Diego Bay and though they approached its entrance, they were prevented by bad weather from going in. The next year Governor Valdes ordered the galleons to put in at Magdalena Bay, in case their commanders considered it advisable, and in 1734 he directed Jose Bermudez and Geronimo Monteiro, commanders of the outgoing galleons, to reconnoiter the coast of lower California for a site for a way-station. Monteiro put in at the Bay of San Bernabe, where the Jesuits had founded the mission of San Josef del Cabo four years before. He had but one day's supply of water left and scarcely any pro visions, while several were sick with beri-beri, "whose only remedy is to go ashore." There were taken onto the galleon 100 head of sheep and hogs, 40 head of cattle, numerous gamebirds, fruits, and vegetables, "and other gifts." Those on board THE MANILA GALLEON were so revived that at Navidad, down the coast on the other side of the gulf, people remarked: "It is not possible that these men are China sailors, because we are accustomed to see in those of so difficult a navigation the aspect of dead men or of mortified penitents." The following year the Encarnacion stopped at the Cape mission in nearly as great distress as the galleon of 1734. However, the Jesuit station had meanwhile been blotted out in an Indian rising, in which the missionaries in charge were murdered. The party sent ashore from the galleon, ignorant of the fate of the Jesuits, were set upon by the revolted Indians and thirteen of the Spaniards killed. The mission was soon reestablished and the galleons called there with considerable regularity until the suppression of the Society in 1767. As always, some of the most active advocates of the settle ment of upper California continued to be Spanish officials in the Philippines. Thus, in 1748, Pedro Calderon Ennquez, then a member of the audiencia at Manila, had urgently advised the king to order the occupation of Monterey. Twenty years later he proposed to Arriaga, Minister of the Indies, the abolition of the post on Guam and the diversion of the expenses for its main tenance—about 32,000 pesos a year—to the foundation of a post on the California coast. /The successful and definitive effort in 1769 for the occupa tion of upper California was the result of a composite of forces. The first of these was the two-century-old need for a galleon station and the newest was the fear of Russian and English aggressions on the northern coasts. Not only had the Russians crossed to the American mainland from Siberia by 1741, but an ominous advance southward from Alaska did not portend well for Spain's possessions in that direction. And between 1764-69 the expeditions of Byron, Wallis-Carteret, and Bougain ville appeared in the Pacific, while in the latter year Cook rounded Cape Horn and crossed the South Sea to New Zealand and Australia. The Spaniards saw in these irruptions into the Pacific more than astronomical or geographical curiosity and dreaded above all the colonial ambitions of England, whose hold on the Philippines in 1762 had for a moment brought her to the edge of the Pacific. Spaniards had long realized the strategic value of the Philippines as a bulwark for the defense of the American coasts against aggressions from the west. Gov THE ROUTE 245 crnor Anda warned the Spanish government in 1768 that the abandonment of the Philippines would result in the loss of Spain's American empire. In the face of all this it became increasingly clear to the Spaniards that actual possession alone would insure to them what they would keep. No papal bulls or sweeping claims would longer avail. Further, the final occupation of California would be rendered easier by the progress of the mission field toward the northwest through the work of such men as Kino, and later of Serra. There was no longer the wide gap between the inhabited parts of New Spain and the upper California coast, and thus entire reliance did not have to be placed upon the sea route as an avenue to the north. The policy of Spain was also now under different guidance than it had had under the Hapsburgs. It was directed by the enlightened Charles III and by a body of ministers and colonial officials as advanced as the monarch. Among these was the energetic and masterly Jose de Galvez, who, as visitor-general of New Spain in the years between 1765 and 1771, not only saw the pressing necessity of consummating the long-delayed occupation of upper California, but his was the driving will that put it into execution. A com bined missionary and military entrada into California in 1769 laid the foundations of presidios and missions. And not only were Spaniards in actual possession of Monterey at last, but the superior harbor of San Francisco was discovered. By 1776 San Diego, Monterey and San Francisco, with a connecting line of missions, had been founded. Either of the ports in question would make a suitable port-of-call for the galleons. On June 22, 1773, the Council of the Indies decreed that the galleons should put in at Monterey, both for their own good and for the welfare of the colony, and on December 14 a royal order was issued to the same effect. But though a fine of 4,000 pesos was imposed on the commander of the galleon >for failure to stop, the most of them preferred to continue on their way and risk the possibility of having to pay the fine rather than endure the delay. The governors of the Philippines, save in the case of Basco y Vergas, were furthermore lenient in holding the gal leon 1 officers to account. However, in 1795 the king himself withdrew his previous order. At that time the Marques de Baxamar declared that it was neither to the advantage of the 246 THE MANILA GALLEON colony or vessel that the nao should call at a California port. Against Monterey he alleged that the harbor was too shallow for the galleon to tie up there, though the viceroy, Revillagigedo, had advised the king in 1790 that the risks involved in calling at Monterey were negligible. The ordinary route of the galleons was at this period far out from the upper California coast and they must accordingly leave their course to reach San Francisco or Monterey. The ban placed by Viceroy Bucarely in 1773 on trading between the galleon and the colonists—whether laymen or priests—removed one of the main incentives for stopping. Felipe de Neve, governor of the new province, even prohibited the missionaries from going aboard the galleons, while Gonzalez, commandant at Monterey, was arrested for trading with them. In view of the potentialities of the region, such an illiberal pro hibition greatly restricted the economic growth of the colony, not only by depriving it of an outlet for its productions, but of an excellent source of supplies in the Philippines. As it was, but few galleons put in at the California ports. The first was the San Jose, which called at Monterey in 1779. In 1784 Basco y Vargas gave the San Felipe (Bruno de Heceta, Commander, and Antonio Maurelle, Pilot) specific orders to stop at San Francisco or Monterey. The San Felipe reached Monterey October 10 and remained there until November 7 before proceeding for Acapulco, which she reached on Decem ber 11. The San Jose" stopped again the next year, storm-wracked and pest-ridden, but in 1786 the San Andrts passed by, although she lost thirty-six with scurvy and left forty-five more at San Blas to convalesce. In 1795 two galleons put in at Monterey, while two years later one put in at Monterey and another at Santa Barbara. The westward route from Acapulco to the Philippines was as direct and as easy of navigation as that in the opposite direc tion was circuitous and difficult. In order to fall in with the trades the galleon dropped from Acapulco, in latitude fifteen degrees, fifty-one minutes, with a NW breeze, to somewhere between the tenth and the fourteenth parallel. In this zone she sailed constantly before the wind until she approached the vicinity of the Ladrones, when she gradually rose to above thirteen degrees, in order to fall in with the island of Guam or of Saipan. Continued favorable winds carried her on rapidly THE ROUTE 247 to the Embocadero at the entrance of the Philippines, unless she should reach this area after the southwest monsoon had set in, in which case she might have considerable difficulty in get ting into the islands. "They always run in a strait Line," said Gemelli Careri, "in a smooth Sea (whence this is called the Pacific Ocean by the Spaniards) as if they were in a Canal, without any Roughness of Water; so that they come in 60 or at furthest 65 Days to the Marian Islands [Ladrones], and thence in 15 or 20 to the Philippines." "Nothing interrupts the serenity of the sky in these regions," wrote Humboldt of the long course to the Ladrones. So certain were the galleons of favorable weather in these latitudes that when hostilities broke out between Spain and England during the War of American Independence, the pilot, Francisco Maurelle, carried the news from Mexico to Manila in a ship's yawl. Except for the diversion northward from the direct course to the Ladrones, this was substantially the route followed across the Pacific in 1527 by Alvaro de Saavedra and in 1542 by Villalobos. Legaspi followed it on the way to the Philippines, and the instructions drawn up by Urdaneta, his navigator, were to serve as a guide for the galleons throughout the duration of the line. Though the westward-bound galleons passed among the lower Ladrones from the beginning, it was not until the latter half of the seventeenth century that it became customary for them to stop at Guam on the way out to the Philippines. The group was discovered by Magellan, who noted the thieving proclivities of their inhabitants, that were responsible for the name commonly applied to them by the Spaniards. Sometimes they were called the Islas de las Velas Latinas, or Islands of Lateen Sails, and after their occupation they were rechristened the Marianas, in honor of the queen whose intercession was responsible for the founding of the mission on Guam. They were formally claimed for Spain by Legaspi, but no attempt was made to take possession of them for another cen tury. Then a Jesuit mission was established on Guam in 1668, and after a trying period of adjustment between friars and natives, Antonio de Saravia was sent to the islands as royal gov ernor in 1681. A fort was built and a garrison of between twenty and eighty men was henceforth stationed on Guam. 248 THE MANILA GALLEON A royal order of June 1668 required the Acapulco galleons to put in at Guam. To prevent the galleon from passing through the Ladrones in the darkness it was required that dur ing June fires should be kept burning all night on the highest points of Guam and Rota. As the water in front of the settle ment on Guam was too shallow to permit ships of their draught from coming in close to shore they lay to outside and sent ashore the supplies for the following year. Fresh fruit and other pro visions were also brought out by the natives, who, however, were not permitted on board on account of their predatory habits. After an exchange of courtesies and news between the gov ernor and the commander, the galleon was soon on her way to the westward. Sometimes she was forced to sea by a sudden wind while lying in the roadstead, occasionally leaving her boat behind her. Driven out to sea by a gale, the Acapulco galleon of 1674 went on to Manila without her captain, who had gone ashore in the ship's boat. The maintenance of the establishment on the Ladrones cost the crown about 34,000 pesos a year, which was sent out from Mexico as the situado and socorro, or "subsidy and relief." Of this the governor drew 3,000 pesos. This lonely official enjoyed the freedom from superior control which his isolation permitted, and it is told of one governor that, after galleons had put in at Guam for two years in succession with orders and instruc tions from the king, he planned to remove his residence to another island in order to be freer from the surveillance of the crown. Connections with the outside world remained as in frequent until the end of the Spanish regime over two hundred years later, and it is said that when an American warship ap peared in the roadstead at Agana on Guam in 1898 and began firing, the governor hastily sent out to the ship to request powder to return the "salute." The Acapulco galleons of 1699 and 1700 carried secret in structions from Governor Cruzat y Gongora to change their course 150 leagues before reaching the Ladrones and steer a direct course for the Catanduanes. The first of these galleons, the San Francisco Xavier, after sighting the Catanduanes, was unable to enter the strait, and was forced to go around Cape Engano and the northern end of the Philippines. The com mander and pilots of the Rosario, the galleon of the next year, THE ROUTE decided to hold to the customary course, though in violation of orders. She called at the Ladrones, as usual, but put into Palapag on the eastern side of Luzon instead of entering the Embocadero and proceeding up the straits to Manila. Four years later the king ordered Governor Zabalburu that hence forth the regular course of the westbound galleons should never be altered unless after consultation with the principal authorities on navigation at Manila or temporary consideration of military policy should dictate. Thus, in 1616 Viceroy Guadalcazar had ordered the outgoing galleon to change her course in view of the reported presence of Dutch ships about the Embocadero. The route which he directed the galleon to follow was to steer NW from the twelfth parallel in the region of the Barbudos archipelago, so as to pass through the Ladrones in eighteen de grees latitude and thence to round Cape Bojeador and nothern Luzon. In the navigation of the galleons the way of the innovator was hard. Andres de Medina, a Peruvian geographer and student of nautical affairs, wrote: "It is notorious that for the galleons to come and go between the Philippines and New Spain there are routes that are shorter and more certain and secure than those which have been followed in the past." As commander of the Acapulco galleon, San Jos6, in 1663, Medina attempted to put his theories into practice by leaving the tradi tional track across the Pacific and searching for the superior route which he believed to exist. However, when his intentions became apparent he was removed from his post by Salcedo, the new governor, who was on his way out to the Philippines. Later, in justifying his action to the king, Salcedo wrote: "As soon as he was out at sea, in violation of the instructions which had been given to him in Mexico to hold the usual course, and carried away by his own fancy, he wished to make innovations and with this object in view he ordered the pilot to seek out routes that were new, unknown, and unaccustomed." The gov ernor added sarcastically of the curious Medina: "He everywhere claims to be considered as the greatest argonaut in his pro fession." The galleons were early familiar with the myriad atolls of the Micronesian archipelagoes, particularly of the Marshalls, but the sight of these islets was only a pleasing incident of the 250 THE MANILA GALLEON voyage and had no nautical significance to those who were re sponsible for the line and its routine operation. The northern rim of the Carolines was also known to the Spaniards, and in 1686 a galleon which had gone to a lower latitude than usual sighted the Palaos or Pelew group to the east of Mindanao. >>>>>>>>.>>>>>>>>>- ® <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 7 THE VOYAGE Eastbound AN order of the king to Governor Fajardo in 1620 required l that the galleons leave Manila by the last day of June, "since the good success of the voyage largely consists in this." In 1773 the time for sailing was put forward to the first ten days of July. It was believed that this would generally ensure the galleon's reaching Acapulco by the end of the year. The same order fixed the twenty-fifth of March as the dead-line for sailing from Acapulco. These royal edicts had little effect on actual practice at Manila. The galleons might clear from Cavite at any time be tween the first of May and late in September, though the usual date was between the middle of June and the middle of July. The San Juan, one of the first two galleons sent from Manila— the first were despatched from Cebu—sailed on August 13, 1572; the San Martin, on June 28, 1586; the San Diego, on May 1, 1648; the San Antonio de Padua, on June 24, 1679; the Rosario, on July 6, 1706; the Nuestra Senora de Guia, on July 20, 1728; the Santisima Trinidad, on July 22, 1755; and the San Andrés, on July 14, 1787. In early times it was the ambition of pilots to get their ships out to sea on either St. John's Day (June 24th) or St. Peter's Day (June 29th), but it was seldom possible to hold to such a schedule. "They leave the bay and port of Cavite," says Morga, "at the first setting-in of the monsoon, by the twentieth of June or later." Governor Basco y Vargas informed Galvez, the Supreme Minister, in 1783, that, although they should sail by the middle of May, they were usually delayed until June, or even July, waiting for cargo from China. June was the most favorable month for encountering the winds that would carry the ship down to the Embocadero, where she could catch the opportune monsoon for the north. Another consideration that determined the proper season for sailing was 1s 1 252 THE MANILA GALLEON the probability of hurricanes or baguios on the way up into the north Pacific. This chance increased rapidly from July onward and reached its maximum in September. A galleon which left Manila after the middle of July was practically certain of running into rough weather within the next three months of her voyage. Frequent arribadas or returns to port and even more fatal con sequences came of these delayed departures from Manila. To be entirely safe she must have already turned eastward above the Ladrones before the typhoons infested this first stage of her course. "The monsoons," said Hernando de los Rios Coronel, "gen erally set in some time in June, and if they catch the ship in port she cannot sail until the first monsoon passes, that is, for fifteen days to a month. If she is caught outside during this weather she can sail until she reaches the region and altitude where she finds the usual winds with which to make the rest of her voyage with ease. Consequently, she will have passed Japan, where all the difficulties of the voyage lie, in good weather. If the aforesaid monsoon ceases and the ship is caught inside the bay, as a general thing, the brisa begins to blow, so that she is detained. Thus, it is September or October when she reaches the waters east of Japan, where storms are then in season." The delays in sailing were due to several causes: the dilatoriness of those in charge of the preparations for the despatch of the galleon; the necessity for awaiting the return of the Acapulco galleon, with the proceeds of the previous year's sales; and the tardy arrival of vessels from China or other ports, whose cargoes were to go on the nao. The early reappearance of con trary winds or the presence of enemies in the course might hold the galleon in port until a more favorable occasion, perhaps until the next year. Those governors who, like Salcedo, in spite of these obstacles, always sent out the galleons on time were held in high esteem in the islands. The most important events of the year at Manila were the departure and the arrival of the galleon. She carried in her hold the material hopes of the colony. On her passenger list were those citizens who were returning to America or to Spain to live on the riches which the galleons of former years had brought them, and on the incoming nao others came out to try their fortune in the same lucrative traffic. THE VOYAGE 253 On the day when the galleon cleared from Cavite the final ceremonies and official formalities were performed. From her anchorage under the headland of Cavite she was brought up the bay as close to the walled city as her draught allowed. Here the governor consigned the ship's papers and the royal ensign to her officers and delivered over the galleon to her commander. From the church of Santo Tomas a procession of chanting friars carried the effigy of the virgin-patroness of the galleon along the walls and then to a salvo of seven guns delivered it on board. Prayers were offered up in all the churches of Manila for a happy voyage, while the archbishop blessed the galleon from the ram parts as her sails filled and she moved heavily away towards Mariveles and the open sea. In all the seas there was no line of navigation so difficult, so attended with perils and hardships, as that of the Manila Galleons. "The Voyage from the Philippine Islands to America, may be call'd the longest and most dreadful of any in the World," said the much-traveled Gemelli Careri in the latter seventeenth century, "as well because of the vast Ocean to be cross'd, being almost the one half of the Terraqueous Globe, with the Wind always a-head; as for the terrible Tempests that happen there, one upon the back of another, and for the desperate Diseases that seize People, in 7 or 8 Months, lying at Sea sometimes near the Line, sometimes cold, sometimes temperate, and sometimes hot, which is enough to Destroy a Man of Steel, much more Flesh and Blood, which at Sea had but indifferent Food." Padre Casimiro Diaz, the historian, called it "the longest, most tedious, and most dangerous voyage in all the seas." To Grau y Monfalcon it was "that navigation, so remote, so long, so painful and full of perils." Every crossing was liable to be accompanied by all the dread extremities of an early voyage of discovery,— "hunger, thirst, sickness, cold, continual watching, and other sufferings, besides the terrible shocks from side to side caused by the furious beating of the waves." Even with halcyon seas and skies the easterly passage would scarcely have been a pleasure journey. Though the winds might be propitious enough, faulty construction of the galleon, and as faulty sailing of her, over crowding and a criminal improvidence in the matter of supplies often furnished the conditions necessary for a disastrous voyage. However, no ordinary provision for comfort or safety could en 254 THE MANILA GALLEON sure against the terrible consequences of the inordinate lengthen ing of the voyage by adverse weather. Governor Obando, who tried to institute many reforms in the management of the com merce, said : "in no part of the world have ships been sailed with so many dangers or with such boldness and disorder in their navigation." "These vessels," said Antonio de Morga, "make the voyage from the Philippines to New Spain with great difficulty and danger, for the course is a long one and there are many storms and various temperatures." Morga himself had experienced the vicissitudes of weather in the north Pacific. In 1604 he crossed to Mexico in the Espiritu Santo, which, with its consort, the Jestis Maria, was under the command of Lope de Ulloa. The galleons left Cavite on the nth of July, but ran into rough weather on their way out of the bay. The Espiritu Santo was blown up onto a wide shoal off the Pampanga coast of Luzon, where she was left stranded three miles from deep water. Chinese junks were hurriedly brought out from Manila, cables were lashed to the galleon and at high tide she was pulled across the shallows and out into the channel. On the 10th of November she was struck by a SSW gale within sight of Cape Mendocino on the California coast. The storm lasted for twelve days, during which the galleon was almost driven ashore several times. She lost nearly all her rigging and on the 22nd was twice struck by lightning. The first bolt killed three men and injured eight others, and sixteen were severely stunned by the second, "some of whom were speechless and unconscious all that day." The ship reached Acapulco nearly two months later with her upper works badly damaged and her crew worn out by their sufferings. In spite of their anxiety to secure favorable winds the gal leons generally ran into severe storms. They were liable to encounter these gales at any stage of the passage from the boca of Mariveles to far out beyond the Ladrones, and even, as in the case of Morga's voyage, off the upper coast of California. "The galleons have an absolute certainty of meeting hurricanes in those months," said Philip Thompson, the Englishman, who crossed the Pacific several times as pilot of the galleons. He writes of the "eternally doubtful and dangerous navigation in these seas." Typhoons might be expected during July, August, and Septem ber, and sweeping northwestward out of the Pacific these storms THE VOYAGE 255 were liable to strike the galleons after they had turned north eastward from the Embocadero. Some of the tempests which the ships encountered in higher latitudes were prolongations of these great cyclonic movements. A galleon of 1601 survived a series of eighteen terrific storms, and a few years later the San Andres rode through eleven. Nearly all on board had given up hope, but the ship "miraculously" made her voyage through the courage of the pilot, Tozal, and of a heroic friar, Esteban Carrillo. Near the last of February 1746, the Santo Domingo limped into Matanchel harbor on the coast of New Spain. She had lived through sixteen storms and was in a terrible condition from leaks and shattered upper-works. The terror that prevailed on the galleon during these storms can be easily imagined. Cubero Sebastian tells of a storm that lasted eighty hours. All, "even the pilot," confessed to the priest, who finally calmed the storm by throwing a relic into the sea! For days afterwards, he said, people trembled from terror as they moved about the ship. "This voyage has always been dangerous and dreadful," wrote Gemelli Careri; and one entry in his record reads : "We all watch'd day and night, the Danger was so great ; for the Waves broke upon the Galleon, and beat terribly upon its Sides.—There was no Standing or Sitting in a place, but we were tossed from side to side." During a storm a huge sea carried fourteen sailors off a galleon of 1675 and the next year thirty-six men were swept overboard by a wave. In his log of the voyage of the Santisima Trinidad the pilot makes the following entry for October 7, 1755: "A gale blowing from SSE. At two o'clock in the afternoon it attained such violence that I believed the ship was going down. Votive offerings were made to the patroness of the galleon to abate the tempest." Few cases were as ill-fated as- that of the storm-beaten Santa Margarita, one of the galleons of 1600. A year later, when the Santo Tomds approached Saipan of the Ladrones, a Spaniard came out to the ship in a native boat. He was found to have been a sailor from the Santa Margarita, and from him and six others picked up later the galleon's fate was learned. After beat ing about the seas for eight months, during which time she weathered a succession of storms that completely crippled her, she grounded at last on one of the Ladrones. Of 260 who had left Manila only fifty were alive. The pilot had died, and her com 256 THE MANILA GALLEON mander, Juan Martinez de Guillestigui, died four days before land was sighted. About thirty-five of the survivors were dragged ashore in a moribund state by the natives and taken to their villages, where some were later killed. The remainder of the fifty were either despatched by the islanders or drowned as they were being dragged away from the galleon, which was plundered of her gold and silks. When the Santo Tomds passed among the group the next year on her way to the westward, she carried away five of the survivors who came out to her. In spite of the entreaties of those on board, Antonio de Ribera Maldonado, com mander of the Santo Tomds, refused to delay his ship long enough to take off the remaining twenty-six, who were reported to be living in the vicinity. However, Fray Juan Pobre, a Fran ciscan, who was on his way out to Manila, leaped overboard and climbed into a native boat, which took him ashore, that he might minister to the needs of his fellow Spaniards. Proceeding on her way, the Santo Tomds encountered dense fogs over the Embocadero and, turning to the north, shortly broke to pieces on the Catanduanes off the east coast of Luzon. When the Jesiis Maria put into the Ladrones in 1602 in distress she brought off all but five of the remaining survivors of the Santa Margarita. The consort of the Santa Margarita, the San Gerdnimo (Fernando de Castro), had almost as unfortunate an experience. She encountered the same storms in latitude thirty-eight which drove the other out of her course and finally threw her onto the Ladrones. Despairing of making headway through them, she finally turned back towards the Philippines and after nine months at sea was also wrecked on the Catanduanes. Of all who had left Manila, only eight persons, including one woman, were alive. These are three of the more than thirty galleons that were lost in the history of the line. During the 250 years thousands of lives were lost, and, with arribadas, probably 60,000,000 pesos of property. Whatever preparations might be made for con tingencies, the chance of shipwreck was unavoidable in such a navigation. And too often the galleons left Manila in a condi tion unfit to cope with the weather that was inevitable. More over, by construction they were seldom well adapted to riding a northern gale or weathering a baguio. The galleon type of ship was too high and topheavy for smashing seas. Governor Obando said in 1748: "Most of these losses result from faulty design in THE VOYAGE 257 the construction of the ships. The Rosario, before leaving Acapulco last year, had the after-piece of her rudder increased until it was so wide that it required eight men to handle it, work ing with two wheels and a pair of hawsers. The distribution of storage space in the hold is no less to be condemned, particularly the location of the powder magazine in the fore part of the ship. There is similar disorder in the storage of cargo. All this is responsible for the slowness with which the galleons travel, their inability to sail to windward, and to keep clear of the land or run away from storms, and accounts for the fact that so many of them require seven months for the crossing." They were often inadequately careened and repaired for the voyage, nor did they usually carry extra tackle enough for emergencies. The San Antonio, which was lost in 1603, had rotten timbers throughout when she left Manila—an index to methods of inspection at Manila. Later the Magdalena was found to be in the same condition, and, although heavy planks were put in on each side to strengthen her, she turned over on her side at her moorings before Cavite just as she was ready to clear from port. However, in this case the accident may have been due as much to the ill arrangement of the cargo as to the vessel's general unseaworthiness. Governor Obando complained of the careless loading of the ships, and, indeed, the fault was generally as much a matter of overloading as of improper plac ing of the cargo. A law of 1604 expressly provided against this excess, but space was in such demand that this very salutary regulation was little heeded. Galleons still sailed with their decks piled high with bales and chests. In hurricane weather these were either swept overboard, ruined by high seas, or sacrificed to lighten the vessel, which wallowed about under the weight of this extra burden on her decks. In 1752 the king declared that on many occasions passengers and crew alike had been "innocent victims of the barbarous greed of those who wish to use all the space on the ship for their cargo." The incompetence of officers and seamen played its part, too, in the disasters of the line. Pilots were sometimes ignorant of the very essentials of their craft and all too little acquainted with the difficult course which the galleons had to follow. Vice roy Enriquez reported to Philip II in 1576 that the five best pilots of the line had died and that it was difficult to find competent 258 THE MANILA GALLEON navigating officers to take their places. One pilot of an Acapulco galleon ran his ship onto the eastern coast of the islands because he mistook a depression in the land for the Embocadero. In 1620 another, who placed the Nuestra Senora de la Vida athwart a reef, where she had to be abandoned to the waves, was promptly hanged on the nearby shore by the infuriated passengers. He had only taken the galleon as far as Isla Verde between Luzon and Mindoro and about ninety miles from Manila. Other causes, less pertinent, were represented as responsible for the loss of ships, especially by some of the clerical historians. The royal officials at Acapulco declared that the San Felipe in 1596 was lost because of "rough weather and our sins." Con ception says that the loss of the San Francisco was due to divine anger at a passenger who had struck an inferior, this in spite of the fact that, after the injured plebeian had leaped into the sea, the offending aristocrat was swept overboard by a wave and drowned. Casimiro Diaz ascribes as the reason for the wrecking of the great San ]os6 the fact that the workmen who had built her worked on feast days, whereas, if they had observed these festivals properly the galleon would have been completed after the fatal hurricane had passed. Particularly disastrous periods were the years from 1600 to 1609—six galleons in those ten years; the decade from 1649 to 1659; and the five years 1690-94. Before the end of the sixteenth century several had been lost. The historic San Pablo was wrecked on the Ladrones four years after Legaspi's conquest. In 1576 the Acapulco galleon Espiritu Santo went to pieces on the Catanduanes and all on board were either drowned or killed by the natives. She was carrying a large company of soldiers and many friars out to the islands. Two years later the San Juanillo left Manila and was never heard of again. One of the greatest calamities in the history of the islands was the dual disaster of the two galleons of 1603, the dire annus mirabilis of Manila, the year of the sanguinary rising of the Chinese and of the burning of a large part of the city. The capitana, Nuestra Senora de los Remedios, after encountering severe storms near the thirty-fourth parallel, was driven back to Manila mastless and lightened of much of her cargo. Her con sort, the "almiranta riquisima," San Antonio, not only carried the greatest wealth of any galleon up to that time, but there had THE VOYAGE 259 sailed on her many of the first citizens of the city, who with their families were "fleeing from the troubles of that city." In some unknown spot the galleon was swallowed up by the sea. On her way out of the islands the San Nicolas was lost in 1621 with 330 persons. The Concepcidn was wrecked on Saipan of the Ladrones in 1638. Most of those who reached shore were killed by the natives. The twenty-eight survivors went from island to island until they came to Guam at the southern end of the group. From here six of them, accompanied by two friendly natives, set out in a couple of the open boats in use among the Ladrones and finally reached the Philippines where they arrived "almost" dead from hunger, thirst and lack of sleep. The Acapulco gal leon, San Ambrosio, was wrecked on the east coast of Luzon in 1639 with a loss of 150 persons. In 1649 the Encarnacidn, late from Acapulco, crashed on the Sorsogon coast of Luzon near Bulan. In 1693 the Santo Cristo de Burgos left Manila, and for over two years the Spanish coasts of the Pacific kept up a watch for her. She suffered that most terrible of fates—burning in the open sea—for pieces of charred wood, such as was used in the construc tion of the galleons, were later picked up on the beaches of the Ladrones. Her fate was eventually learned from two men picked up long after near the town of Binangonan de Lampon. In the boat in which they had managed to reach the Philippines was the corpse of a dead companion. One of the two survivors had gone stark mad from his sufferings. Before the burning galleon had foundered six men put off from her sides in an open boat and headed westward. After three weeks their food gave out and two of the starving men slid over the gunwales into the sea. Those who were left then ate their jackboots and their belts to stave off starvation. At last it was decided to draw lots as to which of the four should be eaten by the rest. One of the three preferred to starve rather than to turn cannibal. It was only the last two who survived these horrible experiences, one with out his reason, the other broken by his sufferings and long under the shadow of the Church for having partaken of human flesh. The next year after the loss of the Santo Cristo the huge San José was struck by a storm on the night of July 3, while 260 THE MANILA GALLEON going out through the boca of Mariveles, and was broken to pieces on the island of Lubang almost opposite the entrance of Manila Bay. She was the largest galleon yet built. Over 400 persons were drowned, and a cargo of more than 12,000 piezas or packages was destroyed. "No larger or richer galleon had ploughed the sea," wrote Padre Casimiro Diaz, "for the wealth that she carried was incredible." The San Francisco Xavier (Santiago Zabalburu), which cleared from Manila in 1705, dis appeared at sea and no trace was ever found of her. When the Pilar (Ignacio Martinez), left Cavite in 1750 she was already in a leaking condition. However, to the petitions of her pas sengers that she turn back before it were too late to avert a tragedy the captain retorted heatedly: "To Acapulco or Purga tory!" Wreckage that evidently proceeded from the Pilar was later washed up along the eastern coast of Luzon. In these cases the loss of life was total or very large, but sometimes those on board were able to abandon the ship when she had run aground and before she was broken up. Sometimes, too, the cargo could be removed in time to prevent its total loss, as happened with the Acapulco galleon, San Cristdbal, which ran onto the Calantas shoals near Bulusan in 1735. When the outward-bound galleon, Santo Cristo de Burgos, was beached at night on Ticao in 1726 her crew and passengers escaped, but the cargo was mysteriously burned. Charges were made that it was set fire to by merchants who were indebted to the obras pias for loans to cover their investments on the galleon. As the obras only accepted the risk in case of a total loss of cargo, this ques tionable expedient was probably resorted to in order to evade their liability for the partial loss. When the San Andris was wrecked on the Naranjos reefs between Ticao and Capul in 1798, her people were landed safely, but her cargo was losL Arribadas, or returns to port, were very frequent in the gal leon navigation. "Many Galleons are lost," said Gemelli Careri, "and others, having spent their Masts, or drove by contrary Winds, return, when they are half way over, after losing many Men at Sea, and the best but ill condition'd." Storms sometimes swept a ship clear of masts and rigging, opened great leaks in her, or snapped her rudder. A galleon which turned back in 1630 traveled nearly two thousand miles without a rudder. If she survived her battering and was not engulfed, she crept back THE VOYAGE 261 in great distress to port. Often, when she did not carry extra equipment enough, crude substitutes were improvised for the lost or broken parts, and some determined captain might force his ship, thus refitted, across to the American coast, though the pressure of the junta and the general clamor of the passengers usually compelled a return. Though the circumstances are generally quite similar, a few cases of arribadas may be cited. Both galleons of 1593, the San Felipe and the San Francisco, put back in a badly wrecked con dition. This same San Felipe was so crippled in her voyage of three years later that she finally made for a port of Japan, where she was sacked by the natives. In 1602 both galleons, the Espiritu Santo and the Jestis Maria, returned to the Philippines after a series of harrowing experiences lasting over five months. The former had entered a Japanese port, but was saved from the San Felipe's fate by the resolution of her captain, Lope de Ulloa. The other ship had risen to above forty degrees before she re traced her course. Nearly all on board both galleons had suc cumbed to the hardships of the voyage. All four galleons of 1616-17 returned to port, and in the years 1655 and 1666 both galleons failed to make the voyage. The San Sabiniano reached Manila again in 1663 after seven months of wanderings. The San Telmo put back in 1672 and the Santa Rosa ten years later. In 1687 the Santo Nino returned to the islands with her cargo half rotten and wintered at Bagatao. During the Seven Years' War the Santisima Trinidad fell into the hands of the British while retiring to Manila from storms through which she had been un able to ride. The two most famous of the later galleons had to retreat to Manila on different occasions, the San Andres in 1795, and the Magallanes in 1806. An arribada was financially nearly as disastrous to the com merce as was a shipwreck. Even if the goods could be kept unimpaired till the next year's crossing, a double lading was not permitted, or sometimes, for lack of ships, was not possible. Usually, however, the cargo had greatly deteriorated or was totally ruined if much water had entered the hold. It was also customary to throw overboard part of the merchandise in order to lighten the ship. "It is these losses which are most deeply felt," wrote Casimiro Diaz, "since all are interested in the prosperous voyages of the 262 THE MANILA GALLEON galleons, and it is one of the greatest troubles of these islands, if not the worst, that all are dependent on two bits of wood, and those entrusted to the fickleness of the sea. The sad news of the return of the Santa Rosa came late in December, about Christmas, and caused general sorrow." Such a story of woe is told again and again in the annals of the islands. Sometimes the record of the catastrophe reads: "sin salvorse persona 0 cargamento,"—a total loss. On such occasions the death of so many citizens and the loss of so much wealth paralyzed for a time the life of the colony. All who had remained behind were stricken with sorrow and every branch of the islands' commerce quickly stagnated. Fewer junks came from China the next year, since the return of Mexican pesos had failed. "The loss of the San Felipe has utterly ruined this land," said Governor Tello in 1597. And when a few years later the San Antonio foundered in the open sea Gov ernor Pedro de Acuna wrote: "This has been a very great loss, and one which has thrown this commonwealth into almost in credible misery." In 1639, after the two galleons of the previous year had been given up for lost, some unknown writer said: "There is a universal sorrow and gloom over all the country, such as it has never known before. May God in His mercy console the islands!" Finally, in the general lamentation that followed the loss of the second Santo Cristo de Burgos, an Augustinian friar joined in the chorus of woe that went over the two seas to the king. "These islands are made a theater of tears," he says, "and a spectacle of misfortunes. All is wailing and sighing and mourning. There is no relief, and the only prospect is one of utter ruin." In the tragic last decade of the seventeenth century the city of Manila thus described its fallen state: "The resources of our citizens are exhausted, their daugh ters are without dowries, their families without their ancient splendor, the wives of those who went down at sea are in miser able widowhood and their children in helpless orphanage. Priests, soldiers, maidens and widows, whose sustenance was secured by the charitable foundations, are perishing." The voyage of the Manila Galleon was the longest con tinuous navigation in the world. The more familiar camino de Indias, the route of the trading fleets across the Atlantic, was a comparatively safe and well beaten path, that could be traveled in a few weeks. "The Fleet of the South Sea," the so-called THE VOYAGE 263 "silver fleet," sailed from Peru to Panama through some of the most placid waters in the world. The only course comparable with that of the Manila Galleon—the way around the Cape of Good Hope to the East Indies—was broken by way-stations or islands, where the Portuguese carracks or the Dutch and English Indiamen could refit and take on fresh provisions and water. Except in the stage across the Indian Ocean, the latter were seldom far from possible succor. On the other hand, the Manila Galleons, after entering the "gulf," as the Spaniards called the open Pacific, saw no land between the region of the Ladrones and the coast of the Californias. The average duration of the voyage from Manila to Acapulco was probably close to six months. The audiencia informed Philip III in 1606 that most of the voyages were from five to seven months long. English navigators, struck by the excessive length of the eastward crossing as against the comparatively easy and rapid passage in the other direction, blamed it to the timidity and unskillfulness of the Spanish sailors. The writer of Lord Anson's Voyage Round the World declared that the Spaniards were afraid to let the ship run at night, furling nearly all sail, even with a favorable wind. "The length of time employed in this passage," he said, "so much beyond what usually occurs in any other known navigation, is perhaps in part to be imputed to the indolence and unskillfulness of the Spanish sailors, and to an unnecessary degree of caution, on pretence of the great riches of the vessel. . . . The instructions given to their captains (which I have seen) seem to have been drawn up by such as were more apprehensive of too strong a gale, though favorable, than of the inconveniences and mortality attending a lingering and tedious voyage. Indeed the whole conduct of this navigation seems liable to very great censure." However, this apparent timorousness was largely due to the influence of the landsmen who represented the interests of the shippers, and who seldom conceded the absolute direction of the vessel to the seafaring element. When the safety of the galleon and of her cargo was in jeopardy a junta was called to consider the proper course of action. Together with the ship's officers, the consignors' agents were present, and in this council proposals of extreme caution were likely to prevail over the reasoned daring of the pilots. Ac cordingly the ship may have been forced to drag along through THE MANILA GALLEON weary weeks and even months when she should long before have been in her port of destination. The voyage of the Rosctrio in 1706 was probably typical of that of the average galleon. She left Manila on July 6, cleared from the Embocadero on August 3, crossed the meridian of the Ladrones on September 29, discovered the first senas on Novem ber 16, passed Cape San Lucas on December 4, and entered Acapulco harbor on December 20, after a voyage of five months and fourteen days. Two voyages of the Sacra Familia, made in respectively 1722 and 1727, show the following schedules: 1722 1727 I Manila Embocadero Senas Cape San Lucas June 30 July 27 November 17 November 30 July 7 July 19 November 17 December 2 Acapulco December 25 December 24 The total time in the one case was five months and twenty-five days, and in the other, five months and seventeen days. Humboldt said that the time was formerly five or six months, but with improvements in navigation it had been reduced by his day to only three or four months. In spite of the assertion of the German scientist the galleons made little better time in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century than they had made in the sixteenth. If the Tama reached Acapulco in 1798 after three months and twenty-one days out from Manila, the San Gerdnimo made the voyage in exactly the same time two centuries earlier. By a coincidence, their consorts, the Santa Margarita in 1598 and the Magallanes in 1798, both made the passage in exactly four months. Four months was a rapid crossing at any period. Such a voyage required the concurrence of an unusually speedy galleon, skillful navigation, and less than the normal experiences of storms and contrary winds. For many galleons it required six months to make the passage, and for some seven, and even eight, months. The San ]os6 in 1662 did not reach port until more than eight months after she had cleared from Cavite, while the voyage of the Sacra Familia in 1724 lengthened well into the ninth month. As late as 1755 the Santtsima Trinidad, after leaving Manila on July 23, did not sail into Acapulco harbor until the last day of February of the following year. The terrors of such an experience are vividly recounted in the narrative of Gemelli Careri and in the logs of the pilots. THE VOYAGE 265 As the voyage passed beyond the half-year—the normal and extreme limit of safety—those on board saw themselves facing starvation and the ravages of ghastly diseases. When at last the weakened survivors sighted the coasts of Lower California, with their promise of freedom and rest and fresh water, and the longed-for acidulous fruits that were so powerful against the scurvy, they "embraced one another with tears of joy" and chanted a Te Deum in thanksgiving. Padre Cubero Sebastian said that at Navidad they brought out lemons and fresh meat to his ship, and during the existence of the mission station near Cape San Lucas the same provision was made for the health of the crew and passengers at that point on the coast. The lines of Bret Harte's poem, "The Lost Gal leon," suggest the importance to the galleons of the first citrus fruits grown in the Californias: "The limes were ripening in the sun For the sick of the coming galleon." In an especially virulent form scurvy was the most terrible scourge that menaced those who sailed on the galleons. As usual in long voyages in early times, it was caused by the de terioration of the provisions and by the lack of fresh vegetable food with its vitamins, while the close confinement on board lowered the resisting power of the organism. "When it returns from that climate," remarked Raveneau de Lussan, the French buccaneer, "all the crew are so sick and moribund, that of four hundred man who may compose it, not a quarter are in condi tion to defend her, for the malady known as scurvy never fails on the way from the Philippines." Sometimes nearly all on board were stricken and the mortality became frightful. Eighty died on the almiranta of 1606 and many more after she reached Acapulco. A galleon of 1620 lost ninety-nine and the remainder, unable to continue on to Acapulco, were taken ashore at Val de Banderas on the Guadalajara coast. The capitana of 1629 lost 105, and two galleons a few years later threw overboard 140 persons, while the survivors nearly perished of hunger; 114 died on the two galleons of 1643. The most extreme case was that of a galleon of the same century, which was picked up off Guatulco below Acapulco, past which port she had drifted helplessly. All on board were dead, 266 THE MANILA GALLEON as in the derelict ships of the Black Death. The sad record the judge, Calderon Enriquez, found long afterwards in the archives at Acapulco. This was probably the San Jos6, first of her name, of whose dolorous voyage Viceroy Albuquerque informed the king on the day in 1657 when a courier had just reached Mexico with news of the galleon's belated arrival at Acapulco. She had left Manila more than a year before. All her provisions were gone and there was no one on board who could lift a hand to rope or wheel. Everyone had perished of pestilence or starvation, and when sighted the silent galleon with her freight of silks and cadavers was driving southward into the tropics. When Padre Cubero Sebastian crossed later in that same century only 192 survived at Acapulco of 400 who had left Manila. In fifteen fatal days off the coast of California he performed the last rites for ninety-two persons. Few voyages were more disastrous than that of the Santisima Trinidad in 1755. This greatest of the galleons, later to be cap tured by the British, could muster but twenty-seven who were able to stand when she reached Acapulco. The log of her French pilot, Antoine Limarie Boucourt, tells the sorrowful story from day to day. She cleared from Manila on the 23rd day of July. By the first of October there were twenty sick. By Novem ber 30 this had increased to sixty. On December 9 ex-Governor Obando died. All the processes of life and death went on within the narrow confines of this little world as it moved across the wide space of the sea. On July 27, four days after the galleon sailed from Manila, the Marqueza de Obando gave birth to a son. On the 4th of October, Dona Mariana de Norza, wife of the chief steward, was delivered of a daughter. On December 21 over eighty were sick; some were delirious with raging fever. One man, mad with suffering, threw himself overboard and a few days later another cut his throat. At this stage of the voyage the rate of sickness increased with a dreadful progression. While on January 4 there were 102 ill, by the thirteenth the number had leaped to 150. "May the Divine Majesty mitigate this terrible plague!" the pilot ends his entry for the day. On the 1st of February over 200 sick are put ashore at Cape San Lucas to be restored to health by the Jesuit fathers at the mission of San Josef del Cabo. Eighty-two of the San tisima's 435 people had died before land was sighted. THE VOYAGE 267 As late as 1806 the San Andrés lost thirty-six by the scurvy. The Jesuits had been expelled, and the galleon, having violated the order to put in at San Francisco or Monterey, now several years founded, left her forty-five sick at San Blas. It was not only scurvy which decimated the passenger-list and the muster-roll of the galleon. "There are two dangerous Diseases in this Voyage," said Gemelli, "Berben which swells the Body and makes the Patient die talking. The other is call'd the Dutch disease, which makes all the Mouth sore, putrefies the Gums, and makes the Teeth drop out." After this diagnosis of symptons he observes: "This is no other than the sea-scurvy." The other disease, which was apparently beri-beri, baffled the pathological knowledge of the Italian apothecary. The ship, which was a "floating garden with such abundance of Fruits and Greens" when she left the Embocadero in the summer, in the latter stages of the voyage carried but a low supply of putrescent provisions and foul water. Gemelli Careri realistically describes the usual extremities of a protracted passage, among which he pictures the eating of repulsive food, in which vermin swarmed, as they infested the foul ship and the bodies of those on board; and he describes the resulting affections which ranged from a "universal raging itch," to the dread scurvy. "The Ship swarms with little Vermine," he wrote, "the Spaniards call Gorgojos, bred in the Biskit; so swift that they in a short time not only run over Cabbins, beds, and the very dishes the Men eat on, but insensibly fasten upon the Body. There are several other sorts of Vermin of sundry Colours, that suck the Blood. Abundance of Flies fall into the Dishes of Broth, in which there also swim Worms of several sorts.—I had a good share in these Misfortunes; for the Boatswain, with whom I had agreed for my Diet, as he had Fowls at his Table the first Days, so when we were out at Sea he made me fast after the Armenian manner, having Banish'd from his Table all Wine, Oyl and Vinegar; dressing his Fish with fair Water and Salt. Upon Flesh Days he gave me Tassajos Fritos, that is, Steaks of Beef, or Buffalo, dry'd in the Sun, or Wind, which are so hard that it is impossible to Eat them, without they are first well beaten.— At Dinner another piece of that same sticky Flesh was boil'd, without any other Sauce but its own hardness, and fair Water. At last he depriv'd me of the Satisfaction of gnawing a good 268 THE MANILA GALLEON Biskit, because he would spend no more of his own, but laid the King's Allowance on the Table; in every Mouthful whereof there went down abundance of Maggots, and Gorgojos chew'd and bruis'd. On Fish Days the common Diet was old rank Fish boil'd in fair Water and Salt; at noon we had Mongos, some thing like Kidney Beans, in which there were so many Maggots, that they swam at the top of the Broth, and the quantity was so great, that besides the Loathing they caus'd, I doubted whether the Dinner was Fish or Flesh. This bitter Fare was sweetened after Dinner with a little Water and Sugar; yet the Allowance was but a small Coco Shell full, which rather increas'd than quench'd Drought." At Cavite and on the way out of the islands the galleon took on foodstores deemed sufficient for a voyage of six months, with a reserve supply for an emergency. Large quantities of biscuit, salted fish and meat were laden, and constituted the bulk of the stores. The Santiago in 1590 carried 40,000 pounds of biscuit, 2,388 pounds of fish and 4418 pounds of salt meat, besides garbanzos, beans, 50 bacons, 900 cheeses, a large quality of oil and vinegar, and 405 pounds of onions and garlic. The Covadonga in 1742 carried 42,700 pounds of biscuit, 12,925 pounds of salt beef, 4,275 pounds of salt pork, 358 bushels of rice, 286 pounds of sugar and lesser amounts of other items. Her fish supply consisted of shark and dog-fish. Fresh shark's meat often contributed to the ship's larder during the voyage. The alcalde-mayor of Albay brought out to Gemelli's ship twenty hogs, five hundred chickens and large quantities of fruits. The fruits and vegetables were necessarily consumed early in the voyage. For the sick and those of exalted rank there were chickens, honey and fruit preserves, but these, too, were generally eaten before the days of privation came with the lengthening of the voyage. The most palatable food served to those above the rank of common seamen was the chocolate, which Spaniards have drunk with a peculiar gusto ever since the conquest of Mexico. "In a short time," Gemelli wrote in his diary, "all the Provisions grow Naught, except the Sweetmeats and Chocolate, which are the only comfort of Passengers." However, when the short supply of fuel had to be treasured, even this consolation was denied the cold and hungry passengers, and on days when the vessel was pitching about in stormy seas only cold food and THE VOYAGE 269 drink were served. For the ovens could not be lighted in rough weather, when a fire on shipboard would have brought about the destruction of everything. The passage rates for the easterly voyage by the galleon were from two to four thousand pesos. Even then passengers were sometimes forced to bribe the steward in order to obtain what they had paid for, or actually to secure enough to eat. Those who made the round trip sometimes had to lay out another three or four thousand pesos for food. Those passengers who could not pay the high prices demanded for food often suffered the direst need. For them, as for the common seamen whose ration was only half the ordinary proportion, retrenchment in the critical period of an over-prolonged voyage meant the severest privations. The water supply for the voyage was derived from two sources. The initial store was carried from the islands, the gal leon replenishing her supply at the last stops which she made before entering the Embocadero. "It is the Practice in this Voyage," says Gemelli, "to carry the water in earthen Jars, to the number of 2, 3 or 4,000, proportionately to the number of people, and bigness of the Galleon." Many of these jars were hung in the rigging, while the rest were stowed away above or below decks. A few galleons were fitted with cisterns, and part of the water was also carried in large sealed bamboos. At Ticao Gemelli enters in his Diary: "500 Bombones of Cane full of Water were brought Aboard, which the Alcade had caus'd to be cut by the Captain's Order; they were eight Spans in length, and as thick as a man's Thigh." The allowance often had to be cut short before the galleon had reached the region of the Ladrones, and after the exhaustion of the initial supply dependence was had upon the apparently precarious device of gathering water while passing through the rain belt of the higher latitudes. "For this purpose," says Lord Anson's chronicler, "they take to sea with them a great number of mats, which, whenever the rain descends, they range slopingly against the gunwale from one end of the ship to the other, their lower edges resting on a large split bamboe; whence all the water which falls on the mats drain into the bamboe, and by this, as a trough, is conveyed into a jar." Heavy mats were also hung in the upper works of the ship to gather the rain by saturation 270 THE MANILA GALLEON or to lead it into conduits placed for that purpose. This process, as well as the guarding and dispensing of the water, was in charge of a seaman designated as the alguacil de agua, or "waterconstable," or sometimes as the "master of the water rations." The comparative certainty of the rainfall between thirty and forty degrees latitude assured water enough for the average voyage. However, this recourse now and then failed to produce the requisite amount of water. Alonzo de Ovalle said that in crossing in 1764, after much of the water had been lost because of the bad condition of the casks which were than used, the supply usually obtained from rains failed, so that during the last three months of the voyage those on board were reduced to a ration for all purposes of less than two pints a day. One of the most severe trials of the galleon navigation was the wearisome confinement for months in the most cramped of quarters. Gemelli Careri called his diminutive cabin his "Prison," and as a passenger of importance and friend of the captain he must have fared better than did the average voyager. Accord ing to the regulations drawn up by Governor Valdes the baggage that might be carried on the galleon by a passenger was limited to the following: "Two leather-covered chests or trunks, three and a half feet long, seventeen inches wide and fifteen inches deep, a mattress, a pair of bottle-cases for wine, writing materials, and ten China jars, in which to carry cholocate, caramels, sweets, biscuits, or anything else, so long as they may be kept under neath the bed." Two servants were allowed to each person. The usual overcrowding of every part of the vessel pre vented much moving about. This enforced inactivity and the deadening tediousness of such a restricted existence for so many months had to be relieved by amusements that would divert the unoccupied mind from contemplation of the maddening mo notony of the sight of green seas, the incessant splash and roar of the water and the ceaseless buffeting of the great lumbering hulk. Diversions on shipboard were limited by the talents and space and equipment available. Only sports of "pure amuse ment" were permitted by the official regulations. Passengers might play "The Renegade Caxcara" and other innocent games, but dice, and alburcs, a card game, were forbidden, as were all forms of gambling. Governor Arandia's orders provided that THE VOYAGE 271 anyone who cheated in one of the permitted games, in case he were a seaman, should be laid over a cannon and beaten "in pro portion to the seriousness of his offense," and if he were a soldier, he should be forced to run the gauntlet. Officers were not to admit any complaints from gamblers or recognize any gambling debts. However, when a captain could win 40,000 pesos from his fellow-travelers in a single passage any sumptuary regulations emanating from Manila or Madrid evidently had small effect. There was betting on anything that had an element of chance about it, as cards and cock-fights, the weather, or the prospects of sighting land by a certain date. On a wager of this latter sort Gemelli Careri lost a pair of gold cuff-buttons set with emeralds. Smoking was closely restricted by the rigid fire regulations to certain quarters of the ship. Governor Arandia's orders on this point are as follows: "The crew may smoke above the waist or the forecastle on the lee side of the ship, either during the day or at night, but it must be in the form of a well covered pipe or a cigar with holder. When there is a strong wind smoking will only be permitted under the forecastle, where there are jars of water for any emergency. Smoking cigarettes is absolutely pro hibited. The captains are to take particular care that there are no disorders attending smoking in the cabins and berths; and they are to give the necessary orders to the lower officers to look out for and punish any violation. . . . Anyone who is found smoking outside the permitted areas of the ship will be put in the bilboes for fifteen days on bread and water. And if anyone smoke a pipe or cigar without the prescribed precautions, he will be condemned to serve a year without pay on the same ship or in the galleys at Cavite. A like penalty will be executed on those who have with them means of lighting a fire or who carry aboard with them highly combustible articles." As part of the same precautionary regulations fires were to be put out before sunset. Only well covered lanterns were permitted below decks. "The ordinary lights, which are to be kept burning all night, are a lantern before the door of each cabin, one at the entrance of the powder-magazine, but separated by the bulkhead, and another fore between decks." Quarreling and blasphemy were prohibited and any alter cation which led to violence was rigorously punished. Blas 272 THE MANILA GALLEON phemy was punishable by fifteen days in the bilboes on bread and water, with the added indignity of a gag. Repetition of the offense was to be punished by having the tongue pierced with a burning iron. The penalty of drunkenness was four days in the bilboes on the same diet. The officer of the guard was required to make frequent rounds of the ship to see that no disorders were committed. A law of 1608 aimed to prevent the custom of carrying slave women as concubines on the galleon and provided for the con fiscation of all such women by the royal officials at Acapulco. The king, in banning these hetairae of the sea, declared that they caused "great offence to God," and added that "it is not well that in so long and perilous a navigation there should be occasion to displease Him." One prominent official had carried fifteen of these women with him on the voyage. Several were delivered of children by him, while others left the ship at Acapulco in a pregnant condition, "which made a great scandal." In the earlier stages of the voyage, when the sea was smooth, and there was space enough above decks or below, there was sometimes dancing on the galleon. Sometimes, too, the evenings were whiled away with dramatic entertainments—with plays, and buffoon shows and "acting of parts made extempore." Those on Gemelli's ship occasionally amused themselves with rough horse-play at the expense of sharks which were taken out of the water. "One great one was thrown into the Sea again with a Board tied to his Tail, none of the Passengers caring to eat any more of them, and it was Pleasant to see him Swim about without being able to dive down. Two others were ty'd together by the Tails, one of them being first blinded, and then being cast into the sea, the blind one oppos'd the other that would have drawn him down, thinking himself taken." In the grim days when scurvy stalked about the galleon all entertainment assumed a macabre aspect. Such was often the case on the occasion of the fiesta de las senas. This was the cere mony which was held on the discovery of the senas or "signs" of the nearness of land. Then all restraint was broken down for a brief and uproarious celebration, and "to the sound of drums and trumpets" there began a veritable saturnalia of the sea, with all the boisterous license which attends the modern "crossing of the line." Cubero Sebastian and Gemelli Careri describe the THE VOYAGE 273 rough hilarity of this day, when ranks were topsy-turvy and gloom seemed driven from the ship. The instructions of Gover nor Valdes required that these festivities be kept within the bounds of "decency and modesty." The fiesta began with the singing of a Te Deum "in gratefulness for the approaching end of our so wearisome voyage," for the California coast was now close ahead. The principal feature of the celebration was the tribunal de las senas, or "court of the signs," where the common seamen, "clad after a ridiculous manner," sat in mock judgment on their superiors and on the passengers. The latter were hauled before the canopied dais of the "President" and the two assistant oidores or judges, and one after another made to account for his conduct during the voyage. Indictments were read in each case by the clerk of the court and jocular sentences of death imposed by the judges. However, these sentences were commuted to full pardon on payments of compensation in money, chocolate, sweet meats, or wine, which were distributed among the half-famished revelers. "The best of it was," said Gemelli, "that he who did not Pay immediately or give good Security, was laid on with a Rope's End, and at the least sign given by the President Tar paulin. I was told a Passenger was once kill'd aboard a Galleon by Keelhaling him; for no Words or Authority can check or persuade a whole Ship's Crew." The general of Cubero's ship, who might have been a marquis of the peerage of Castile, was sentenced to death on the charge of keeping the hatches closed during storms, so that those below nearly perished of thirst; but he was pardoned on the usual condition of a largess of delicacies. The sergeant-major, who also acted as doctor, and had bled more than two hundred persons on the way across, was convicted of having shed human blood. The pilot was accused of always quarreling with the sun, while Cubero himself, the chaplain of the galleon, was not exempted from the inquisition by "benefit of clergy." They complained that he was always seated in his chair, admonishing them. They called him "the guide of death" {el lazarillo de la muerte) because, whenever he went below decks to minister to anyone, the next day that person was thrown into the sea. But the priest is indulgent towards their grim hu mor and adds: "On this they burst out laughing,—and this was a day of great rejoicing." In spite of the low state of health which commonly prevailed 274 THE MANILA GALLEON in the latter stages of the voyage the realization that the ship was now within reach of her destination raised the spirits of all on board. Gemelli Careri's entry in his diary for December 14th, 1698, the day when Santa Catalina Island was sighted off the California coast, reads as follows: "Everybody began to take heart with the Hopes of being speedily delivered from so many Sufferings, and particularly from stinking Provisions which be gan to breed diseases." They were soon to be in touch with friendly populations who would send out fresh fruits and vege tables to them, and from whom they might expect other succor in case of need. When at last the galleon sailed into Acapulco harbor and was tied up to a great tree by the shore the joy of crew and passengers know no bounds. After the port officials had made their initial visit of inspection, the image of the Virgin was carried ashore to the parish church, while the galleon fired all her guns and the Castle of San Diego responded with the same number of cannon. "Notwithstanding the dreadful Sufferings in this prodigious voyage," said Gemelli, "yet the desire of gain prevails upon many to venture through it 4, 6 or even 10 times. The very Sailors, tho they foreswear the Voyage when out at sea, yet when they come to Acapulco for the love of 275 Pesos never remember past Suf ferings, like Women after their Labour." "But," he adds, "for my own part, these nor greater hopes shall not prevail with me to undertake that Voyage again, which is enough to destroy a Man, or make him unfit for anything as long as he lives." Meanwhile, a lookout well up the coast, usually on the high land near Chametla, had raced away to the nearest town with the news that the galleon had been sighted. A swift courier was immediately dispatched to the capital, riding by relays of horses until he drew up before the viceroy's palace. The news quickly spread over the city and prayers were made in the churches for the safe arrival of the great ship. When days later the first offi cial dispatches arrived from Acapulco all the bells in the city's churches were rung and feverish preparations begun among the merchants and muleteers who were soon to go southward to the galleon fair at the port. THE VOYAGE 275 Westbound After the nao had been summarily overhauled and put into a state for sailing the work of embarking her return cargo began. The loading of the Acapulco galleon was a much simpler process than the same operation at Manila, for the cargo consisted of far fewer commodities and these occupied much less of the hold than did the lading in the other direction. The most important single item was the silver which had proceeded from the sales at the feria or fair. This was given into the hands of the maestre de plata, or "master of the silver," whose sole function was the custody of the chests in which were generally stored two or three million pesos and of the papers showing the amount due to each shipper at Manila. This officer received a half of one percent on all the silver in his charge, but was accustomed to pay three thousand pesos for his place. The nature of the remainder of the return cargo varied considerably during the history of the commerce. Many of the articles of luxury imported into Manila by the first naos, and even some of the necessities of existence, were later brought from China or Japan or produced in Manila. The staple American exports to Manila generally consisted of cacao from Guayaquil, some cochineal from Oaxaca in Mexico, oil from Spain, wines and other peculiarly national goods. Though the return cargo was of so little bulk that the gal leon virtually sailed in ballast, her human freight was always larger than on her eastward passage. There were nearly always royal officials going out to their posts in the insular government. On such occasions the new governor usually took out with him an official retinue, as well as his private family. Thus the Santo Nino in 1671 carried out as the new governor, Don Fausto de Cruzat y Gongora, a Navarrese, with his wife, Dona Beatriz de Arostegui y Aguirre, of Cadiz—"a matron of great beauty and greater virtue"—their three sons, two daughters, and the gobernadora's sister, Teresa, who later married Juan de Garaycoechea, the commander of the galleon. One of the passengers on this ship was an Irish captain, Patrick Eagle, whose name Casimiro Diaz hispanicizes as Don Patricio de Aguila; Don Patricio was the brother of Don Guillermo, the chief pilot of the galleon. Governor Gabriel de Curuzelaegui, who had served before as admiral of the trading fleet that went to Porto Bello, and crossed THE MANILA GALLEON to Manila in 1684 as general of the Santa Rosa, led out to the islands a fine company of fellow Basques. A considerable num ber of merchants usually took passage, some with intent to throw in their lot with the colony, others traders of Mexico or Peru, bound for Manila on a transient business mission in defiance of the law. Mingled with them were companies of friars, going out to swell the ranks of their orders. Fifteen Dominicans crossed on the Acapulco galleon of 1587. Fire broke out on board dur ing the voyage and destroyed part of the provisions. Quarrels between two factions broke out in open war, one group barri cading itself in the bow of the ship and the other in the stern, from which they fired on one another across the waist of the galleon. After the two parties had been reconciled by the friars, who had tired of remaining below decks in order to keep out of the line of fire, the galleon narrowly escaped destruction on the shores of an island inhabited by cannibals. When Governor Pedro de Acuna went out to Manila in 1602 eighty-three ecclesi astics took passage with him. The San Telmo in 1679 carried thirty-one Augustinians and a number of Jesuits. One hundred and five priests went out to the Philippines on the Begona in 1718. On the voyage elaborate ceremonies were held in honor of the day of Saint Francis, to enliven which several casks of beer were contributed by Francisco de Echeveste, commander of the galleon. The galleon of 1804 had on board seventy-five friars, so that it was remarked in Mexico that the return nao was freighted with plata y frayles. Not all the passengers were voluntary travelers. The Philip pines were far enough from either Mexico or Spain to serve as a place of exile for those who would not fit into the existing scheme of things at home. The most famous of such exiles was Fernando de Valenzuela, who had been, among other things, "Captain-General of the Coasts of the Mediterranean," favorite of the king, and, "what is more," head-equerry of the queen, and first minister of the kingdom. Wild youth of good families were also sent thither to reform or die. Neither could many of the soldiers sent out to serve in the islands be called volunteers, espe cially after the expeditions of veteran infantry who followed the Dasmarinas and Acuna to fight the Dutch. Each outgoing gal leon carried at least a company, while four companies, or nearly 400 men, sailed on one voyage of the Santisima Trinidad. The THE VOYAGE 277 two Acapulco galleons of 1605 carried 800 soldiers. A desperate mutiny of a body of conscripts from Mexico nearly gained pos session of the Concepcidn in 1667. The galleons were forbidden to carry foreigners as passengers, but the few who made the voyage were generally enrolled among the ship's officers, though without the corresponding salary. Thus, when the Italian mer chant, Antonio Carletti, and his son, Francesco, sailed on a Manila Galleon in 1596, the elder Carletti was signed on as a constable and his son as a guard, both positions of only nominal authority. For a liberal percentage the commander of the gal leon kept their money in his cabin during the voyage. A mutiny that was still more serious and dramatic in its consequences took place on the San Gerdnimo, one of the first of the galleons. When she left Acapulco for Cebu early in 1567 she carried as her chief pilot the aging Lope Martin, who had navigated Arellano's renegade ship on its eastward dash across the Pacific and had accompanied Loaysa on his earlier voyage into the South Sea. Fearful of punishment at the hands of Legaspi for his desertion, Martin fomented dissension among the crew with the idea of stirring up a mutiny. Once in control of the ship it was his plan to go to the Chinese coast, where he expected to enrich himself by piracy and then leave the Pacific by the Straits of Magellan. There were nearly one hundred and fifty men on board, all hardened sailors of the Spanish coasts or veterans of the bloody civil wars among the conquerors of Peru and Chile. They had fought and suffered much and there seemed no earthly experi ence left that could daunt them. The commander of the ship was Pedro Sanchez Pericon, captain of infantry. The sergeantmajor and second in command was Ortiz de Mosquera, a rough old soldier from Peru and companion-at-arms of the Pizarros. Early in the voyage serious differences arose between the two officers and from day to day the grudge between them grew in bitterness, fanned by the malevolent Martin. Mosquera, artless and blustering, joined the pilot's conspiracy and confided their joint designs to some of his friends on board. When the plot against the captain was fully hatched Mosquera and two of his followers fell on Sanchez and his son and killed them in their sleep. To the loud beating of drums all hands were called on deck, where in the flickering light of lanterns Mosquera 278 THE MANILA GALLEON harangued them and commanded them to recognize his author ity. Then the blood-stained bodies of the captain and his son were exhibited to the ship's company before being unceremoni ously tossed into the sea, as Lope Martin looked on and plotted his next move. Terror of their new and ruthless master and suspicion of one another quickly spread through the crew and among the force of soldiers on board. In this bedeviled atmosphere Martin and Ortiz quarrelled in accordance with the pilot's plan. The ser geant-major was arrested and put in chains and all his friends were disarmed. Lope then set a feast on deck and commanded Ortiz to be brought shackled before him. When Ortiz, realiz ing that he had been tricked into having the irons put on him, begged for his life, Lope ordered him hanged and promptly had him swung from the yardarm and dropped into the sea. Then he went on with his carouse to the sound of the ship's music. The mutineers then decided to maroon those of their com panions whose loyalty to their plot was uncertain and to carry out Lope's original design of a piratical cruise in China waters. At this juncture the priest, Juan de Vivero, began to make cau tious inquiries among his shipmates and to urge those whom he suspected of complicity in the mutiny or of wavering to desist from their plans. "There was a melancholy silence" over all on board and "no one trusted another." Men slept restlessly with their hands clenched on their daggers. When the ship reached the group of the Carolines that were henceforth to be known as the Barbudos, or Isles of Bearded Men, Lope determined to carry out his intentions of marooning all whom he suspected of hostility or lukewarmness. The ship was run in through the pass of a coral-fringed lagoon which the pilot chose for the final purging of the crew. On the pretext of careening the galleon he got most of his enemies ashore on the atoll. The plan was then suddenly to raise anchor and put to sea before those who were to be marooned could be aware of their fate. The priest acted quickly and quietly as soon as he perceived the pilot's intentions. He first enlisted the support of a brave youth from the mountains of Asturias, named Miguel de Loarca, whom he had found brooding over the possibility of a countermutiny. He was then joined by the boatswain, Rodrigo del Angel, and two of the latter's friends. Del Angel then called on THE VOYAGE 279 all loyal men on board to rise against the mutineers, who were overwhelmed by the suddenness of the move and the resolute action of the priest and his companions. The loyalists quickly took possession of the ship, seizing Martin, Ocampo, his captain, and others of the original ringleaders. Manacled and gagged, they were hastily bundled ashore and abandoned on the narrow ring of land around the lagoon. At the same time those who were to have been marooned were called back to the ship. When the San Gerdnimo cleared out to sea again she left behind her Lope Martin and twenty-five of his associates. They were never seen again, but many years later a passing galleon heard from natives of the Carolines of bearded white men living among the distant islands. Even yet the galleon's troubles were not ended, for still aboard her were two of the original murderers, Lara and Morales. Though they had broken with Martin, they were not disposed to accept the new regime on the ship. Both were now put in irons and a final accounting of their crimes was made. As a storm loomed on the horizon they were sentenced to death. Lara, blas pheming and unrepentant, was swung out over the main-yard and dropped into the sea. Morales broke his bonds and climbed out to the end of the bowsprit, to which he lashed himself. When the storm broke and the ship pitched in the rising sea he was immersed one moment by the waves and pitched high in the air the next, until at last he slipped off and disappeared beneath the black waters. On October 15th the galleon of the five captains put into the harbor of Cebu, five months out from Acapulco. The galleons usually left Acapulco for Manila in the latter part of February or the first weeks in March. At first they were ordered to leave port before the end of March, but a law of 1633 required that they should set sail by the end of December in order to enter the Philippines in March or earlier. It was the royal will that this order be "executed inviolably" and the viceroys were to be called to account in their residencia for its fulfillment. However, as the galleons usually reached Acapulco in December or January, their dispatch before the end of the year was impos sible. The original rule was, in fact, not only more practicable, but just as salutary, since it enabled a ship to reach Manila before the season of monsoons and typhoons had set it. Little pretense seems to have been made of enforcing the regulation of 1633, for 280 THE MANILA GALLEON the instructions drawn up for the commanders of the galleons by Governor Valdes order them to clear their ships from Acapulco before April, as the original regulation had provided. This latter date was the limit of safety, and Governor Basco y Vargas expatiates on the danger of leaving in April, when "gusty southwesters," the unfavorable vendavals or monsoons, would be met in the islands and the naos would have to put in at Ticao or Sorsogon to await a change of wind. Basco recommends, on the other hand, that they leave by the end of January or first of February. If undertaken in proper season, the westward voyage of the galleons was as safe and easy as that in the other direction was wearisome and dangerous. Musing on the contrariety of the word "Pacific" as applied to this ocean, Gemelli said: "In truth the Spaniards gave it this fine Name in sailing from Acapulco to the Philippines, which is performed very easily in three months without any boisterous Motion in the Sea and always before the Wind." "Cette navigation est tres douce" wrote Pere Taillandier, a French Jesuit who crossed by this way to China in 1709, with twenty-two others of the Society; "one does not have to fear contrary winds, and since the winds that blow are always fresh they temper the heat." "Nothing interrupts the serenity of the sky in these regions," wrote Humboldt. Because of its placidness it was often called Mar de Damas, or "Ladies' Sea." Whatever misfortunes befell ships in this passage were due to late departure or to the blunders of incompetent pilots. A ship leaving Acapulco too late was liable to run into bad weather from the Ladrones onward. Under such conditions she was de layed in reaching the Philippines, and epidemics sometimes broke out on board in the latter stages of the voyage. Thus, forty died on the Espiritu Santo in 1606 and eighty on the San Luis in 1642. If the galleons reached the neighborhood of the islands even in late June they might find the monsoon blowing across the en trance of the Embocadero. At such times to try to enter that labyrinth of islands and shoals with its swirling, shifting tides and currents, was to court destruction. The only recourse was to put into the harbor of Palapag or Lampon or some other place in the vicinity and wait for a change in the winds, or to tie up there for the winter. The later the season the greater was the possibility of encountering contrary winds and storms from the THE VOYAGE 281 region of the Ladrones to Cavite, until in September the peril from baguios or typhoons was at its height. It was in such circumstances that the Concepcidn, which had left Acapulco on April 19th, was wrecked at the Ladrones in 1775. The ordinary time for the westward voyage was approxi mately three months. Of this about two months should be con sumed in the passage to the Ladrones, about fifteen days thence to the Embocadero, and as much more to Cavite. However, even with favorable weather conditions there could have been none of the regularity of a schedule on this route. The Santiago in 1595 left Acapulco on March 22 and reached Manila on June 11. The San Francisco crossed in only two months and twelve days in 1610. The galleon of 1709 made the crossing in three months and eighteen days, and the Nuestra Senora de Guia, in 1729 in five days less. The Begona spent four months and twenty-four days on the way in 1718. The Santtsima Trinidad, which cleared from Acapulco on April 29, 1756, did not cast anchor before Cavite until the fifth of October,—a voyage of five months and six days. As we have seen, the route to the islands lay far south of the eastward track of the naos. At some points they were separated by thirty degrees of latitude, and the only place where the course was identical was on the final stage through the islands. From Acapulco in about sixteen and a half degrees the ship dropped to about the tenth or eleventh parallel or even nearer the equator, in order to escape the calms that were sometimes encountered far ther to the north. In this latitude she fell in with the steady easterlies that carried her with little deviation for thousands of miles. She then gradually rose to about the thirteenth or four teenth parallel, until in sixty to seventy days out she entered the Ladrones, where she left mail and supplies and took on fresh provisions. From the Ladrones it was generally but a short sail of two or three weeks to the Philippines, where the first land sighted was Cape Espiritu Santo on Samar. In times of war the vessel determined its further course according to signals received from land. Sentinels were placed on such outlying points as the Catanduanes, Biri, Bulusan, Borongan and Batan, who were to inform the galleon by fire signals if the route were safe from enemies. In 1745 the Santo Domingo reached Manila around northern 282 THE MANILA GALLEON Luzon. In other events the vessel steered straight for the Embocadero, and thence made the rest of her way through the straits to Cavite, which stage of the voyage might last from five days to five weeks. In case the monsoon had set in and prevented further progress, the galleon put in at some port near the Embocadero and wintered there, as the San Antonio did at Sorsogon in 1681. Many galleons put in at Lampon, or at Palapag on Samar, while Governor Arandia, on the advice of the galleon pilots, ordered the naos to winter at Sisiran on the Camarines coast in case they were unable to make their way to Cavite. Every phase of the navigation is illustrated by the experience of the Santisima Trinidad in 1756. After a most distressful voyage from Manila, the great galleon cleared from Acapulco for the Orient on April 29, 1756, too advanced a season to expect propitious conditions for the crossing. On that day she dropped to seaward with the tide, after saluting the Castle of San Diego with fifteen guns, and soon falling in with the northeast trades sped westward in her long straight path. For weeks the pilot records each day "tiempo claro y hermoso,"—the halcyon weather of June seas in the tropics. One day the galleon covered fifty-one leagues. The sixteenth of July the Ladrones are sighted. Some Jesuit fathers and the governor visit the ship, which takes on water and some provisions before continuing its voyage on the twenty-first. Winds are already contrary, and a month later, when the ship should long since have been in Manila Bay, the water supply is dangerously low, for there are about eight hundred persons on board. In the junta that is called to consider the situation the pilot offers to give up his extra allowance of water and receive an equal portion with the rest. All the night of the twentieth of August the weather is "detestable," writes Boucourt, the French pilot, "the sea is high, and the vendaval is blowing, with gusts of rain." A week later Cape Espiritu Santo is made out in the dis tance and the voyage up the straits begins. Scarcely has the gal leon entered the Embocadero when fourteen boats come out with rice, chickens, pigs, and "other fruits." But they bring no water, which is most needed. However, the fresh food gives them great comfort, and for days the ship is surrounded by a fleet of small boats from Bulusan and Capul and the other islands roundabout. Inside the entrance she is becalmed, with the tides THE VOYAGE 283 running like a millrace and with the channel lying among whirl pools and eddies that make the pilot's task more difficult. Farther up the straits on September 18 the galleon comes upon two boats from Romblon, bound for Manila with oil and cacao and heav ily armed against a Moro attack. More calms among swirling currents, then furious cutting squalls, and finally, at half after five on the afternoon of October 10, the galleon casts anchor before Cavite. "I praised the mercy of God," says the sore-tried pilot, "and gave thanks for the patronage of Maria Santisima, our Lady of Solitude, for having freed us from so many perils and enabled us to survive one of the roughest voyages of this navigation." There was always great jubilation at Manila when the re turning galleon finally came to anchor in the bay. Families were reunited after the anxious separation of a year or more, and the safe arrival of the ship on which depended the material fortunes of the colony lifted the heavy burden of fear for her safety that always weighed on the community during her long absence. Bells were rung and the churches were filled with a grateful people. But the first pious impulses of thanksgiving quickly gave way to more worldly demonstrations. For, as soon as the proceeds from the galleon's sales had been distributed among the citizens a round of balls and other festivities began, only to end when the money or the enthusiasm were spent. PART III THE FOREIGNERS >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 8 THE SPANISH LAKE THE monarch of all the Spains was addressed by his sub jects as "Senor," or "Lord." He signed himself with laconic arrogance "Yo el Rey"—"I, the King." Yet his full title read: "King of Castile, Leon, Aragon, the Two Sicilies, Jerusa lem, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Mallorca, Seville, Sardinia, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarves, Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the Eastern and Western Indies, and the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, and Milan; Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, Tyrol and Barcelona; Lord of Biscay and Molina, etc." At the height of the Spanish tide it included king ship over Portugal and the whole Lusitanian empire in Brazil and the Golden East, as well as over the Low Countries. The "et cetera" was a flexible word, which provided for the inclusion of any chance conquests of Spanish arms not specifically listed. The South Sea, with its nearly 70,000,000 square miles of water and its thousands of islands, was the most spacious domain claimed by the Spanish king. From the early sixteenth century Spain attempted to comprehend within her vast circle of "closed seas" the entire area of the Pacific. The extension of the papal line of demarcation to the antipodes gave a certain sanction to the grandiose pretension from its very inception. Whatever force this ban might have had in practice was nullified by the apostasy of England and Holland, the maritime powers most likely to challenge such an assumption. Moreover, France refused to accept its principle as binding on her overseas ambitions. "The authority of the Pope," wrote Hugo Grotius, the great Dutch jurisconsult, in 1608, "has absolutely no force against the eternal law of nature and of nations." Nearly a century later Pontchartrain, minister of Louis XIV, wrote to the Comte de Marcin: "The French contested the validity of this act. The Ambassador of France was instructed to make it clear that neither the King 187 288 THE MANILA GALLEON of France nor any other European prince has ever pretended to be restrained by consideration of the line of demarcation, which the Spaniards cite as an incontestable title. The Pope's decision in this regard was only between the King of Spain and the King of Portugal." To bolster up her inordinate assertion of ownership Spain also invoked the old theory of the mare clausum, which was here applied to an unprecedented area of water. The Pacific was to be hers—"the Spanish Sea," Padre Medina called it—just as to Rome the Mediterranean had been mare nostrum. However, her appeal to this dogma of international jurisprudence was to be as completely ignored in practice by other nations as had been the pretentious bull of Alexander VI. It was not until a more realistic generation of Spaniards recognized its fallacy in the en lightened eighteenth century that Spain abandoned her claim to proprietorship of the Pacific. Meanwhile, the Dutch had invoked the same theory on behalf of their operations in the East Indies. Francisco Leandro de Viana, in contesting the force of the Dutch claim to exclusive navigation in the waters to the southwest of the Philippines and thence as far as the Cape of Good Hope, declared the mare clau sum theory only a valid authorization of monopoly in such re stricted areas as in the case of the Venetian control of the Adri atic. The seas, the recognition of whose ownership was coveted by the Dutch, he declared, "by reason of their immensity are not subject to the particular use of any one power, against the rights of the rest." Grotius had, in fact, written his famous Liberum Mare to combat the very claims which the Dutch themselves made after they had broken down the Portuguese monopoly of the Cape route. Grotius had then quoted against the pretensions of Spain the words of the Spanish scholar, Fernando Vasquez, to the effect that "places public and common to all by the law of nations cannot become objects of prescription." These lofty claims Spain fortified with the more substantial right of discovery. In 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa declared the sea, and its islands and contiguous territories, the property of the Castilian crown. Then, before another decade was gone the epic voyage of Magellan gave heroic substance to the sweeping claim so lightly made by the conquistador on the shores of Darien. Within a few more years the work of the conquerors THE SPANISH LAKE 289 of Mexico and Peru further strengthened the hold of Spain upon the South Sea, as their ships felt their way along its eastern coasts. By the middle of the century Spaniards were familiar with the whole eastern shore of the Pacific from the region of Cape Mendocino to that of Cape Horn. Four Spanish expedi tions had already crossed the ocean from east to west, though none had yet returned and few of the island groups had so far been sighted. No foreign navigator had yet sailed on its waters. The half century between 1560 and 1610 was to be even more fruitful in actual occupancy of the Pacific. For the voyages of Legaspi and Urdaneta, Mendana and Quiros, Sarmiento and Vizcaino, fell in those fifty years. And the Manila Galleons had begun the regular crossings which were to continue for two hun dred and fifty years as the one vital link in the whole Spanish scheme. The great semi-circle of islands that stretches around from Kamchatka until it disappears south of the equator among the myriad sporades of Polynesia, spread like a Milky Way of coral atolls on the edge of the world, was to form the western barrier of the Spanish Pacific. As for Japan, militant and proud under Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa shoguns, nothing more than a spiritual conquest could be hoped for. However, the aggressive racial spirit, embodied in the samurai's ideal of bushido, might be neutralized by the missionaries' astute propaganda of pacifism, the very issue which the Japanese foresaw and so ruthlessly fore stalled by expulsion and massacre. The Spaniards also feared the Japanese ambitions for maritime expansion, and accordingly schemed to keep them a strictly insular people. It was with this purpose that they refused to further the desire of the Japanese to develop ship-building in the time of Iyeyasu. China, too, came within the scope of the Spanish plan, and several projects were entertained for its conquest. On the other hand, in view of the habitually pacific and inoffensive attitude of the Chinese, cher ishing their traditional isolation, there was at least little positive danger from that quarter, except from isolated adventurers like Limahon and Koxinga. Formosa was for a time a possession of Spain, while Indo-China was the object of the designs of Gomez Perez Dasmarinas and his son, Luis. The Philippines themselves constituted the very key to the whole Asiatic line of Pacific defense. The Moluccas were Spanish for a few decades, and 290 THE MANILA GALLEON Spain maintained her hold on Ternate of this group until 1662. The "King" of Borneo gave his dominions in a vague vassalage to Governor Sande, and New Guinea had been claimed for Spain from very early by right of discovery. Finally, at the lower rim of the long arc the discoveries of Mendana and Quiros secured for Spain a strong title to some of the island groups which extend southeastward from New Guinea. Inca myths of land to the west of the South American coasts inflamed the imagination of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa with the vision of another great continent. The tantalizing hy pothesis was to torment the minds of men until the scientific expeditions of the eighteenth century dispelled the last mysteries of the South Sea. Sarmiento was not only familiar with old Peruvian lore, but was a highly competent navigator and a man of restless energies. Yet, when he had won the support of the viceroy at Lima to his plans for an expedition in the southern Pacific, it was the young and inexperienced Alvaro de Mendana who was put in charge. Sarmiento was second in command of the two ill-equipped ships which left Callao, the port of Lima, in 1567. No discoveries of importance were made until eighty days out, when the first of the islands which Mendana named the Solomons was sighted. Other islands of the same group were visited and efforts made to establish a settlement on San Cristobal. Inability of the gentle Mendana to control his men, who were interested only in gold and who provoked the black-skinned Melanesian islanders to reprisals, led to the failure of the ven ture. After nine months among the Solomons the expedition, in great distress from storms, hunger and scurvy, reached the coast of Lower California, from which it eventually returned to Peru. In spite of the disastrous outcome of his first attempt Men dana cherished the idea of returning to the scene of his discov eries. It was another six years before he obtained the king's sanction to his plans for a colony on the islands he had found. Meanwhile, with the passing of time fancy endowed the Solo mons with fabulous wealth. Changes in the viceregal palace at Lima delayed his plans and it was April 1595, nearly 26 years after his return from San Cristobal, before the persistent Men dana was able to clear again for the west. The expedition con sisted of four ships and 378 men and women. Its greatest asset THE SPANISH LAKE 291 was the chief pilot, Pedro Fernandes de Quiros, a Portuguese navigator of consummate skill. Though his seamanship was beyond question, Quiros, like Columbus, was a visionary and religious zealot whose phantasies often beclouded his excellent judgment in practical affairs. Also, he shared his superior offi cer's inability to manage his unruly crews, which quickly got out of hand. In July the Marquesas were discovered and named for the viceroy's lady, a name which they still bear. They were the first Europeans to make the acquaintance of the attractive Polynesian peoples in the south Pacific. Quiros wrote of the natives that they were "white and of a very agreeable appearance, tall and strong, large-limbed, and so well made that they far surpassed us. Indeed, for barbarians, naked, and of so little reason, one could not restrain himself, at sight of them, from thanking God for having created them." To the Spaniards the women seemed "as beautiful as the women of Lima—and the women of Lima are very beautiful." Yet a number of the trusting islanders were wantonly massacred by Mendana's men. From the Marquesas the expedition proceeded on to Santa Cruz where the foundations of a settlement were made. Sickness and bloody dissensions among the colonists and frequent clashes with the islanders cursed the colony. In October Mendana died and a month later the survivors abandoned the ill-fated site of their sufferings and their lost hopes. Though under the nominal leadership of Dona Isabel, Men dana's strong-willed and selfish widow, it was the resourceful Quiros who took the rotten ships, with their starving and dying company, up through the Carolines and the Ladrones to Manila. Here Quiros told Antonio de Morga: "It seems only right that nothing be said about the first islands (the Marquesas) until his Majesty be informed and order what is convenient to his service. For, as the islands occupy a position midway between Peru, New Spain and this land, the English, on learning of them, might settle them and do much mischief in this sea." From Manila those who wished to brave the sea again crossed to Acapulco by the next galleon and ultimately reached Peru. The great seaman who had saved the expedition from utter disaster still cherished his belief in the existence of a southern continent, which he called "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo." In 292 THE MANILA GALLEON 1600 he went to Spain to petition the king, and thence made his way to Rome to lay before the pope the needs of Polynesian and Melanesian souls sunk in paganism. It was another three years before the necessary royal orders were issued to the viceroy at Lima and late in 1605 when his three ships were ready to sail from Callao. Following closely to the twentieth parallel, he entered the region of the Polynesian archipelagos, where he skirted the Tuamotus and the northern rim of the Society Islands. Leaving the vicinity of these elysian isles, he continued far to the west. From the large island of Espiritu Santo of the New Hebrides, which he mistook for part of a great continent, he turned north almost to the fortieth parallel and crossed to Mexico. Then, a beggar with a mighty vision, he hastened on to Spain, to an nounce his discoveries to the king. For fourteen years he peti tioned the incredulous court for a commission and funds to colonize the continent whose eastern edge he believed he had touched on Espiritu Santo. When at last the tireless old naviga tor left Cadiz with the royal authorization for his voyage, he died on his way out to Peru. With his indomitable, but misguided, will there passed the dream of Spain's destiny in the southern Pacific. When Quir6s and Luiz Vaez de Torres, a fellow Portu guese and second in command, had become separated on the expedition of 1605, Torres had proceeded far to the northwest, passing under New Guinea and through the strait that now bears his name. To the south of this narrow passage he may well have sighted the northern extremity of Australia about Cape York, but could have had no inkling of the vast land mass that lay behind it. Such was the dream and the achievement of Spanish imper ialism in the Pacific. That the whole conception of the Spanish Lake was not the mere quixotic vagary of a people given to grandiose visions its approximate realization in the early seven teenth century abundantly proved. It only failed of reaching its entirety because the seamen and the captains were greater than the kings and councillors whom they served. As it was, in its essentials it was for nearly two centuries a realized fact. Well might Grotius exclaim: "Shall the people of Spain, forsooth, assume a monopoly of all the world ?" THE SPANISH LAKE 293 So far as her resources permitted Spain relied on actual priority of occupation. However, after the magnificent achieve ment of the sixteenth century, her population and wealth and the initiative of her rulers during the hundred years which followed were not commensurate with the work of exploration, settlement and development required for the full realization and enforce ment of her monopoly of the great ocean. The paralysis of the decadencia had fallen over the kingdom at home. In the face of realities her ineffectual rulers never relaxed their overweening pretensions, but the mighty elan and force of the conquista were burned out in the nation. The problem became one of holding what a greater breed of men had won. Spain was tired and im poverished, and her people, content with what the day might bring them, had no stomach for more enterprises on the grand scale. The strength of the empire was now largely negative, the preoccupation of its enemies with their own internecine troubles and with the wars of the continent. Portugal was already a second-rate power when she became a vassal of Philip II in 1580 and the recovery of her indepen dence on the field of Villavicosa came too late to reestablish her once proud position. It was rather a further indication of the depths to which Spain had fallen. Although in the beginning the Portuguese had strongly resented Spanish occupation of the Philippines, they never showed any inclination to extend their activities beyond into the area of the Pacific. Otherwise Brazil was the limit of their ambitions on one side of the Pacific, as was the line Macao-Malacca-Moluccas on the other side. The Dutch early settled down to a business-like development of the trade of the great archipelago which they still control. Their East India Company was interested only in the state of its ledgers and seldom risked its resources on ventures of doubtful profit. Vanity of empire appealed little to the matter-of-fact Hollanders. If for several decades they tried to oust the Span iards from the Philippines it was because those islands appeared to have a substantial value in themselves and as a base for trading operations with the lands to the north. Such expeditions around the southern end of South America as those of Noort and Speilbergen were isolated raids rather than part of any general design against the Spaniards in the Pacific. Attempts made between 1594-96 to find a north passage into the Pacific around the Eura 294 THE MANILA GALLEON sian continent had even less significance, because less success. The only exception to this general rule of Dutch policy was due to the initiative of Anthony van Diemen, who was governor-gen eral of the Dutch East Indies between 1636 and 1645. This energetic official sponsored the epoch-making voyage of Abel Tasman, in which that navigator sailed around under Australia and discovered New Zealand, returning to Batavia by way of the Fijis and above New Guinea. For the guidance of the expedi tion Tasman's pilot, Franz Jacobszoon Visscher, had drawn up a comprehensive plan for Dutch discoveries over the whole south ern Pacific. In fact, his ambitious plans included the finding of "the remaining unknown part of the terrestrial globe." But the shareholders in Amsterdam refused to countenance further ex penditures on what they considered visionary schemes worthy only of a Spaniard. After that, despite Rogoveen's voyage in 1721, the Dutch never seriously threatened the Spaniards' pur suit of their dream. Englishmen early gave thought to the Pacific. The first definite proposal for a venture in that direction was put before Henry VIII in 1540. It was 1578 when Francis Drake rounded South America with instructions to search for Marco Polo's badly misplaced land of Beach 1 or the Terra Australis Incognita, as the undiscovered continent variously appeared in the speculations of that age. Storms interfered with Drake's plans to explore the southern Pacific and diverted his attention to the settled coasts of Peru. After his highly profitable forays on Spanish shipping he reached the region of California, which he claimed for Eng land as "New Albion." The material success of his daring raid turned future English efforts to such substantial satisfactions rather than to the quest for the unknown continent. Thus, Cav endish in 1586 and Hawkins in 1593 were actuated by the same very tangible motives. For the two centuries between Drake and Cook the English caused grave concern to the Spanish guardians of the Pacific. This was in spite of the diversion of much of their national energies into enterprises in other parts of the world—in India and on the North American continent and in the West Indies, as well as in Europe. Yet there were long intervals between the 1 This land, referred to as Beach, Boeach, Laach, or Lochac in various editions of Marco Polo, was probably a part of the Malay peninsula. THE SPANISH LAKE various irruptions into the South Sea. After the Elizabethan voyages of Drake, Cavendish and Hawkins the English did not appear again until a century later, during the time of the buc caneers. The only exception to their inaction was in their occa sional attempts against the Spanish establishment in the Philip pines in the early seventeenth century. Then, by accepting a Bourbon king, with all its implications of her subordination to French policy, Spain invited aggression from the English against her all too unsubstantial empire of the Pacific. Though Jonathan Swift's Gulliver brought the northern Pacific into the realm of geographical fancy, the highly readable writings of Dampier and Woodes Rogers and their fellows intro duced the realities of the great ocean to Englishmen of the eight eenth century. The report of Commodore Anson's voyage and its demonstration of Spanish weakness only whetted their appe tite for what the king of Spain guarded so inadequately. Their easy capture of Manila in 1762 removed any remnant of illusion which may have remained as to the power of the Spaniards to hinder their designs. After the Seven Years' War and the consolidation of her position in India and North America at the expense of France, England was free to make a serious effort in the Pacific. The expedition of Commodore Byron cleared for the Pacific the year after the Treaty of Paris. Wallis and Carteret followed two years later, and after another two years Captain James Cook began the series of three long voyages which bridged the period until 1780. The French did not become a factor in the Pacific until late. The legendary voyage of the Sieur de Gonneville, supposed to have antedated that of Magellan by sixteen years, early aroused speculation in learned circles, but had no practical results. The surplus energies of France found ample occupation in other quarters. It was not until the reign of Louis XIV that France threat ened the Spanish scheme of things in the Pacific. Then it was not by violence against the Spaniards, but by the exercise of dynastic politics. When a Bourbon prince ascended the Spanish throne as Philip V in 1700, the neighboring kingdom and its overseas dominions were brought within the scope of the ambitious hege mony of France. For a time Spanish commercial interests were subordinated to the designs of France and Spain's policy of com 296 THE MANILA GALLEON mercial exclusion gravely compromised. She was only saved from a total renunciation of her traditional system, to the advan tage of France, by the ultimate triumph of the maritime powers in the War of the Spanish Succession. During this period French ships, like those of the able Malouine, Gouin de Beauchesne, traded at will and without hin drance along the west coast of South America. "The French have now begun to engross the Trade of Peru and Chile," wrote Woodes Rogers, who passed that way in 1709. Though the Spanish colonials found traffic with the French advantageous, its competition cut deeply into the old trade from Spain by way of Panama, and peninsular merchants protested bitterly against this invasion of their monopoly. The continued prosecution of the vigorous commercial policy thus initiated by France was prevented by the issue of the War of the Spanish Succession. Louis XIV had declared to Amelot in 1709: "The principal object of the present war is the commerce of the Indies and the riches which they produce." And, though a Bourbon remained on the throne of Spain, the status quo ante in the Pacific was restored and the national interest in the Coun cil of the Indies reassumed control over the Spanish empire. When the French reappeared in the Pacific a half century later it was not in imperialistic guise, but as participants in the movement for scientific exploration which they shared with a famous group of English navigators. Meanwhile, the publica tion in 1756 of Charles de Brasses' Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes had prepared French minds for the work of the new era. The noble Comte Louis Antoine de Bougainville, he of the purple flower, visited the Pacific between 1767 and 1769 and brought back to France a brilliant account of the charms of Tahiti and other islands of the Polynesian archipelagos. In 1785 Jean Francois Galaup de La Perouse was sent out to investigate the prospects for whale fishing and fur trading about the Pacific. Though his ships were lost two years later, his achievement as navigator and observer reflected greatly to the credit of French seamanship and science. By the middle of the eighteenth century the regime of exclu sion was fast drawing to a close. Not only did Englishmen and Frenchmen sail about the Pacific in complete disregard of the Spaniards—and their outworn anathemas. Ships of the new THE SPANISH LAKE 297 North American republic began to trade along the Spanish coasts of the South Sea. The Russians were soon to begin their voy ages from Alaska down the California shore. Maritime ethics and customs were changing, and the great pretension of Spain to monopoly of the Pacific had been unmasked. Whatever sub stance remained of the old idea of the Spanish Lake was dis pelled by Commodore Anson, and the Covadonga was Spain's final sacrifice to the emptiness of a colossal presumption, which could not survive the fire of a single British frigate. The perni cious doctrine that one nation might dominate such an expanse of sea gave way before the rise of more liberal principles of com ity, as well as before a display of naval force. The annexation of Easter Island, now a Chilean possession, the sending of mis sionaries to the Society Islands, and the scientific expedition of Malaspina (1789-94) came too late and were on too small a scale to affect the changed status of affairs in the Pacific. The advance up the coast to Alaska, attended with much of the old daring, and the stand made at Nootka Sound were the final efforts of Spain in the days of her belated revival to uphold what seemed tenable of her long-cherished dream. But the Pacific was now anyone's ocean and the real partition of its lands had only begun. From early times Spain had laid a formal prohibition on foreigners about her overseas empire. "No foreign ships shall pass to the Indies, and such as do shall be seized," runs a law of 1540, reiterated in 1558, 1560, and 1563. On the Spanish Lake, thus created by royal fiat, the Manila Galleons might sail back and forth with as much security "as though they were on the river of Seville." And Spain meant that the Pacific should be shrouded in such secrecy that the rest of the world could know nothing of these argosies and their tempting cargoes. The harry ing of heretics by the Inquisition and a system of espionage in London, Amsterdam, and other cities, to learn of the movements of prospective expeditions to the West Indies or the Pacific were intended to aid the fleets and forts in maintaining this policy of exclusion. Thus, in a letter of November 1, 1582, Viceroy Suarez de Mendoza advised the king of information received from Ber nardino de Mendoza, Spanish Ambassador in London, regarding two English ships fitting out for a voyage to the Moluccas by way of the Pacific. In 1776 a resident of London, of Spanish ancestry, named Juan de Guzman y Mendoza, voluntarily sent a warning 298 THE MANILA GALLEON to a certain high colonial official, apparently the governor of the Philippines, advising him of the approaching departure for the Pacific of Cook's two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery. He declared that their intention, according to Cook's own confi dential avowal to an intimate of both men, was the opening of trade with the west coast of North America and the occupation of California, to compensate England for the anticipated loss of her colonies, then in rebellion. For the protection of her domain in the Pacific, Spain de pended as much on nature as on ships and forts and men. Par ticularly was this true on the eastern side of the ocean, for access from the west was greatly facilitated by the existence of secon dary bases of operation in the East Indies and on the coasts of India. However, in spite of this advantage and except for local movements from Batavia or Madras against Manila, the more serious threats to Spanish power came westward out of the Atlantic. The natural barriers against ingress into the Pacific from the east constituted a defensive force of the first magnitude. Except at the Isthmus of Panama and on either side of Tierra del Fuego the land mass of the Americas effectually blocked all approach from that direction. Spaniards shared the belief, long current in Europe, that there existed a practicable water route across the North American con tinent or to the north of it. They also suspected the feasibility of a way around northern Europe and Asia. They knew of the ef forts of Cartier, Frobisher, and Hudson to find a strait which would lead through to "China," and feared that the ships of some rival power might penetrate thereby into the seclusion of the Pacific. Yet the mystery of "Anian," as they called the problem atical northwest passage, was never completely solved until 1905. The guarding of the southern gateway around South America presented a more tangible problem. Occasionally, when intruders were expected from that quarter armed ships were despatched down the coasts of Peru and Chile to patrol the neigh borhood of Tierra del Fuego. For a time after the shock of Drake's incursion reliance was placed on Sarmiento's colony in the Straits. But this establishment, founded in 1581, was as illfated as it was short-lived, and irony would have it that the last THE SPANISH LAKE 299 survivor was picked up by Cavendish when he passsed that way in 1587. The Spaniards trusted more to the forbidding seas about the lower end of the continent than they did to military safe guards, either fixed or mobile. The winds and waves of those savage waters were to account for more enemy ships and men than did all the king's forts and all the king's cannon and mus ketry about the Pacific. Yet, in their impartiality the storms about Tierra del Fuego took as heavy toll of Spanish as of English or Dutch ships, as when they shattered the fleet of Ad miral Jose Pizarro, who was sent out to intercept Anson in 1742. The Spaniards were favored by the very remoteness of the forbidden sea. The hardships of an unbroken voyage into the Pacific made it difficult to hold a crew together until the attain ment of their objectives might compensate them for their suffer ings. For the long-continued trials were a supreme test of disci pline and self-restraint. Even the most masterly leaders had often to face the ugly menace of mutiny. The buccaneers, who entered the Pacific by the overland route across the Isthmus of Panama, quickly fell into a state of anarchy, and were only forced into successful cooperation by their common danger or lust for booty, save when they were dominated by some more ferocious will. Once they had penetrated into the Pacific hostile armaments might find rest and succor in three groups of islands which the Spaniards left without adequate defense. Those were, in the order of their nearness to the eastern entrance to the sea: Juan Fernandez, the turtle-breeding Galapagos, and the Ladrones, where passing ships could always obtain provisions by one means or another from the small Spanish post on Guam. Only with the utmost risk could a ship reach the Pacific without a port available in its path, where it could take on pro visions and refit in safety. The last place which best combined these advantages was St. Catherine's Island off the southern coast of Brazil, now the site of Florianopolis, capital of the State of Santa Catharina. In this respect Anson's problem in 1740-44 was as serious as Drake's in 1579. Scurvy, starvation, or turning-back in distress were the alternatives that faced the ship without a con venient port-of-call. Until after 1600 all such way-stations on the road to the Pacific, whether on the route around the Cape of Good Hope or on Magellan's old path around South America, were in Spanish or Portuguese hands. Except for the period of 300 THE MANILA GALLEON Dutch occupation in Brazil and the short duration of Villegagnon's Huguenot settlements about Rio Bay, this condition re mained true of the westward route into the South Sea until the end of the colonial regime of Spain and Portugal in South America. Gradually, the eastward route around Africa became marked with the way-stations of other powers which little heeded the remonstrances of Portugal at the violation of her monopoly of the Cape route. Only the diversion of the attention of these interlopers to the lucrative trade of India and the Javas probably saved the Spaniards from a reckoning in the Pacific. To the west the Portuguese possessions served for a time as a secondary bulwark for Spanish control of the Pacific. The absorption of Portugal in 1580 was evidently aimed to secure ultimately the disposal of its East Indian resources, just as Louis XIV's designs on Spain had in view the utilization of the wealth of the Spanish Indies. Thus, until the separation in 1640 Portu guese policy in its larger phases was subordinated to that of Spain. Under this regime Macao became a part of the Spanish scheme of defense, as did the vitally important Malacca, which the great Albuquerque had occupied in 1511, and for a briefer period the Javas as well. Behind these were Ceylon and the posts on the Indian peninsula—Goa, Cochin, and the rest, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Guinea way-stations—all links in the line of de fense against possible aggressions 1 around Africa. On the eastern side of the Americas a like function was performed by the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean area and on the River Plate, since a hostile force must pass these outworks before it could enter the open Pacific. It was due to the weakness of the precautions taken at the isthmus, which was one of the two strategical points in the line, that the buccaneers were able to break out upon the South Sea in the latter seventeenth century. The Castle of Chagre, which Morgan's men stormed in 1680, was part of the defenses of the Spanish empire of the Pacific. The importance of the Malouines or Falklands, over which a serious controversy arose in the latter eighteenth century, lay in their position as commanding the entrance to the Straits of Ma gellan and the route around Cape Horn. Brazil was also as necessary to the consummation of the Spanish scheme on this side as was Malacca on the other, a circumstance which explains the anxiety of Spain at the Dutch occupation of the Pernambuco THE SPANISH LAKE 301 Bahia district of the Portuguese colony in the seventeenth century. That the Spaniards were justified in their concern over the Dutch position in northern Brazil was demonstrated by the expedition of Hendrick Brouwer into the Pacific in 1642. Though Brouwer's ships returned to Pernambuco without accomplishing more than some futile depredations along the Chilean coast, the ease with which he had made his incursion into the South Sea seriously alarmed the Spanish government. In the same way the Spaniards considered the Philippines as a valuable outwork for the defense of the American coasts against attacks from the west. Above all, their loss to an enemy power might well imperil the route of the South Sea silver fleet between Peru and Panama. Thus, after the short-lived British occupation of Manila during the Seven Years War, Pedro Calderon Enriquez called the Philippines "the wall which defends all America from the west." Even after the restoration of Manila to Spain the Spaniards were much concerned over rumored British plans for the seizure of J0I6 or Zamboanga, "from where they would have free access to New Spain." The Spaniards also discouraged ordinary trading voyages across the Pacific to New Spain or Peru. They held that such ventures of foreigners would not only threaten their shipping monopoly in trans-Pacific trade and compete with Spanish mer chants in the colonial markets, but constitute a serious political menace by the possible founding of establishments on the Ameri can coasts. Orientals as well as Europeans were included in the ban. A memorial drawn up in 1586 by the leading citizens of Manila declared among the advantages to be derived from the proposed conquest of China the prohibition of Chinese voyages to New Spain and Peru. Nor was a Japanese voyage to Acapulco in the early part of the next century permitted to become a , precedent. More serious in its possible consequences was the trading voyage made by some Dutch and English ships to the Mexican coast in 1746. This voyage had been preceded two years earlier by an attempt of the Dutch authorities on Java to secure the privilege of trading at Manila. Denied the concession, they de termined to open a direct trade from the Orient with the Spanish American coasts, a traffic which might have offered dangerous competition to the Manila Galleons. In order to insure a profit 302 THE MANILA GALLEON able market for the expedition, by preventing the departure of the year's nao from Manila, the Dutch governor at Batavia re sorted to the ruse of warning the Spaniards of an intended at tack by a British fleet under Admiral Barnet, then cruising in the East Indies. Meanwhile four Dutch and two English ships cleared for the American coast with rich cargoes of oriental goods and ; an authorization to offer the viceroy of New Spain a large bribe for the right to trade with that region. Two Dutch ships, which continued across the Pacific after the fleet had been dispersed by storms, disposed :of their goods on the Guadalajara coast before the official prohibitions from Mexico could reach the authorities of those districts. They penetrated the Gulf of Cali fornia as far as Guaymas, and while reconnoitering the lower coast one of them sighted two Philippine galleons in the harbor of Acapulco. However, the Dutch do not seem to have repeated this attempt to trade with the west coast of New Spain. The French made a number of trading voyages across the Pacific from the Asiatic coasts during the reign of Louis XIV. French ships carried Chinese silks from Canton to Peru and New Spain. However, this competition with French fabrics was not in accordance with the plans of the interests which had sent out these expeditions, and who accordingly soon prohibited these ir regular ventures. It was, moreover, directly contrary to the socalled mercantilist policies upon which the development of French industry was based. A few French ships touched on the upper Mexican coast with cargoes from the Orient. In 1709 the Stunt Antoine (Cap tain Frondat) crossed the Pacific to the California coast at an altitude higher than the usual course of the Manila Galleons. Six years later the Comtesse de Pontchartrain (Captain Forgeais de Langerie), the first ship to circumnavigate the globe from west to east, put in at the Tres Marias Islands and later lay for over a month in the harbor of Val de Banderas. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 9 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 9 THE ENGLISH DURING the two and a half centuries of the line the English took four of the galleons. The Santa Ana, first of them, fell to Thomas Cavendish in 1587. It was a century before Woodes Rogers captured the Encarnacidn in 1709, both of these off Lower California. Spain's alliance with Bourbon France was to prove still more disastrous to the galleons in the same century. For Commodore Anson took the Covadonga in Philippine waters in 1743, and nineteen years later the great Santisima Trinidad struck her colors to two English frigates of Admiral Cornish's squadron. Two of the galleons that were attacked by English ships, the Rosario in 1704 and the Begona in 1709, beat off their assailants and reached port in safety. Drake Except for John Oxenham's short incursion at Panama in 1575, the first foreigner to break into the lonely immensity of the Pacific was Francis Drake. When the Golden Hind entered the South Sea in September 1578, it was only six years since the Chinese had begun to bring their silks to Manila for the Ameri can market. The cargoes of the galleons were not so rich as they were shortly to become and the secret of their existence was still guarded by Spain. Drake knew nothing of the Manila Galleon and it was the riches of the mines of Peru poured into the treas ury of Spain that excited his cupidity. Though he learned of the galleon after leaving the Peruvian coast, he appeared little con cerned with whatever wealth it might hold. By the time he reached the field of the galleon he was sated with the plunder that he had taken from the Cacafuego and other minor prizes, and was more cautious to hold what he already had than to risk its loss in new attempts. 303 3«4 THE MANILA GALLEON Shortly after he had left Callao for the north he overhauled a Spanish ship, on which he found "ropes and tackles for ships" and "other things which was for the provision of the journey, appointed to the Fylipinas." These ships' supplies may have been destined for the Acapulco galleon, but were more probably intended for the vessel that was to carry Gonzalo Ronquillo out from Panama to Manila to be governor of the Philippines. Then, after taking the Cacafuego between Paita and Panama early in March, Drake steered northwest to the Central American coast, where he spent some time at the island of Cano putting the Golden Hind in condition to continue her voyage home. On leaving the island of Cano on the 24th of March he cap tured the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcidn, which was bound from Acapulco for Panama. He took off the Spanish ship a pilot of the galleons, named Alonso Gonzalez Colchero, who had been sent by the viceroy of New Spain to guide Ronquillo's ship across the Pacific. He also seized the "sea-cards" or sailing charts used by the galleons and a number of official despatches addressed to Ronquillo and the Spanish authorities at Manila. The state ment in Hakluyt to the effect that he found in this ship "a Span ish Governor going for the Islands of the Philippines" is errone ous, as Ronquillo, the newly appointed Governor, came to Panama direct from Spain. "At Panama," wrote Antonio de Morga, "Ronquillo embarked his people in the South Sea, and set sail for the Philippines, where he arrived and took over the government, in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty." After consulting with Colchero about the westerly route across the Pacific, Drake released him, but kept the charts for his future use. On his way up the Guatemala coast Drake fell in with an other Spanish ship, which had recently left Acapulco for Callao with a cargo of merchandise from the last Manila Galleon. "We met with a ship," says the narrative in Hakluyt, "laden with linen cloth and fine China-dishes of white earth, and great store of China-silks, of all which things we tooke as we listed." The ship was in charge of her owner, Don Francisco de Zarate, a "Spanish Gentleman" of wealth and refinement, from whom Drake also took a "Fawlcon of golde, with a great Emeraud in the breast thereof." Drake also pressed Zarate's pilot into his service, but dropped him at Guatulco on the Oaxaca coast of New THE ENGLISH 305 Spain, along with his old Portuguese pilot, Nuno da Silva, whom he had brought from Europe. While he lay in the harbor of Guatulco the local Spanish authorities spread the alarm of his coming up the coast to Acapulco, where the galleon was still waiting to clear for Manila. There was a great "hurlie burlie" in Mexico when the news of Drake's incursion arrived. The viceroy, Enriquez, despatched two hundred soldiers to Acapulco and gave orders to the shipping in that port to go out against the Englishman. Miles Philips, one of John Hawkins' men, who had been left on the Panuco coast in 1568 and had since worked as a silk weaver in the coun try, was sent along as interpreter. However, though Drake had entertained the design of entering the harbor of Acapulco and burning the ships at anchor there, he passed its entrance without shortening sail and continued on to the upper California coast, from where he was to sail southwestward on his passage to the Carolines and the Moluccas. When the galleon and some smaller ships finally left Acapulco in pursuit of him Drake was already well on his way to the north. While on the Central American coast, Drake "thinking himselfe both in respect of his private injuries received from the Spaniards, as also of their contempts and indignities offered to our countrey and Prince in generall, sufficiently satisfied, and revenged; and supposing that her Majestie at his returne would rest contented with this service, purposed to continue no longer upon the Spanish coasts, but began to consider and to consult of the best way for his countrey." Cavendish The first Englishman to take one of the Manila Galleons was Thomas Cavendish, or Candish. A young squire of Trimley in Suffolk, he had spent considerable time about the court of Elizabeth, after the fashion of gentlemen of the country in his time. In London the youthful courtier made the acquaintance of Raleigh and some of the veteran seamen who had accompanied Drake on his voyage round the world and was fired with the desire to emulate their example. The failure of an initial under taking in Virginia and the West Indies only spurred his ambi tion for achievement further afield. Through the favor of Lord Hunsdon, the lord high chamberlain, he was able to obtain a 306 THE MANILA GALLEON royal commission for his projected enterprises against the Spaniards, and by mortgaging his ancestral estates he succeeded in outfitting three small vessels. With this force he planned to follow the course of Drake into the Pacific, there to prey on Spanish towns and shipping after the approved formula of Elizabethan navigators. The three ships, manned by one hundred and twenty-three men, cleared from Plymouth on the twenty-first of July 1586 and seven months later they emerged from the Straits of Magellan into the open Pacific. In a letter written to Lord Hunsdon on his return to England Cavendish thus summed up in Assyrian terms the story of the next few months, during which he worked his way up the west side of the American continent: "I navigated alongst the coast of Chili, Peru and Nueva Espanna, where I made great spoiles; I burnt and sunk 9 sailes of ships small and great. All the villages and townes that ever I landed at, I burnt and spoiled ; and had I not bene discovered upon the coast, I had taken great quantities of treasure." Of much greater value than the booty which he gathered along the way was the treasure which he took from the Manila Galleon off the tip of Lower California. As he continued in his brief report to his patron at court: "The matter of most profit unto me was a great ship of the kings which I tooke at Cali fornia, which ship came from the Philippines, being one of the richest of merchandise that ever passed those seas." Cavendish first heard of the expected arrival of the galleon, Santa Ana, from a Provencal pilot, whom he found on one of his prizes. He was then in the waters of the northern viceroyalty and so within a few weeks' sail of the path of the incoming galleon. Coasting along the shores of New Spain and intent on the capture of the rich Manila ship, he confined his operations on land to occasional minor raids, which were intended rather to procure water and fresh provisions than any more substantial booty. On the fourteenth of October Cavendish's two remain ing ships sighted Cape San Lucas at the tip of Lower California, where the galleon was accustomed to make a landfall and check her course before proceeding on to Acapulco. In the bay of Aguada Segura or Puerto Seguro close under the cape, he found a convenient base from which he could patrol the outside of the headland in his search for the galleon. THE ENGLISH 307 Early in the morning of November 4th, 1587, the lookout on the Desire called out to his companions below that he had sighted a ship bearing in towards the cape. The discovery was signaled to the Content and both vessels promptly gave chase with all sail. It was afternoon before they came up with the galleon, which was "The great rich ship called the Santa Ana," under the command of Tomas de Alzola. As the Desire came abreast of the towering galleon she poured a broadside into her and made ready to board. The Spaniard had no cannon and was forced to rely for his defense on a varied assortment of antiquated infantry weapons, which included "lances, javelins, rapiers & targets, & an innumerable sort of great stones; which they threw overboard upon our heads and into our ship." After being driven over the sides of the galleon in an attempt to board, the Englishmen fell back on their artillery, against which the Spaniard had no adequate protection. "We now trimmed our sailes," said Francis Pretty, master of the Desire, "and fitted every man his furniture, and gave them a fresh encounter with our great ordinance and also with our small shot, raking them through and through, to the killing and maiming of many of their men." After five or six hours of stubborn resistance the Spaniard had suffered such heavy losses among his company and his hull had been shot through at the waterline, so that he hung out a flag of truce as a sign of surrender. The galleon then lowered her sails and sent one of her passengers on board the Desire to parley with Cavendish. In spite of the disparity in the size of the ships—the Santa Ana had a tonnage of 600, and the Desire and Content were of respectively 120 and 60 tons—the odds in the battle had been overwhelmingly in favor of the English. As Viceroy Villmanrique reported to the king, "since the Spaniards had neither artillery nor arms, they were forced to surrender." On the other hand, the Desire mounted eighteen guns and the Content ten. Commenting on the helplessness of the galleon against a ship armed with cannon, Governor Vera wrote to the king: "As no other ships but ours have ever been sighted on this voyage they have always sailed with as little fear from corsairs as if they were on the river of Seville." Cavendish's crew consisted of tried and seasoned sailors and fighters, while most of those on the galleon were inexperienced in the use of even such arms as were available. 3o8 THE MANILA GALLEON Many of her crew were Filipinos and among her passengers were a number of women and children. Moreover, at this stage of the galleon's voyage, already five months out from Manila, the vitality of those on board must have been low, with the usual large list of sick. As it was, Cavendish testified to the bravery with which the Spanish commander sought to save his ship from capture, and Francis Pretty wrote of his courage: "Their Captaine still like a valiant man with his company stood very stoutly unto his close fights." Moreover, the long duration of the combat, which lasted throughout the afternoon, was evidence of the stub bornness of the Spaniards' defense. From the Spanish commander Cavendish received the register of the Santa Ana's cargo, "To wit, an hundreth and 22 thousand pezos of golde; and the rest of the riches that the ship was laden with, was in silkes, sattens, damasks, with muske & divers other merchandise, and great store of all manner of victuals with the choyse of many conserves of all sorts for to eate, and of sundry sorts of very good wines." When Cavendish opened the chests containing the gold, he exclaimed : "Now we are rich, for in the two years that we have been going we have found nothing like this." According to Roman, the royal treasurer at Manila, the gal leon carried 2,300 marks of gold, equivalent to 84.2 pounds avoir dupois or 102.3 pounds troy. In addition, she was believed to carry a large amount of gold that had not been registered. In the gal leon's cargo there were also many fine pearls and the usual heavy proportion of rich silks. The choicest of the silks were seized by the crews of the English ships, but the cheaper grades of silks and the cotton goods were either dumped overboard or left in the hold to be burned. Another item of the cargo was a valuable shipment of musk and civet destined for the perfume manu facturers of Europe. Roman, the treasurer, and President Vera of the audiencia, who was then acting as governor, declared that the total sale value of the Santa Ana's cargo in Mexico would have been over 2,000,000 pesos and represented an original in vestment at Manila of more than 1,000,000 pesos. After Caven dish and his men had taken all they desired from the Spanish ship he signed the register of her merchandise and returned it to her commander. Before removing the valuable part of the cargo to his ships Cavendish had set ashore the one hundred and ninety Spaniards THE ENGLISH 309 on the galleon and provided them with food and with hand arms for their defense against the Indians. However, he first hanged Fray Juan de Almendariz, a priest returning from the Philippines. After he had transferred such of the merchandise as he desired he set fire to the galleon and turned her adrift. One of those put ashore by Cavendish was Sebastian Vizcaino, who was later to explore the California coast and to become the most skilled Spanish navigator of his time. Vizcaino was return ing from Manila with sixty thousand ducats invested in rich merchandise, all of which had been seized by the Englishman. It was his resourcefulness that now saved his companions, who were marooned on the peninsula far from the Spanish settlements on the mainland and with little hope of an early rescue. As an off-shore wind blew the galleon in towards the beach, Vizcaino called on the most able-bodied of his fellows and with them went out through the surf to the burning hulk. They extinguished the flames in the hold and then, after the most strenuous efforts, succeeded in putting the ship in condition to cross the Gulf of California and finally to reach Acapulco on the seventh of January. Another survivor of the Santa Ana is said to have been the mendacious Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, who claimed to have discovered the Pacific entrance of the mythical Straits of Anian and whose name was later to be given to the entrance to Puget Sound. It was the disaster to the Santa Ana and the Spaniards' new realization of the defenselessness of the California coasts that prompted the king a few years later to despatch Vizcaino on the northerly voyage of exploration which resulted in the first accurate knowledge of upper California. As soon as Cavendish had stowed away his plunder below decks and quelled a mutiny of the grumbling sailors on the Content, his ships "set sail joyously homeward towards England with a fayre wind." After the dusk of that November day the Content was never seen again. In her passage across the Pacific, the Desire was fortunate in having her course set by Alonso de Valladolid, pilot of the Santa Ana, whom Francis Pretty in his narrative of the voyage always refers to as "Tomas de Ersola," evidently confusing his name with that of Alzola, the Santa Ana's commander. Cavendish had impressed the pilot into his service, along with three Filipino boys and two Japanese. Under the expert guidance of Valladolid, Cavendish reached Guam of the 310 THE MANILA GALLEON Ladrones in forty-five days and in another eleven days he sighted Cape Espiritu Santo at the entrance of the Philippines. After he had entered the straits Cavendish found the Spanish pilot guilty of attempting to inform his countrymen at Manila of the depredations of the English and promptly had him hanged. Cavendish spent several days at the island of Capul, where he revictualed his ship, and then moved up the straits between Luzon and Masbate. Rounding Masbate, he turned south and passed between Panay and Negros out onto the open water of the Sulu Sea. He was glutted with booty from his operations along the American coast and showed no inclination to risk what he already had by coming to blows with the superior Spanish forces to the north. For at this time the Spaniards had over four hundred soldiers at Manila and could send out three ships of over three hundred tons each, besides several smaller war craft. The only aggression which he committed during his seven teen or eighteen days among the Philippines was an unsuccessful attempt to burn the galleon Santiago, which was nearing comple tion in the yards at Arevalo on the south coast of Panay. How ever, his landing party was beaten off by a company of Spaniards, who appeared on the shore. When the Santiago sailed for Acapulco in June of the next year she carried a letter to the king from Manuel Lorenzo de Lemos, who had saved her from the English. "Some time ago," he wrote, "the President [of the audiencia] sent me to bring the ship which is now leaving for New Spain. With much difficulty I saved it from the danger of the shallows across which it was taken from the yards. While I was serving your Majesty in this capacity the English corsair who robbed the Santa Ana last year fell upon me and wished to burn and destroy the new galleon which I was taking out. I took my men down to the shore and resisted him and when he left he wrote me a letter." "Our Generall," wrote Francis Pretty in his narrative of the voyage, "sent commendations to the Spanish captaine which wee came from the evening before by the Spaniard which we tooke, and willed him to provide good store of gold; for he meant for to see him with his company at Manilla within few yeeres, and that he did but want a bigger boate to have landed his men, or else hee would have seene him then." In the letter which Caven THE ENGLISH 3" dish wrote to Lemos he said: "If I had had a good ship the twenty caulkers would not have prevented me from burning the galleon that was in the yards. Give my respects to the President [Vera] and tell him I shall come again and destroy the rest of the galleons, and that we return the hate of the Spaniards towards the English nation." Meanwhile the Spanish authorities at Manila were unaware of Cavendish's presence among the islands. When Geronimo de Mendizabal wrote to Governor Vera on February 14th from Panay the Desire was already passing the Moluccas on her way to Java. Nevertheless a council of war was held at Manila in March, at which two seamen who had been held captive on the Desire testified as to the strength of the English raider. One of them, Francisco Mansalay, a Filipino, who had been taken off the Santa Ana and later set ashore at Capul, gave the first ac count of the capture of the galleon off Lower California. He informed the astounded Spaniards that the Desire had a crew of only forty-eight men, but that her eighteen guns had given her a great advantage over the galleon. Pedro Fernandes, a Portuguese seaman, who had been picked up by Cavendish while passing through the Visayas, had made some interesting observa tions during his short stay on the English ship. He described Cavendish as "small of stature" and apparently about twenty-two years old, but that he held his men under strict discipline. He commented on the damask bed-clothing of the sailors and the luxury of the fittings in Cavendish's cabin. He also gave a pic ture of the "Lutheran" service held on the Desire. Before the service a Flemish sailor, whose acquaintance he had made, said to him: "Now you will see whether we are Christians or not." "Then," the Portuguese said, "they began to pray and to sing hymns. They prayed sitting down and those who did not want to pray did not attend the service, nor did anyone force them to do so." Once when he cried out to the "mother of God" during the night, an English sailor who was passing by said to him, "Mother of God—mother of the devil!" When the Spaniards at Manila realized the extent of Caven dish's depredations they were filled with a futile fury. Prac tically every member of the community had suffered by the loot ing of the Santa Ana. "The loss has caused great poverty and distress in this city and among its inhabitants and soldiers," said 312 THE MANILA GALLEON the audiencia. Moreover, Spanish pride was deeply injured by the impunity with which Cavendish had carried on his daring raid in waters which they considered the exclusive domain of their king. "The greatest damage and injury," the treasurer, Juan Bautista Roman, wrote to Philip II, "that can be received from the occurrence is that a robber should dare with so few forces to pass among these islands so leisurely; since he was able to pass without our forming his acquaintance, that he should try to make so much outcry, to boast of his capture, and to utter threats for the future." "The grief that afflicts me," wrote Bishop Salazar, "is not because this barbarian infidel has robbed us of the ship Santa Ana, and destroyed thereby the property of the citizens; but because an English youth of about twenty-two years, with a wretched little vessel of a hundred tons and forty or fifty companions, should dare to come to my own place of residence, defy us and boast of the damage that he had wrought. He went from our midst laughing, without anyone molesting or troubling him; neither has he felt that the Spaniards are in this land for any purpose." From the region of the Philippines Cavendish sailed down through the Malay Archipelago, stopping awhile at Java, and thence returned home by way of the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena. While off the Portuguese coast they heard from a "Flemish hulke" bound out of Lisbon, of the defeat of the Armada, "to the singular rejoycing and comfort" of all on board. Six days later, the ninth of September, 1588, "after a terrible tempest," wrote Francis Pretty, "which carried away most part of our sailes, by the mercifull favor of the Almightie we recovered our long wished port of Plymouth in England." It was two years and fifty days since they had sailed out of the same harbor. From Plymouth the Desire was brought around to the Thames in November and paraded before the court at Green wich. A foreigner writing from London a few days later thus described the occasion: "Among other things the Queen said, 'We care nothing for the Spaniards. Their ships, loaded with gold and silver from the Indies, come hither after all.' Every sailor had a gold chain around his neck, and the sails of the ship were of blue damask, the standard of cloth of gold and blue silk. It was as though Cleopatra were born again. The only thing wanting was that the rigging should have been of silken rope." THE ENGLISH 3i3 On November 5th Cavendish gave a banquet to Elizabeth on board his ship. All England was in an exultant mood after the defeat of the Armada and the queen was reported to have boasted much, as she was feted by her young captain in the ship's cabin that was decorated with the rich spoils of the Spanish galleons. The thrifty queen was probably as much impressed by the gold and silver in Cavendish's booty as by the display of captured silks. Bernardino de Mendoza, the former Spanish ambassador in England, relayed to his royal master the varying rumors sent to him by his agents in London as to the value of the plunder. On November 26th he wrote: "Cavendish's booty shrinks in value daily, but the English still estimate it at 500,000 crowns." Whatever the true figure, it was sufficient to create a violent disturbance in the money market of London. Wrote the foreign observer quoted above: "Cavendish must have brought great riches, for they are coining new broad-angels, and gold is cheaper here than it ever was. Spanish pistolets, which four months ago were worth 12 reales 11 maravedis, will not now pass for 11 reales 24 maravedis in consequence of the great abundance of them here." A series of attempts by other Elizabethan seamen to repeat the exploits of Drake and Cavendish in the Pacific all failed, either because of Spanish resistance or of the storms encountered about the southern end of South America. Among these unsuc cessful raiders were John Chidley and John Davis, the discoverer of Davis Strait to the west of Greenland. More famous was the voyage of Sir Richard Hawkins, who entered the Pacific by the Straits of Magellan in 1593, only to be taken by the Spaniards off the coast of Peru. "With the counsels, consent and helpe of my father, Sir John Hawkins, knight," he had said, "I resolved a voyage to be made for the Islands of Japan, of the Philippines, and the Moluccas, the Kingdoms of China and East India by the way of the Straits of Magellan and the South Sea." Then, the only Englishman to pass around South America until the times of the buccaneers was Sir John Narborough, who sailed through the Straits of Magellan in 1670, only to return fruitlessly from the coast of Chile. THE MANILA GALLEON Dampier The era of the buccaneers was another period of danger for the galleons. One of them was taken by the English; two beat off their assailants; and another narrowly escaped attack. Most of those who preyed on Spanish shipping in the Pacific between 1671 and 1720 were downright pirates, who cloaked their flagrant robberies with a patriotic hatred of Spaniards. The more squeamish covered their depredations with a dubious legality by means of documents furnished them by complaisant colonial officials in the West Indies, like the French commandant at Petit Goave in Espanola. A few carried commissions from high au thorities in their governments qualifying them to undertake privateering operations against the commerce and coasts of Spanish America without risk of the gallows if caught. Of such was Woodes Rogers, and, on one of his voyages, the versatile William Dampier. Dampier not only ran the whole gamut of maritime lawful ness from unlicensed buccaneer to duly authorized privateer, but his extraordinary career as a sea-rover extended over virtually the entire period which began with Henry Morgan and ended with John Clipperton. Though he won more fame as a hydrographer and naturalist than at the business of "buckaneering," he gave a certain unity to the otherwise confused activities of that disorderly time. In spite of his serious drawbacks as a prac tical pirate, his recurrent visits to the Pacific made his name one of terror to the Spaniards and at the news that he had rounded the Horn or crossed the Isthmus they redoubled their vigilance along the coasts of South America. Also, the fact that he was a capital writer enormously enhanced his reputation in England— a prestige which he never enjoyed among his rougher shipmates. Dampier was associated with the three attempts that were made on the Manila Galleons during this period. It was largely his geographical curiosity to acquaint himself with the west coast of Mexico that led the buccaneers to extend their field of activity to the northward. For their normal sphere of operations was the more frequented sea-lanes between Panama and Chile, where not only were the chances for booty at sea much greater, but numerous rich towns along the coast offered tempting prospects THE ENGLISH 3i5 of loot or ransom. On the other hand, except for an occasional ship between Lima and Acapulco, the Manila Galleon was the only prize worthy of consideration to be encountered in the waters to the north of Panama. Moreover, the towns on the Pacific shores of Central America and Mexico were few and poor, as they still are. But the lettered Dampier, unlike his ignorant companions, had read in Hakluyt of Cavendish's rich capture of a century before and dreamed of repeating the lucrative foray of the Elizabethan raider into the region of the northern viceroyalty. Dampier served his apprenticeship in the Pacific in the ex pedition of 1680, when a party of buccaneers crossed the Isthmus after taking Porto Bello. Once in the South Sea the dissensions which always asserted themselves in these loosely organized ag gregations of plunderers soon led to the dissolution of the original company. Separate bands set off to cruise on their own account under whatever "captain" promised them the least discipline and the most loot and without other plan or purpose than the oppor tunity of the moment might suggest to them. When Dampier returned into the Caribbean in May of the next year he had little to show for his experience beyond the notes which contained his first observations of the lands he had visited—and a little more familiarity with the ways of his freebooting brethren. Yet, when Captains Cooke and Crowley sailed from Accomac, Virginia, in 1683 for parts unknown to all save Cooke, Dampier was on board. As it developed, their ship reached the Pacific by way of the Guinea coast of Africa, Brazil and Cape Horn, and put into Juan Fernandez for water and provisions. Here they took off a Mosquito Indian named William, who had been marooned there several years before, and who was later to serve as the original of Defoe's man "Friday." On their way to the neighborhood of Panama their forces were augmented by the addition of several other companies of buccaneers. One of the ships which joined the expedition was the Cygnet, bound out of London with a cargo of goods for trading with the Spanish towns in the Pacific. Since the Spaniards would have no peace ful dealings with them, the crew had forced their corpulent and easy-going commander, Captain Swan, to turn pirate with them. The buccaneers' armament now consisted of seven sail, with 960 men, about a third of whom were Frenchmen. With this THE MANILA GALLEON strong force they fell upon the plate-fleet from Lima as it was nearing Panama, but were outmanoeuvred and out-fought by the Spaniards. "Thus ended this day's work," wrote the dis heartened Dampier in his journal, "and with it all that we had been projecting for 5 or 6 months; when instead of making our selves Masters of the Spanish Fleet and Treasure, we were glad to escape them." Most of the prizes taken during these months yielded very prosaic cargoes. Time and again Dampier's record tells of the capture of such booty as "Corn, Hogs and Fowl," or "Wine, Oyl, Flower, Sugar, Soap and Goat-skins." From another ship bound from Callao to Panama they took "7 or 8 Tuns of quince Marma lade, a stately Mule sent to the President, and a very large Image of the Virgin Mary in Wood." But it was not for mules and marmalade that the buccaneers had entered the Pacific and risked their lives and health. After all, they were not engaged in the wholesale produce business, and they bitterly resented the stubbornness with which the Spaniards defended their gold and silver. "The Spaniards have more than they can well manage," wrote Dampier; "I know yet they would be like the Dog in the Manger, altho' not able to eat themselves, yet they would en deavour to hinder others." On August 25, 1685, the remnants of the pirate fleet went their separate ways. Induced by the prospect of cruising up the Mexican coast in search of the Manila Galleon, Dampier trans ferred from the ship of Captain Davis to that of Captain Swan. Captain Townley followed with two barks. On their way north ward Townley with 140 men tried to take a ship from Lima out of Acapulco harbor, but on finding the ship under the guns of the fort of San Diego they "returned aboard again, being tired, hungry and sorry for their Disappointment." Both Captain Swan and Dampier resented this diversion from their main purpose, "for," says Dampier, "the great design we had then on hand, was to lie and wait for a rich Ship which comes to Acapulco every year richly laden from the Philippine Islands." Cape Corrientes was sighted on the nth of December and as the galleons generally made this headland on their way down the coast, the buccaneers planned to cruise about in its vicinity until they sighted her. However, they shortly abandoned their stations off the coast, to carry on raids inland in search of THE ENGLISH 317 food supplies. "Our hopes of meeting the Philippine ship were now over;" wrote Dampier for New Year's Day, 1686, "for we did all conclude that while we were necessitated to hunt here for Provisions she was past by to the Eastward, as indeed she was, as we did understand afterwards by prisoners." Townley then parted company with Swan, to try his fortunes off the coast of Peru. The buccaneers were disheartened by their failure to take the galleon, "which would have enriched us be yond measure," says Dampier. The numbers of Swan's party were also greatly reduced by the loss of fifty men in an ambush set by the Spaniards, "which discouraged us from attempting any thing more hereabouts." The English were baffled to find that the commerce of Mexico was "almost wholly a Land-trade, and managed more by Mules than by Ships." "So," concludes Dampier, "instead of profit we met with little on this Coast, besides fatigues, hardships and losses, and so were the more easily induced to try what better fortune we might have in the East Indies." Holding out to his weary crews of 150 men the prospect of cruising among the Philippines, Swan cleared from Cape Corrientes on the 31st of March and set his course for Guam of the Ladrones. Opportunely for Swan, his two ships reached Guam before his provisions were exhausted. "For," says Dampier, "the men had contrived, first to kill Captain Swan and eat him when the Victuals was gone, and after him all of us who were acces sory in promoting the undertaking of this Voyage. This made Captain Swan say to me after our arrival at Guam, Ah, Dampier, you would have made them but a poor Meal; for I was as lean as the Captain was lusty and fleshy." As "Captain Swan was not for molesting the Spaniards here," he quickly established friendly relations with the Spanish governor, who aided him in replenishing his supply of provisions. While they were at Guam the galleon from Acapulco hove to in the offing on her way to Manila, but, being warned of the presence of the buccaneer, immediately cleared again for the westward. "This," says Dampier, "put our men in a great heat to go out after her, but Captain Swan persuaded them out of that humour, for he was now wholly averse to any Hostile ac tion." After a final exchange of presents, the governor got rid of his hungry visitors by telling them that "the West Monsoon 3i8 THE MANILA GALLEON was at hand, that therefore it behooved us to be jogging from hence, unless we were resolved to return back to America again." From Guam the buccaneers steered for the island of Min danao in the southern Philippines. Here they remained among the Moros from June 22nd, 1686, until January 14th of the next year. "Our Men," says Dampier, "who it should seem were very squeamish of plundering without license, derived hopes from thence of getting a Commission there from the Prince of the Island, to plunder the Spanish Ships about Manila, and so to make Mindanao their common rendezvous." However, amid the allurements of this tropical island both Captain Swan and his men quickly abandoned their original resolution. Dampier finally concluded that Swan "did never intende to cruize about Manila, as his crew designed; for I did once ask him, and he told me, That what he had already done of that kind he was forc'd to; but now being at Liberty, he would never more engage in any such Design: For, said he, there is no Prince on Earth is able to wipe off the Stain of such Actions." While the months passed and his shipmates gave themselves up to drinking and other "Divertisements," Dampier's restless brain was speculating on the existence and extent of the "Terra Australis" that was to be the object of his next voyage, and on the possibilities of English trade and colonization in the Philip pines and neighboring archipelagos. He was also storing up the impressions and observations that he was later to organize into the most graphic and reliable of the old accounts of Min danao and its inhabitants. By November "the whole Crew were under a general Disaffection, and full of very different Projects; and all for want of Action. The main Division was between those who had Money and those who had none. There was a great Difference in the Humours of these; for they that had Money lived ashore, and did not care for leaving Mindanao; whilst those that were poor liv'd Aboard, and urg'd Capt. Swan to go to Sea. These began to be Unruly as well as Dissatisfy'd, and sent ashore the Merchants Iron to sell for Rock and Honey, to make Punch, wherewith they grew Drunk and Quarrelsome: Which disorderly Action deterr'd me from going Aboard; for I did ever abhor Drunkenness, which now our Men that were Aboard abandon'd themselves wholly to." All discipline had ceased and on the 14th of January 1687, THE ENGLISH 3i9 those who had not the means to live on shore sailed away from Mindanao, "designing to cruise before Manila." Captain Swan, who was now "commonly very cross," and thirty-six other lotuseating pirates were marooned on the island. The Cygnet with her "mad crew" sailed north through the Visayas and up the west side of Luzon. Near the entrance of Manila Bay they took two Spanish barks laden with supplies for the next outgoing galleon. Since there was no prospect of meeting either galleon at this season, they decided then to draw off to Pulo Condore on the Cambodian coast, "designing to return hither again by the latter end of May, and wait for the Acapulco Ship that comes about that time." After clearing from Pulo Condore early in June they en countered adverse winds and a series of terrible storms which prevented them from carrying out their projected attempt on the Acapulco galleon. Off the Chinese coast they ran into a typhoon, whose description by Dampier is one of the classics of the sea. At its conclusion he writes: "I was never in such a violent storm in all my Life; so said all the Company." "This storm had deadened the Hearts of our Men, so much," that they abandoned all thought of further piratical ventures. They drowned the memory of their terror by emptying "great Jars" of "Sam Shu" and "Hoc Shu" at the Piscadores and of "Bashee" at the group to the north of the Philippines, which still conserves the name given to it by the roistering buccaneers of the Cygnet. It was October when they left the Bashees and steered south for the Dutch archipelagos. "Leaving the Island Luconia [Luzon]," Dampier sorrowfully enters in his journal, "and with it our Golden Projects, we sailed on to the Southward, passing on to the East-side of the rest of the Philippine Islands." Dampier reached England in September 1691, after a long series of misfortunes. He had nothing to show for his eight-year Odyssey but a fantastically tattooed "prince" whom he had found in the East Indies and whom he exhibited about London for a time as a common showman. For six years more he lived in comparative obscurity, and then the appearance of the first volume of his "New Voyage Round the World" suddenly raised him to a fame that even the later demonstrations of his incompetence as a commander at sea never lessened. Though his expedition to Australian waters in 1699 was THE MANILA GALLEON largely a failure, owing to his inability to handle a crew, yet his prestige as a navigator was so great that when a company of merchants fitted out the St. George as a privateer in 1703, Dampier was readily given the command. The War of the Spanish Succession had begun, and Dampier received his com mission to prey on the Spaniards directly from Prince George of Denmark, Lord High Admiral of England and the bibulous consort of Queen Anne. The St. George was a twenty-six gun ship and carried a crew of one hundred and twenty men. She was joined on the Irish coast by the galley Cinque Ports, a vessel of ninety tons, carrying sixteen guns and an ill-assorted crew of sixty-three men. The ultimate objective of their foray into the Pacific was the Manila Galleon, "commonly reported to be worth fourteen million dollars." Early the next year the two ships beat around the Horn and made the usual rendezvous at Juan Fernandez. Contention and wrangling were already general on both ships and between their commanders. Several months of cruising along the upper coast of South America yielded little booty. Finally, while off Panama Captain Stradling of the Cinque Ports, who was then in com mand of a prize bark, broke with Dampier and returned to more southerly waters. On putting into Juan Fernandez again Strad ling quarreled with his mate, and the latter, a Scotchman named Alexander Selkirk, chose to maroon himself on that island rather than continue at sea with his superior officer. Meanwhile, after Dampier had been chased by a larger Spanish ship off Guayaquil and had separated from his mate, John Clipperton, he proceeded northward with the remainder of his force. His ship was now so rotten that they could thrust their thumbs through her planking in places and most of the crew were continually mutinous and drunken. With the unseaworthy St. George and a small prize bark, Dampier now determined to retrieve his fortunes by capturing the Manila Gal leon, "for the sight of which our people longed as earnestly as if there was no difference between seeing and taking her. Their vivid imaginations had visions of piles of gold ingots, stacks of silver bars, bushels of gleaming pearls, bales of flowered silks, wondrous satins and tapestries, massive church plate, glittering heaps of jewels, rare wares from the Orient, and other treasure trove of fabulous value, all to be theirs for the mere taking of THE ENGLISH the golden galleon, whose sea-trail they were now fast ap proaching." On the morning of December 4th, 1704, the privateers sighted the galleon Rosario as she was passing the Colima coast on her way to Acapulco. The galleon had not suspected the presence of enemies in her track and received several ineffectual broadsides from the five-pounders of the St. George before she could get her heavy guns into place. The English had meanwhile lost their opportunity to board, though, considering the strength of this great galleon, one of the largest in the history of the line, it is highly doubtful if the boarders could ever have reached her decks. Meanwhile, Dampier's lack of resolution and the con fusion on board the St. George gave the Spaniards time to run out their eighteen and twenty-four pounders. The heavy shot from the Rosario soon began to drive in the decayed planking of the St. George and to threaten her with sinking, so that Dampier was fortunate in being able to draw his ship out of range of the heavy cannonading of the galleon. The fiasco of their foolhardy attempt on the Rosario still further dispirited the privateers, and soon led to the defection of William Funnell with the prize bark and thirty-five men of the crews. Dampier, with the remaining twenty-eight, then turned about to the southward, where he committed some minor depredations off the coast of Peru. From thence he struck across the Pacific to the Dutch East Indies. When he returned to Eng land in 1707 he learned that his reputation as a leader of maritime ventures had suffered another blow from the publication of Funnell's narrative of the sorry expedition. Rogers Yet the fame of his skill as navigator and of his unexampled knowledge of the Spanish dominions overseas was still so high that when a company of Bristol merchants equipped another privateering expedition, Dampier was appointed chief pilot. Also, the terror which Dampier's presence inspired among Spaniards in the South Seas made his name an asset to any hostile enter prise in those waters. As commander, the Bristol merchants employed Captain Woodes Rogers, an able and resourceful officer. He was endowed with an unusual combination of tact 322 THE MANILA GALLEON and firmness that enabled him to direct and control a particularly trying body of men throughout a voyage of over three years. Rogers wrote thus of his Gilbert-and-Sullivan crews : "Our Com plement of Sailors in both ships was 333, of which above one Third were Foreigners from most Nations; several of her Majesty's Subjects on board were Tinkers, Taylors, Hay-makers, Pedlers, Fidlers, etc., one Negro, and about ten Boys. With this mix'd Gang we hop'd to be well mann'd, as soon as they had learnt the Use of Arms and got their Sea-Legs, which we doubted not soon to teach 'em, and bring them to Discipline." The com plement of officers was uncommonly large for a privateering voyage and the roster of Rogers' ship included, among others, "Thomas Dover, a Doctor of Physick, second Captain, President of our Council, and Captain of the Marines." Dr. Dover, who was the inventer of a "Pill and Drop" famous among the remedies of that age, owed his imposing rank in the flagship to his being one of the shareholders in the venture. Also, "Samuel Hopkins, being Dr. Dover's Kinsman and Apothecary, was both an As sistant to him, and to act as his Lieutenant, if we landed a Party anywhere under his Command during the Voyage." William Hopkins was "Ship's Corporal, Capt. Dover's Sergeant, and Cook to the Officers," and John Finch, "late wholesale Oilman of London," was Chief Steward of Rogers' ship. During the voyage all matters of importance were debated by a standing committee made up of from twelve to sixteen officers out of both ships. On each occasion formal resolutions were drawn up and signed by all members present, either endorsing some action already taken or recommending some future course of action. Though the council circumscribed Rogers' authority and prevented the rapidity of movement that a single command would have made possible, Rogers submitted to its annoying restrictions for the sake of the greater harmony which its discussions maintained among his officers. On the 2nd of August 1708, the Du\e, a thirty-gun frigate of 320 tons, and the Dutchess, of twenty-six guns and 260 tons, cleared from Kingroad near Bristol, "both well furnish'd with all Necessaries on board for a distant Undertaking." On the way south they called at Madeira in order to lay in a stock of wine for the cold passage around Cape Horn, for, says Rogers, "good liquor to Sailors is preferable to Clothing." On the 14th THE ENGLISH 323 of November they sighted the Brazilian coast and five days later anchored under the lee of Ilha Grande, a short distance below the entrance of Rio Bay. Rogers spent some time in this vicinity, watering and provisioning his ship for the long stage of their voyage that lay ahead of them. While at Ilha Grande Rogers and his officers established friendly relations with the Portuguese and on one occasion were invited by the local governor to participate in a religious proces sion at Angra dos Reis on the nearby mainland. "We waited on him in a Body," wrote Rogers, "being ten of us, with two Trumpets and a Hautboy, which he desir'd might play us to church where our Musick did the Office of an Organ, but separate from the Singing, which was by the Fathers well perform'd. Our Musick play'd Hey Boys up go we\ and all manner of noisy paltry Tunes; and after Service our Musicians, who were by that time more than half-drunk, march'd at the head of the Company, next to them an old Father and two Fryars carrying Lamps of In cense with the Host, next came the Virgin Mary on a Bier carry'd on four Men's shoulders, and dress'd with Flowers and Waxcandles, etc. After her came the Padre Guardian of the Convent, and then about forty Priests, Fryars, etc. Next was the Governor of the Town, my self, and Capt. Courtney, with each of us a long Wax-Candle lighted : Next follow'd the rest of our Officers, the chief Inhabitants, and junior Priests, with every one a lighted Wax-Candle. The Ceremony held about two hours, after which we were splendidly entertained by the Fathers of the Convent, and then by the Governor at the Guard-House." The next day Rogers reciprocated with festivities on the Duke in honor of his hosts. "We went with our Boat to the Town," he wrote, "to get Liquors for the Voyage, and bring the Gentlemen of the Town aboard our Ships, where we treated 'em the best we could. They were very merry, and in their Cups propos'd the Pope's Health to us; but we were quits with 'em, by toasting that of the Archbishop of Canterbury: To keep up the Humour, we also propos'd William Pen's to them; and they lik'd the Liquor so well, that they refus'd neither." Early in January the ships rounded Cape Horn in heavy weather and set their course for Juan Fernandez. On landing, the first boat-load of privateers were greeted by "a Man cloth'd in Goat-Skins, who look'd wilder than the first Owners of them." 324 THE MANILA GALLEON This was Alexander Selkirk, the Scotch master of Captain Stradling's bark, who had been left on the island four years and four months before. Selkirk was to be the original of "Robinson Crusoe" and it was the publication of Woodes Rogers' "Cruising Voyage Round the World" and probably Dampier's verbal ac count on his return to London that furnished Defoe with the basis for his classic tale. Rogers describes the manner of Sel kirk's life on Juan Fernandez and says, among other things: "After he had conquer'd his Melancholy, he diverted himself sometimes by cutting his Name on the Trees, and the Time of his being left and Continuence there. He was at first much pester'd with Cats and Rats, that had bred in great numbers from some of each Species which had got ashore from ships that put in there to wood and water. The Rats gnaw'd his Feet and Clothes while asleep, which oblig'd him to cherish the Cats with his Goats flesh; by which some of them became so tame, that they would lie about him in hundreds, and soon deliver'd him from the Rats. He likewise tam'd some Kids, and to divert him self would now and then sing and dance with them and his Cats: so that by the Care of Providence and Vigour of his youth, being now about 30 years old, he came at last to conquer all the Incon veniences of his Solitude, and to be very easy." On Dampier's recommendation Rogers made Selkirk a mate on the Duke and later put him in command of a prize bark taken from the Spaniards. Shortly afterward Rogers heard from a Spanish prisoner that Captain Stradling's ship, the Cinque Ports, had foundered off the Peruvian coast and that Stradling and his men had been held in prison at Lima for four years, where "They liv'd much worse than our Governor Selkirk, whom they left on the Island Juan Fernandez." In April Rogers took Guayaquil and held it for ransom for the modest sum of 30,000 pesos. He takes occasion to compare the restraint of his own men with the "Bruitishness and Murther" committed by the "FrcwcA-Buccaneers, alias Pirates" when they sacked the same city several years before. The health of his crews had suffered from fevers contracted in the lowlands about Guayaquil, and at this time he writes in his journal: "Our men being very much fatigued, many of them sick, and several of our Good Sailors dead, we are so weak that should we meet an Enemy in this Condition, we could make but a mean Defense. THE ENGLISH 325 Everything looks dull and discouraging, but it's in vain to look back or repine in these Parts." However, the privateers took a number of prizes while cruis ing in the lanes of the Spanish coastwise shipping. From one, which he added to his own force, they took near "500 Bales of Pope's Bulls, 16 Reams in a Bale." From another they took "a great quantity of Bones in small Boxes, ticketed with the Names of Romish Saints, some of which had been dead 7 or 800 years; with an infinite Number of Brass Medals, Crosses, Beads, and Crucifixes, religious Toys in Wax, Images of Saints made of all sort of Wood, Stone, and other Materials, I believe in all near 30 Tun." Rogers always displayed an indulgence for the religious faith of the Spaniards and always showed great consideration for his clerical prisoners. "We allow'd," he says, "Liberty of Conscience on board our floating Commonwealth to our Pris oners, for there being a Priest in each Ship, they had the Great Cabbin for their Mass, whilst we us'd the Church of England Service over them on the Quarter-deck, so that the Papists here were the Low Churchmen." Except for the proceeds of the action against Guayaquil, the entries in the "publick Plunder Book" kept on each ship were still disappointing and in August it was "design'd to cruise for the Manila Ship." Cape Corrientes was fixed for the rendezvous in case the three ships should become separated on their way north. On October 1st the Mexican coast was sighted, and Rogers wrote in his journal: "Capt. Dampier, near this Place, five years past, met the Manila Ship in the St. George, and had a fight at a distance, but he says for want of men could not board her, and after a short dispute, was forced to let her alone." On the 24th a meeting of the Council was held while off the Islands of Tres Marias and it was resolved "with the utmost Care and Diligence to wait here for the Coming of the Manila Ship be longing to the Spaniards, and bound for Acapulco, whose Wealth on board her we hope will prompt every Man to use his utmost Conduct and Bravery to conquer." On the advice of Dampier it was decided to station the three ships in the vicinity of Cape San Lucas, where the galleon would be expected to pass. While riding off the tip of Lower Cali fornia, Rogers observes in his chronicle: "Sir Thomas Cavendish, in Queen Elizabeth's time, took the Manila Ship in this Place 326 THE MANILA GALLEON on the 4th of November." Over a month's cruising about the end of the peninsula proved fruitless and on December 9th, 1709, Rogers' entry reads : "We were now something dubious of seeing the Manila Ship, because it's near a Month after the time they generally fall in with this Coast." On the 20th the members of the Council drew up the following resolution for the purpose of justifying the abandonment of their project: "We the officers present in a Committee on board the Dutchess, having further considered our short Store of Bread and Bread-kind, and finding it too little to continue our Cruise longer here for the Manila Ship, do therefore now agree to get a Harbour, and there to recruit with the utmost dispatch, and sail for the Island of Guam, or any other Place where we can revictual." The same day the ships moved in towards Puerto Seguro, where Cavendish had awaited the Santa Ana. The next morn ing the lookout on the Duke, to their "great and joyful Surprise," called out that he saw a sail about seven leagues to the west The English gave chase and early on the morning of the 22nd found the galleon within range of the Du\e's guns. Says Rogers: "I order'd a large Kettle of Chocolate to be made for our Ship's Company (having no spiritous Liquors to give them) ; then we went to Prayers, and before we had concluded were disturb'd by the Enemy's firing at us." Thus rudely interrupted at their orisons, the indignant privateers rushed to their posts of battle. "The Enemy," reports Rogers, "fired her Stern Chase upon us first, which we return'd with our Fore Chase several times, till we came nearer, and when close aboard each other, we gave her several Broadsides, plying our Small Arms very briskly, which they return'd as thickly a while, but did not ply their great Guns half so fast as we. After some time we shot a httle a-head of them, lay thwart her Hause close aboard, and plyed them so warmly that she soon struck her colours two-thirds down." The prize so easily won single-handed by the Du\e was the Nuestra Senora de la Encarnacidn y Desengano. Her com mander was the Sieur Jean Presberty, formerly factor of the French trading post at Canton. Nearly three years later the king ordered the audiencia at Manila to investigate the conduct of Presberty. "In him," read the royal order, "there concurred the notorious nullity against which the laws are directed, as being a foreigner, and so unqualified to hold such a post, and on ac THE ENGLISH 327 count of his lack of skill and practice in navigation and military affairs, which was the origin of the misfortune and loss of the almiranta." She carried twenty guns, as many pedreros or stonemortars, and had 193 aboard. According to Rogers, they lost nine men killed and ten wounded and had several badly burned by powder explosion. "We engag'd 'em about 3 Glasses," says Rogers, "in which time we had only my self and another Man wounded. I was shot thru' the Left Cheek, the Bullet struck away great part of my upper Jaw, and several of my Teeth, part of which dropt down upon the Deck, where I fell; the other, Will Powell, an Irish Landman, was slightly wounded in the Buttock." The English learned from their prisoners that the EncarnaciSn had left Manila in company with a larger galleon, which being a better sailer, they assumed to have already reached Acapulco. However, Rogers and the officers' committee im mediately made preparations to meet the capitana, in case she might be behind the captured almiranta. The officers of the Dutchess and of the Marquiss, which had had no part in taking the Encarnacidn, insisted on being given a free hand in any attempt on the other galleon. When the sentry whom Rogers had stationed on a hill top signaled to him on Christmas Day that the two ships were clos ing in on a strange sail, he prepared to join them with the Duke. It was midnight before the Duke reached the scene of battle, only to find that her two consorts had made no impression on the galleon, which was, moreover, now putting her heavy guns into position. The next morning Rogers quickly observed that strong nets which the Spaniards had hung over the sides made boarding impossible and that his small arms could do little damage against enemies who kept out of sight. The masts and rigging were "much damnified" by the fire of the galleon and the mainmast of the Duke was ready to fall by the board. On the other hand, the galleon had suffered practically no damage. "If we engag'd her again," says Rogers, "we could propose to do no more than we had already done, which was evident did her no great Hurt, because we could perceive few of our Shot enter'd her sides to any Purpose." The English ships were in danger of being sunk or taken by the galleon, and Rogers hastily called a meeting of the com 328 THE MANILA GALLEON mittcc, at which " 'twas resolved to forbear attempting her fur ther, since our battering her signify'd little, and we had not Strength enough to board her." Among those who signed the resolution on board the Du\e was Alexander Selkirk, first mate of the Marquiss. "The Enemy," says Rogers, "lay braced to all the time the Council held, and run out 4 Guns of her lower Teer, expecting we would have the other Brush with her; but when we made sail, she fil'd and made away." "Since Providence or Pate will have it as it is, we must be content," philosophizes Rogers on the occasion. His redoubtable antagonist was "a brave lofty new Ship, the Admiral of Manila, and this the first Voyage she had made; she was called the Bigonia [Begona], of about 900 Tuns, and could carry 60 Guns, about 40 of which were mounted, with as many Patereroes, all Brass, her complement of Men on board, as we were inform'd, was above 450, besides passengers. They added, that 150 of the Men on board this great Ship were Europeans, several of whom had been formerly Pirates, and hav ing now got all their Wealth aboard, were resolved to defend it to the last. The Gunner, who had a good Post in Manila, was an expert Man, and had provided the Ship extraordinarily well for Defence, which made them fight so desperately; they had filled up all between the Guns with Bales to secure the Men. She kept a Spanish Flag at her Main-top mast Head all the time she fought me." Rogers later met a Spanish sailor in Holland, who had fought against him on the Begona and who told him that the chief gunner of the galleon had stationed himself in the powder-room of the ship, which he threatened to blow up if his shipmates should permit the English to board her. As for the charge of piracy, those who traded by the galleons had no need to turn pirates. Her commander was Fernando de Angulo. The privateers planned to take the Encarnacidn, which they had renamed the Batcheler, along with them, and for two days they quarreled in committee as to who was to command her. " 'Twas our great Unhappiness," added Rogers, "after taking a rich Prize, to have a Paper-War amongst our selves." The up shot of the arguments was that Dr. Dover was to be captain of the prize and Alexander Selkirk first mate. From the tip of Lower California the English ships made a rapid crossing to Guam, that "Place of Plenty," in the western THE ENGLISH 329 Pacific, where hungry buccaneers and privateers were now familiar visitors. The Spanish governor, Juan Antonio Pimentel, made a virtue of necessity and received Rogers and his sea-weary men with "all imaginable Friendship and Respect," for which enforced hospitality he was later to suffer many years of prison in Manila. They were provided with a bountiful supply of cattle, hogs, chickens, corn, rice, coconuts, and fruit, and on one oc casion the officers were regaled with a sixty-course dinner at the governor's house. In return the governor and his aides were entertained on board the Batcheler, lately a galleon in the service of their king. He was also presented with "2 Negro Boys dress'd in Liveries, 20 Yards of Scarlet Cloth-Serge, and 2 Pieces of Cambrick." "Our decks are filled with Cattle and Provender," re marked Rogers, as he cleared for the Dutch East Indies. The last entry in Rogers' Journal—for the 14th of October, 171 1,— reads: "This day at 11 of the Clock, we and our Consort and Prize got up to Eriff [Erith], where we came to an Anchor, which ends our long and fatiguing Voyage." The cost of equip ping the expedition had been less than L. 14,000; the net profits to the investors were variously announced as between L. 170,000 and L. 800,000. A Manila Galleon had been brought to England, though it was not to be the last. Clipperton and Shelvocke The last privateering expedition to threaten the galleons was that of Clipperton and Shelvocke. Influenced by the suc cess of Woodes Rogers' voyage, a group of merchants formed an association known as "The Gentlemen Adventurers," with the usual object of preying on Spanish commerce in the South Sea. Two ships were fitted out, the Success, of 36 guns, with 180 men, and the Speedwell, of 24 guns, with 160 men. The former was in charge of John Clipperton, who had served as mate with Dampier. The smaller ship was commanded by George Shelvocke, who had been a lieutenant in the royal navy. The ships carried specific instructions to search for the Manila Galleon. Dissensions broke out between the two captains before they left Plymouth on the 13th of February 1719, and shortly after they had put to sea they separated, not to meet again until nearly a year later off the west coast of Mexico. After entering 330 THE MANILA GALLEON the Pacific, each had spent the interval in aimless and generally fruitless cruising along the coast of South America. Shelvockc had a particularly unfortunate experience. He had lost his ship at Juan Fernandez and had many of his men taken by the Spaniards. These included his morose and contentious first mate, Simon Hately, who had killed a large albatross that hovered over the ship in the south Pacific and thereby inspired the writ ing of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." When Clipperton and Shelvocke encountered one another off the Mexican coast, Shelvocke was sailing a small Spanish prize named the Jestis Maria. He had only forty of his original crew of one hundred and sixty and these were desperate from the privations which they had suffered. Clipperton mistook his ship for an enemy and gave chase, only to be amazed when he boarded her to find his former companion. They parted com pany again and each continued on his way to the northwest, to meet once more on March 13th. At this time they forgot their differences sufficiently to plan a combined attack on the galleon which was then due to sail from Acapulco. However, after a bitter dispute as to the disposition of the prize-money to be taken, Clipperton slipped away in the night and headed for the East Indies. A few days after Shelvocke had also withdrawn from before Acapulco, the galleon Santo Cristo de Burgos sailed out of the harbor on her way to Manila. When Shelvocke later met some of Clipperton's officers on the China coast, they informed him that Clipperton had intended to waylay the Santo Cristo off the Philippines on her return, in order to possess himself of all her treasure. Anson As opposed to the earlier efforts against the galleons, which were either privateering affairs or outright piracy, the expedition of Commodore George Anson in 1740-44 was a national under taking, conducted by the British navy. The foreign policy of England had lately taken a commercial turn and her merchants were eager to break down Spain's monopoly of trade with her overseas dominions. It was believed at the time that an impres sive display of naval strength would have the effect of forcing the Spaniards to make the desired concessions to English commercial interests. The entrance of the French into the commerce of Peru THE ENGLISH 33i and Chile during the time of Louis XIV had paved the way for other competitors. The English government was aware of the military weakness of the Spanish establishments in South Amer ica during this period. It was also informed of the growing dis content of the creole element with Spanish rule and counted on their willingness to trade with any outsiders who would offer them more advantageous terms than they could derive from their traditional source of supply in the mother country. By means of the Asiento provision in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 the Eng lish had obtained a limited privilege for trading at Porto Bello on the isthmus, which enabled them to tap the old trade route between Spain and Peru at a vital spot. Though by resorting to fraud they evaded the restrictions of a single ship yearly placed on their operations at Porto Bello, they wished to deal directly with the west coast markets without the intervention of Spanish middlemen. Thus, when another general war in Europe ap peared imminent over the question of the Austrian succession, the English government planned a series of ambitious attempts against the settlements and shipping of Spain in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It was anticipated that not only would the Spanish empire be very materially crippled by these attacks, but that their success would place England in a position to demand the opening of Spanish ports in the Americas to her trade. The initial plans of the admiralty provided for two large expeditions into the Pacific. One squadron was to proceed around the Cape of Good Hope, with orders to touch at no place until it should make Java Head in the East Indies. Thence it would sail directly for the Philippines with the object of taking Manila, which "in all probability would have surrendered only on the appearance of our squadron before it." The other squad ron was to enter the South Sea around South America and then "to range along that coast." "After cruising upon the enemy in those parts, and attempting their settlements," it was to cross the Pacific and join its forces with the first squadron at Manila. It was originally intended that the first of these armaments should be placed under the command of Captain George Anson of the frigate Centurion, one of the most competent officers in the royal navy. However, after the project for a separate demonstration against Manila had been abandoned Anson was commissioned to lead the other squadron around Cape Horn. 332 THE MANILA GALLEON Due to the inefficiency of the admiralty several months were needlessly lost in preparing and outfitting the squadron, so that it became increasingly certain that Anson would have to round South America in the worst season of the year. Instead of the large force of regular infantry which he had been promised, he was only allowed five hundred "invalids" from the Chelsea mili tary home, who had been mustered out of active service because of age, wounds or other physical infirmities. Most of these men were over sixty years of age and some of them over seventy. Moreover, the press-gang and borrowings from the rest of the home fleet failed to bring his crews up to the complement that was needed to man his ships. When Anson's squadron finally cleared from St. Helens on the 18th of September, 1740, it consisted of six men-of-war and two supply ships. It had on board a total of 236 guns and over 1,500 men, of whom about a third were intended for landing operations. At Madeira they heard that a superior Spanish force, evidently sent out to pursue or intercept them, had recently passed near the island on its way towards the South American coast. After passing Le Maire Strait without difficulty on the 7th of March 1741, the squadron was shattered by a series of tem pests which made impossible any major operation in the Pacific. The weather struck terror into even "the oldest and most experi enced mariners on board, and obliged them to confess that what they had hitherto called storms were inconsiderable gales com pared with the violence of these winds, which raised such short, and at the same time such mountainous waves, as greatly sur passed in danger all seas known in any other part of the globe." These storms lasted until the 22nd of May, or for two and a half months. Scurvy had also broken out and from four to six men a day were dying on the Centurion. "In this desponding condition," wrote Richard Walter, the chronicler of the expedition, "with a crazy ship, a great scarcity of fresh water, and a crew so universally diseased that there were not above ten fore-mast men in a watch capable of doing duty, and even some of these lame, and unable to go aloft; under these disheartening circumstances, we stood to the westward; and, on the 9th of June, at daybreak, we at last discovered the longwished-for island of Juan Fernandez." When Anson assembled THE ENGLISH 333 the remnants of his scattered and broken squadron at Juan Fernandez, only three of his ships had reached the rendezvous. Of 961 men who had left England on these three ships, only 335 were alive. Anson landed his sick and battered crews on the island, where he remained until the 19th of September, when he considered his ships and men in condition to proceed towards the mainland. Several prizes were taken along the coast and the town of Paita was captured and pillaged. It was already the middle of November when Anson decided to head northward, intending to lie off either Cape Corrientes or Cape San Lucas in wait for the Manila Galleon. On his way up to the Mexican coast he planned to open communications across the isthmus with Ad miral Vernon, whom he assumed to have taken Porto Bello. In that case, it was his purpose to make a combined attack on Panama, "whereby we should have been in effect masters of all the treasures of Peru, and should have had in our hands an equivalent for any demands, however extraordinary, which we might have been induced to make on either of the branches of the House of Bourbon." However, before reaching the vicinity of Panama he learned of the repulse of Admiral Vernon before Cartagena on the Spanish Main and thereupon abandoned his project for the seizure of the isthmus. It was the 12th of December when Anson left the island of Quibo off Panama and stood to the westward, "having the great est impatience to get into a proper station for intercepting the Manila galleon." When he made the Mexican coast north of Acapulco late in January the customary time for the arrival of the galleon was already past and Anson realized that his only chance of meeting her was in case her crossing had been delayed more than usual. A few weeks later he learned from some fisher men whom he picked up off Acapulco that the galleon had en tered the harbor on January 9th and that the viceroy had fixed her departure for the 3rd of March. Hopes were again raised of taking the "celebrated galleon," "which, by the fame of its wealth, we had been taught to consider as the most desirable capture that was to be made on any part of the ocean." While awaiting the appearance of the galleon, Anson sta tioned his five ships at wide intervals to the west of Acapulco, but well out of sight of land. However, when the English failed to 334 THE MANILA GALLEON sight the galleon by the 22nd of March, their "eagerness was greatly abated, and a general dejection and despondency took place in its room." For meanwhile the Spaniards at Acapulco had learned of their presence off the coast and the viceroy had decided to hold the galleon in port until the following year. Anson then drew off from before Acapulco, and, after watering and provisioning his ships at the nearby harbor of Chequetan, he left the coast of Mexico on the 6th of May and headed west ward across the Pacific. It was near the end of August when the Centurion sighted one of the Ladrones, "dreading that it was the last land that we should ever fix our eyes on." Anson landed his sick on the island of Tinian, where he found a bountiful supply of provisions and restored his men to health. From Tinian he crossed to Macao, which he reached in November. He spent nearly five months on the China coast, during which time he had the Centurion thoroughly overhauled. When he cleared from Macao in April 1743, it was with the secret object of cruising off the eastern side of the Philippines dur ing the season when the Acapulco galleon would be expected to arrive. Since the Pilar, which he had planned to take the year before, had been held in port, he assumed that there would be two ships this year. He now had only 237 hands on board his ship, of whom thirty were boys and twenty-three were Lascars and Dutchmen, whom he had taken on at Macao. "But this disproportion of strength did not deter him, as he knew his ship to be much better fitted for a sea engagement than theirs, and as he had reason to expect that his men would exert themselves after a most extraordinary manner when they had in view the immense wealth of these Manila galleons." Arriving off Cape Espiritu Santo on the 20th of May, it was just a month later when a sail was sighted to the southeast beating in towards the Embocadero. The ship proved to be the galleon, Covadonga, which had left Acapulco on the 15th of April. The galleon, evidently mistaking the Centurion for her consort, the Pilar, which had already reached Manila, continued on her course until it was too late for her to run into Palapag harbor, where she might have found refuge. Anson quickly laid the Centurion across the Covadonga's bow, so that he could make use of all his guns to rake her. Even when he had swung around abreast of THE ENGLISH 335 her, the greater width of the Centurion's portholes enabled him to bring nearly all his guns to bear on the galleon, a feature of her construction which the Spaniards later commented on in explaining their defeat. The fact that the English fired their guns in succession, instead of in broadsides, disconcerted the Spaniards, who were accustomed to throw themselves flat on the deck when a broadside was expected. Moreover, Anson had placed thirty of his best marksmen in the Centurion's tops, from where they picked off many on the enemy's decks, including all but one of the galleon's officers on the quarter-deck. Anson also swept the Covadongds deck with grape-shot with such effect that after about two hours of fighting the galleon struck the royal standard at her main top-gallant mast-head in sign of surrender. According to Richard Walter, Anson's chronicler, the Span ish losses were sixty-seven killed and eighty-four wounded. The Spaniards reported their own losses at seventy killed and sixtyone wounded. Among the latter was Geronimo Monteiro, the Portuguese commander of the galleon. Monteiro, whom the English called "the life of the action," was an officer of long experience, having made eight round trips between Manila and Acapulco as pilot and general of the galleons. The Centurion had only one man killed and seventeen wounded. Anson took from the Covadonga 1,313,843 pesos in coined silver and 35,862 ounces of silver bullion. He sailed the galleon to Macao, where he sold her to a private merchant for six thousand pesos. The English reported the crew of the galleon as five hundred and fifty men, as against their own force of two hundred and thirty-seven. However, the Centurion's crew were picked men, who were trained in the handling of their ship and guns. Only the hardiest had been able to survive the trials of their long voy age from England and after their rest on the China coast they were in excellent condition for any effort. Though the English declared that the galleon was "much larger than the Centurion," the Spaniards complained that, due to the higher freeboard of the English frigate, they were unable to reach her deck with their guns or to see the English sailors as they manned their deck tier of guns. Whereas the Centurion had sixty guns, the Covadonga had only thirty-two in place at the time of the battle. Five of the Spaniard's guns were twelve-pounders and the remainder only six and eight-pounders, as against the eighteen and twenty 336 THE MANILA GALLEON four pounders of the Centurion. Thus, the advantage of arma ment was overwhelmingly on the side of the English ship. Governor La Torre had been informed of Anson's first ar rival at Macao by a letter sent from Canton on December 22, 1742. His informant pictured the English crew as being in a direful state and incapable for the time being of undertaking any aggressive action. Another letter from the same source, written in March of the following year, declared that the state of Anson's force had improved greatly and that he was shortly expected to leave for Batavia. However, the governor was warned against a possible attack on Manila and on any of the galleons which might be in the vicinity of the Philippines. A council of war was called at Manila, at which the governor seems to have belittled the danger from Anson. In the junta Joseph Gonzalez de Leaegui, a member of the audiencia, de clared that he took no stock in the reports of Anson's weakness, but that he feared the "constancy and tenacity with which Anson had borne his misfortunes ever since his disasters off Cape Horn." He called for active and immediate measures against Anson, but the dilatoriness of the governor operated to the benefit of the English. Though La Torre ordered the Pilar, which had just arrived from Acapulco, to be armed and sent out, it was the 3rd of June before the Pilar and the smaller ships left Cavite for the Strait of San Bernardino. They were also to act as a convoy as far as the Embocadero for the Rosario, which was being des patched to Acapulco. They only reached Ticao inside the Embo cadero on the 7th of June, or eighteen days after Anson had taken the Covadonga off Cape Espiritu Santo, about one hundred miles to the eastward. Ignorant of the Covadonga's fate, they cruised off Samar until December. They were recalled to Ma nila on the arrival of Anson's prisoners from China with the news that the English had returned to Macao with the Cova donga at the end of July. On March 20th of the next year they were sent out again towards the coast of China in pursuit of Anson—who had cleared from Macao for the East Indies on the 15th of December. After all fears of further incursions by Anson had passed, an official investigation was held at Manila into the conduct of Monteiro and the other officials of the Covadonga. Monteiro stoutly contended that he had done everything within his re THE ENGLISH 337 sources for the proper defense of the galleon. After leaving Acapulco on April 4, 1743, he had reached Guam on the 17th of June, when he heard that Anson had been among the Ladrones in September of the year before. Though he believed that the Centurion must then be on her way home from China, he de clared that he had taken every precaution to put his ship in a state of defense. When he first sighted the Centurion, he be lieved her to be the Pilar or another ship sent out from Manila to convoy him into the islands, and after he had discovered his mistake the Englishmen had got the wind of the galleon and were in a position to out-manoeuvre her. Monteiro and his officers laid their defeat to the superior strength of the enemy as a man-of-war, whereas the galleon was a trading ship but imperfectly equipped for fighting purposes. Monteiro said that he had only given the order to surrender when the upper works of his ship had been so badly damaged by the English fire that she was entirely at the mercy of the Cen turion. At the time his decks were "sown with dead and gravely wounded," and his men were so "dismayed by their losses that many had abandoned their posts." All testified to the terrifying effectiveness of the Centurion's attack. The Spaniards were amazed by the "continuous fire" of the English, which never slackened during the two hours of the combat, and by the deadly marksmanship of their gunners. They declared that the enemy crew were "all picked men, and each one perfectly capable of performing the task to which he was appointed." The Spanish officers also marveled at the disci pline and order on the Centurion, and at the good treatment which was shown to them while prisoners. The investigation was closed in February 1754, nearly twelve years after the loss of the Covadonga, when the king declared her officers guiltless of cowardice and of failure to perform their duty. Meanwhile, five years before the Council for the Indies had placed the responsibility for the disaster on the head of Governor La Torre, whom it charged with gross negligence in having failed to provide for the protection of the galleon after it had reached the vicinity of the Philippines. His failure to act on the warning from China in sufficient time weighed heavily against him in the final decision of the supreme government. 338 THE MANILA GALLEON Cornish The Seven Years' War formed the occasion for the capture of the last of the galleons to be taken by the English. In 1762 Spain entered the war as the ally of France and thereby exposed her ill-protected colonies to the attacks of the superior naval power of England. On the 22nd of September the Spaniards, looking out from the ramparts of Manila through the mist that hung over the bay, dimly made out a number of strange vessels, which they took for a fleet of trading junks from China. Instead it was a powerful expedition that had been fitted out in Madras for the express purpose of adding the Philippines to the British Empire, recently swollen by conquests in India and North Amer ica. It consisted of thirteen men-of-war under Admiral Cornish and on board the fleet were five thousand British and Indian soldiers under the command of General Draper. To oppose such an overwhelming force the Spaniards had in Manila only 550 soldiers of the "King's Regiment," largely made up of recruits from Mexico, and a small company of Filipino artillerymen. During the subsequent fighting a few thousand troops were raised among the fighting population of Pampanga, Bulacan and Laguna, and hurled against the British lines about the city. However, resistance proved ineffectual and on the 5th of Octo ber Rojo, the archbishop-governor, surrendered the city. Then, for forty hours Manila was given over to looting by the victorious army, many of the local Chinese cooperating heartily on their own account. "The King's goodness," wrote General Draper to the Earl of Egremont, "has granted them one of the richest cities and islands in the World, in fertility and every other blessing of Nature, not inferior to any belonging to the British crown; if the turn of affairs in Europe can perpetuate possession, it may prove a source of wealth not to be equalled in any other part of the globe." Meanwhile, the night before the surrender Simon de Anda y Salazar, a member of the audiencia, who had been named lieu tenant-governor of the islands by the insular authorities, stole out of the city and made for the interior of Luzon. Using the town of Bulacan as a base, he organized a provisional government in the name of the king and rallied all the patriotic elements in the islands to the defense of the colony. By his vigor and resource THE ENGLISH 339 fulness he succeeded in confirming the British sphere of control to a narrow zone about Manila until the city was returned to Spain by the Treaty of Paris. At the time of the English occupation of Manila two gal leons were at sea. The Filipino was shortly due from Acapulco and the Santisima Trinidad had left Manila Bay on the 3rd of September. Serious fears were felt for the safety of the former, but the outbound galleon was believed to be already well beyond the grasp of the British. On entering Philippine waters the Filipino sent a galley up to Manila with a request for a special pilot to take her in through the Embocadero. As she entered Ma nila Bay the vessel was seized by the British, who thereby learned of the arrival of the galleon off the eastern coast of Samar, where she lay to awaiting a pilot and instructions. Meantime, Anda had sent orders to the commander of the galleon to run her into Palapag harbor where she was hurriedly beached and her cargo landed. Her silver, to the amount of 2,309,111 pesos and an un known quantity of unregistered money, was then transported to a secret hiding place in the rough country well inland from Manila. Anda used the silver as the sinews of war in his opera tions against the British, who attempted to force ArchbishopGovernor Rojo to embargo the money and turn it over to them in payment of the city's ransom of two million pesos. When Admiral Cornish was apprized of the presence of the Acapulco galleon off the islands, he hastily despatched two ships of his fleet to capture her and bring in her cargo of silver. These ships were the Argo, a sixty-gun frigate, and the Panther, of thirty-two guns. For twenty-six days they cruised about the waters between Luzon and Samar. Then, on the moonlit night of October 29th, as the Argo was rounding the island of Capul just inside the Embocadero, she sighted a large ship beating in through the strait and evidently in distress. The stranger proved to be not the Filipino, as was anticipated, but the great Santisima Trinidad, limping back crippled in search of a port of refuge and unaware of the presence of enemies in her path. The Argo drew alongside the towering galleon and began firing at one o'clock in the morning. At the time the galleon had only six guns in place to the frigate's sixty, but in spite of the disparity in armament the Spaniard handled the Argo so roughly that she was forced to draw off and await her consort. 34° THE MANILA GALLEON By daybreak, when the Panther had come up, seven more guns had been dragged out of the galleon's hold and mounted. With these she held off the British ships for over two hours longer before she struck her colors. The British had fired over a thou sand eighteen and twenty-four pound shot against her sides with out damaging her hull. The English had lost seventy-two men killed to twenty-eight on the galleon. However, the Spaniard's crew had evidently been dispirited by the harrowing experiences which had forced the galleon to turn back on her way to Acapulco. When the second pilot, who had been the heart of the action, was severely wounded, panic seized many of the crew, demoralizing a defense that had at least equal chances of success, so long as their short supply of ammunition should hold out. "She was a large vessel," said the English report in "The Annual Register"; "she lay like a mountain in the water, and the, Span iards trusted entirely to the excessive thickness of her sides, not altogether without reason; for the shot made no impression upon any part, except her upper works." The Santtsima Trinidad had raised her anchor before Cavite on the first of August. It was already long past the usual time for sailing and contrary winds held her in Manila Bay for an other month. When she at last cleared through the Boca of Mariveles she caught a northwest wind that carried her down the straits to San Jacinto in the record time of three days. It was nine more days before she could work her way out of the Embocadero into the open sea. She then ran northwest into the stormy area about Japan and the Ladrones. On the 24th of September, while in latitude nineteen, a storm broke her masts, but with great efforts they were again lashed into place. Eight days later a new and more violent tempest struck her and swept her masts overboard. On the third day of the storm the pounding of the sea opened her planking so that she was expected to founder and "all the people prepared to die." However, all pumps were put to work, the leaks repaired by the ship's caulkers and carpenters, and emergency masts were rigged up. She was then headed back towards the islands and on the 28th of October sighted Cape Espiritu Santo. A junta of officers on board decided to run her into the nearby harbor of Palapag, where the Filipino had been grounded and since burned by the British, but the pilot refused to take her in at night. It was then resolved to head for the port THE ENGLISH 34i of Bagatao on the Albay coast of Luzon as a more suitable place of refuge. It was the next day, as she was beating in through the Embocadero, that she was surprised by the British frigate. After her capture the galleon was towed up to Manila, where her cargo, estimated to be worth two million pesos, was taken out of her hold. On the 9th of June of the next year she entered Plymouth Road, the harbor that had been associated with so much misfortune for the galleons. Shortly afterwards, the Scofs Magazine announced: "The Santisima Trinidad is now adver tised for sale at Plymouth. This ship is one of the largest ever seen in Britain. She is upwards of 2,000 tons burden; the gundeck measures 167 feet, 6 inches; the breadth 50 feet, 6 inches; the depth of the hold from the poop-deck, 30 feet, 6 inches; her draught of water at Plymouth 28 feet." People came from all over southern England to gaze upon the mightiest of the gal leons, who ended her long Odyssey of troubles in the ignominy of alien captivity. By an irony of fate she was also called Nuestra Senora del Buen Fin—Our Lady of the Good Ending. >>>>>>>>>>))>)>>>®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 10 THE DUTCH DURING the first half of the seventeenth century the Dutch threatened to harry the galleon commerce out of existence and to drive the Spaniards from the Philippines. "The Dutch are the most terrible enemies that we have," wrote Banuelos y Carrillo in 1638, "and they will become absolute masters of the Ma nilas, if they can attain their ends." Yet, in spite of all their efforts they were never able to take a galleon or to reach the walls of Manila. As distributors they had shared indirectly for several decades in the profits of the East Indian trade, when Dutch ships carried the spices from Lisbon to the northern countries. Then two events coming in close succession changed entirely the course of the trade. In 158 1 the seven United Provinces declared their independence from Spain after several years of bitter fighting. The year before a Spanish army under the Duke of Alba con quered Portugal, and the government of Philip II promptly for bade the coming of Dutch ships to Lisbon. This blow at the Dutch rebels and heretics was as great an economic blunder as had been the expulsion of the Moriscoes from the peninsula. It virtually sealed the doom of the Asiatic empire of Portugal, now an appanage of the Spanish crown. It furthermore ensured the failure of Spanish political and commercial ambitions in the Orient. For the Dutch now went out to the East to "make tryal of the Indies" and to tap the spice trade at its very source. "Being opprest and thrown out of all Business in Europe," said Harris, the English geographer, "they resolved to find something to do in remoter countries. What a plague did the Spaniards bring upon themselves by sending the Dutch to look abroad for trade!" The publication in 1595 of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten's account of his travels in the East was a powerful influence in diverting the attention of his countrymen to direct trade with those regions. After familiarizing himself with the mercantile 341 THE DUTCH 343 operations of the Portuguese and Spaniards in Lisbon and Seville, Linschoten had traded in India and the lands beyond. His stay in Asia impressed on him the growing incompetence and weak ness of the Portuguese, as well as the vast possibilities of the trade for a commercial people like his own. Between 1594 and 1596 the Dutch made three attempts to reach the Pacific around northern Europe and Asia. During the same three years Cornelis Houtman defied the old Portuguese monopoly of the Cape route by sailing around Africa to the East Indies. With four ships he left Amsterdam in 1595 and in June of the next year reached Bantam on Java, then in the hands of the Portuguese. He missed the coveted Moluccas, but later landed on Bali. Though the venture was commercially a failure, the familiarity gained with the Malay archipelagos was to prove valuable in future endeavors. In 1598 a fleet of eight sail under Jacob van Neck left the Texel for Java. It brought back a large cargo of spices, which paid the shareholders in the expedition a profit of more than one hundred percent. Four years later the trade was established on a firm basis by the founding of the Dutch East India Company, which was granted a monopoly of the oriental business by the States-General. Their factory at Bantam on Java dates from the same year, 1602. The Dutch aimed at control of the spice trade, and by 1605 they were on Ternate, Tidore, and Amboina of the Moluccas, the center of the clove production. Their designs involved not only the elimination of the Portuguese in that area, but an in evitable conflict with the hated Spaniards, now more than ever interested in keeping intact the chain of Portuguese trading posts from Goa around by Malacca to Macao. A rivalry that might have benefited the Iberians developed on the entrance of the English into the field. In 1618 Sir Thomas Roe wrote from the court of the Great Mogul to the directors of the English East India Company: "They [the Dutch] wrong you in all Parts and grow to insufferable insolencies. ... If they keep you out of the Moluccoes by force, I would beat them from Surat to requite it." However, in 1619 Dutch and English com promised their differences, the latter agreeing to withdraw to more westerly waters to carry on their trading operations. This proved to be one of the most momentous decisions in the history of the Far East, since it delimited the fields of activity of the two 344 THE MANILA GALLEON foremost maritime powers of that period. Harmony seemed so far restored by the settlement that English ships took part in the blockade of Manila in 1621. Yet, the old animosity broke out two years later in the sanguinary incident of Amboina, when several English traders were wantonly killed by the Dutch as interlopers in the field of their monopoly. After that the English ceased to be serious competitors in the great archipelago. For two peoples to be friends for long in the Indies was impossible. Meanwhile the Dutch had broken into the Pacific around South America and reached the Spice Islands from the east. It was these expeditions which first brought them into conflict with the Spaniards. The first of the Dutch circumnavigators was Olivier van Noort, a tavern keeper and retired seaman, who or ganized a joint stock company in his home town for trading with the East Indies. He sailed from Holland for the Straits of Ma gellan in 1597 with four ships and crews of 248 men. By the time he cleared from the west coast of South America, where he had committed many depredations against the Spaniards, includ ing an attack on the shipping at Valparaiso, only two of his original ships remained. With these he crossed the Pacific to the Ladrones and thence to the Philippines, which were sighted in October, 1600. For several days the Dutch ships lay off Capul in the Straits, in the hope of waylaying the galleon Santo Tomds, which was shortly due from Acapulco with the proceeds of two years' sales in Mexico. Leaving their anchorage off Capul, they then moved up the Straits towards Manila, where they counted on taking some Chinese junks and other booty. On the way they captured several small vessels engaged in inter-insular trade and laden with "Hennes, Hogges, and Rice," and plundered a few settlements among the Visayas. At the time most of the armed forces in the Philippines were engaged in a punitive expedition against the Moros. On news of the irruption of the Dutch hurried efforts were made at Manila to improvise means of defense. Governor Tello entrusted the measures against the intruders to Antonio de Morga, senior member of the audiencia. The militant judge mustered every available man of fighting age and fitted out two small ships. With this force he sailed out of Manila Bay and on the 14th of December engaged the two Dutch ships. Noort's flagship, after being boarded awhile by Morga and his men on the San Antonio, THE DUTCH 345 withdrew from the scene of the action in a badly crippled condi tion and set its course for Borneo. At the end of the stubborn six hours' battle the San Antonio sank, but Morga and some of his soldiers succeeded in swimming ashore to an island about six miles away. Meanwhile, the other Spanish vessel captured Noort's second ship and took it as a prize to Manila, where its com mander and twenty-five other Dutchmen aboard were garroted as rebels against Spain. In July 1598, a fleet of five ships, fitted out by two rich burghers of Rotterdam, cleared for the East Indies by the South American route. The admiral, Jacques Mahu, died off Guinea, and only one ship reached its destination, where its crew were killed by the Portuguese. Another ship eventually made Japan in great distress and left there the Englishman, Will Adams, who was to become unofficial adviser to the Japanese government on many matters and go-between for many foreigners in their con tacts with the natives. As we have seen,1 the Dutch received a setback to their am bitions for a monopoly of the spice trade in 1606, when Pedro de Acuna, governor of the Philippines, drove them from Tidore and stormed their fortifications on Ternate. To remove this obstacle from their way they purposed either to drive the Spaniards alto gether from the region of spice production or at least to render them a negligible element in the trade. To gain their ends they followed various tactics. They made direct assaults on the Span ish posts in the Moluccas. They tried to cut off the yearly subsidy from Manila. Joris van Speilbergen, the Dutch navigator, ad vised the conquest of the Philippines as the best means of taking the Moluccas. "The best and only means," he said, "of re-estab lishing our affairs in the Indies and of making ourselves entirely masters of the Moluccas is, in my opinion, to despatch a fleet and armada direct to the Philippines, in order to attack the Spaniards there, and to overpower all the places and strongholds it may be possible to conquer." The Dutch stirred up the natives, particularly the Moros of the neighboring seas, against the Span ish and they attacked the latter in the Philippines themselves, but all to no avail. Though a truce was declared to the long struggle between Spain and the Protestant Netherlands in 1609, the respite was *p. 139. 346 THE MANILA GALLEON ignored in the East. In 1607 the Dutch East India Company despatched a strong fleet of thirteen ships from the Texel under Pieter Willemsz and Francois de Wittert, with the object of preying on the Portuguese possessions in Africa and the East Indies. While the fleet was still on its way to the Orient there arrived at Manila as governor Juan de Silva, a redoubtable cap tain, with several companies of the mighty infantry, whose pres tige was yet unbroken. To aid in a supreme effort against the Dutch, Ruy Gonzalez Sequeira was sent around the Cape of Good Hope with more reinforcements. However, before the arrival of the force under Gonzalez Sequeira the Dutch fleet, now under the sole command of Admiral Wittert, appeared in the Philippines. Spaniard and Dutchman met off Mariveles at the entrance of Manila Bay on April 25, 1610, in a bitterly fought six-hour battle. Wittert was killed and only one of his ships survived the over whelming defeat of the Dutch. Two hundred and fifty prisoners and large booty were taken by the Spaniards. David Middleton, the Englishman, in Java at the time, wrote in his diary several weeks later: "That same day came a Ship from Tarnata [Tcrnate] with news, that the Hollanders had lost their Admirall, which went to Manila, for his head was shot off, and the ship taken and two more, and another (that would not yeeld) set himselfe a fire; so they lost three ships by fight and one burned, being all great Shippes of one thousand Tunnes apiece." Long afterwards Legentil, the French navigator, wrote: "The Dutch several times raised the fame of this city by the defeats which their navies suffered in the Bay of Manila and elsewhere in the Archipelago and among the Moluccas." For years hostilities continued intermittently. In 1614 a large Dutch fleet lay off Manila for several weeks, paralyzing her trade. Will Adams wrote that year from Japan: "Now heer is news come that thear is 20 ssaylles of hoolanders about manillia with 2 or 3 Inglish ship which yf it be trew will do no good at manillia before thear departeur." In 1616 Governor Silva led from Manila a powerful fleet that was intended to deal a decisive blow to the Dutch through out the whole East. In the fleet of sixteen large ships was a gal leon of over 2,000 tons and there were seven others of from 600 to 1,600 tons. It carried 300 bronze cannon, and was manned with 2,000 Spaniards and 3,000 Malays. Spain never mustered before THE DUTCH 347 or after such a force in the Orient. The great armada accom plished nothing more than the relief of beleaguered Malacca, which large Spanish reinforcements had saved from the Dutch several years before. There, while it waited for the Portuguese naval division from Goa, Silva suddenly died. That event, to gether with the failure of the Portuguese reinforcements to arrive from India, led to the abandonment of the plan for a general attack on all the Dutch positions in the East. The debacle of this expedition is as important in the history of the East Indies as was the failure of the "Invincible" in 1588, for it definitely settled the question as to who should dominate that region. The rem nants of the fleet returned to Manila in June in a "deplorable state." While the forces of the colony were absent with Silva, Joris van Speilbergen appeared before Manila. Speilbergen had ar rived off the coast of New Spain late in 1615 with a fleet which had left Holland over a year before. He entered the harbor of Acapulco, where the Spaniards had strengthened the defenses on news of his approach, but finding none of the Philippine galleons in port, withdrew after exchanging some Spanish prisoners for much-needed provisions. Speilbergen remained, however, for a couple of months along the Guadalajara coast, where his presence caused great anxiety to the Spanish population and to the vicere gal authorities. Viceroy Guadalcazar sent orders to lower Cali fornia to warn the Manila Galleons of the danger, and despatched the veteran navigator, Sebastian Vizcaino, to Navidad to take measures for the expulsion of the "pichilingues," as the Dutch rovers were locally known. The Spaniards believed that the Dutch intended to make an establishment on the upper coast, from which they could more advantageously prey on the Philip pine commerce, and also use such a post as the basis for the ex tension of their power in that region. However, when he finally despaired of meeting the Manila ships, Speilbergen cleared for the East Indies about the last of November. Reaching the Philip pines early in the following year, he lay in wait for a time at the Embocadero, with the expectation of seizing the returning Aca pulco galleons. These had entered Acapulco harbor after the departure of the Dutch from the coast of New Spain, and on their return to the islands carried instructions from the viceroy to fol low a course several degrees higher than the usual prescribed 348 THE MANILA GALLEON track, so as to reach Manila by rounding Luzon from the north. On the way among the Visayas the Dutch bombarded Iloilo, but in an attempt to take the town by storm were driven off with heavy losses by Diego de Quinones. On their appearance at Manila the non-combatant population—priests, merchants and the like—made feverish efforts to improvise means of defense. But Speilbergen suddenly drew off towards the Moluccas, in the vicinity of which he believed Silva then to be. The next year he returned to Philippine waters and met the Spanish fleet under Juan Ronquillo off Playa Honda in the vicin ity of Corregidor. Seven Spanish galleons and two galleys took part in the two days' battle, which began on April 13, 1617. Fighting at close quarters on the second day, the Spaniards boarded several of the Dutch ships and overwhelmed their de fenders with the sword. Three Dutch ships were destroyed, in cluding the large 47-gun flagship, Sun of Holland, and two were captured. The rest withdrew to the Moluccas in a badly crippled condition. The Dutch came again in 1619, 1620, and 1621. "It was their intention," said the unhappy governor, Alsonso Fajardo, "to conclude and finish once for all with everything." In 1619 John Derickson Lamb lost three ships to the Spaniards in the Philippines. In the winter of the same year a powerful relief fleet, despatched from Spain under the command of Lorenzo de Zuazola, was wrecked by storms when it had scarcely cleared from the Spanish coast. The Dutch strongly suspected that the Philippines could expect no more aid from that quarter. In 1620 three Dutch ships, while cruising in the region of the Embocadero, fell in with the Acapulco galleon, San Nicolas, under the com mand of Fernando de Ayala. All day and part of the night the Spaniard stood off her enemies, and then in the darkness ran into the harbor of Borongan on Samar, where she was grounded and her cargo removed before the Dutch could come up. A few days later a patache, consort of the San Nicolas, encountered the same Dutch ships and, after a running fight, was beached at Palapag, from where her silver was conveyed to a place of safety. 1621 was as dire a time for Manila as the year of Ruyter's blockade later was for London. For nearly a year and a half a combined Dutch and English fleet effectually prevented the THE DUTCH 349 movement of ships into or out of Manila Bay. Most of the strong naval force built up by Acuna and Silva had been crippled in battle, dismantled, or lost in storms—seven in one typhoon near Marinduque—and Governor Fajardo was unable to do more than hold the walled city against the chance of an attack, which never came. Meanwhile, all connection with the outside world was overland through other ports on the coast of Luzon. Entries from the diary of Arnold Browne, an Englishman, who participated in these movements against the Spaniards, tell the story of the long blockade: "May u, 1620. Capt. Adams by a Councell was made Admirall for the English over five ships, & five Dutch Ships in company were to goe for Japan, & so for the Manillas. . . . Jan. 3, 1621, we departed from the road of Coochy bound for the Manillas. The 24 we plied to and fro off the Bay of Manillas. The 26 the Dutch Hope met with a China Champan, and tooke her being come from the Bay of Tundo from a China Junke bound for the Bay of Manillas, which the said Hope tooke on the 26. . . . From the first of Feb. to the sixt we were turning up from the He Marvels [Mariveles], & the Cavetta [Cavite]where the Sp. Ships ride; the Bay a very faire one from 24 to six fathom. ... At Cavetta we found riding six or seven ships, and two of them great Galleions, but all unrigged. The eight we passed by the Towne of Cavetta with our ships. . . . We all anchored in the Rode halfe way betwixt Cavetta, and the towne of Manillas After some time spent in watering, careening, discovering and other affaires, March 28, 1621, by order of a Councell the Fleet was dispersed for better looking out for Junkes comming from China with the Coast. . . . The thirtieth No vember, 1621, wee went into the Bay [of Manila] where the Spaniards had four great Ships, three small and three Gallies, besides other small Frigots. . . . The Fleet observed their op portunities, but little was done." The blockade was raised on May 9, 1622. Two years later another Dutch fleet of seven ships arrived outside Manila Bay. Five Spanish galleons and two galleys under the old battler, Geronimo de Silva, sallied out to meet them in the same waters off Playa Honda where Juan Ronquillo had de feated Speilbergen in 1617. Again the Spaniards had the best of the fighting, though not so decisively as seven years before. Silva was accused for not following up his advantage and was 35» THE MANILA GALLEON imprisoned for a time in the fortress of Santiago on the charge of cowardice. The same year of 1624, the Dutch threatened the galleon commerce on the other side of the Pacific. A fleet under Jacques L'Hermite, which had come around South America, suddenly abandoned its projected operations against the Chilean coast towns, to cruise to the northward for the Manila Galleon. On October 28, 1624, the Dutch ships entered Acapulco harbor, but finding no vessels there Hugo Schapenham, then in command, distributed his ships along the coast to the best advantage for intercepting the incoming galleon. However, the growing scar city of their water supply, which it was difficult to replenish along that section of coast, forced Schapenham after a month's waiting, to abandon his design and hasten to the Dutch posts in the East Indies. During the fourth decade of the century there was a lull in the hostilities between Dutchman and Spaniard. But in 1640 war came again to the East. That year the Dutch began a furious offensive against the Iberian possessions throughout the Orient. The Portuguese line of ports on the Asiatic mainland bore the brunt of the first attack. Malacca fell, after 130 years in Portu guese hands. Goa was cut off from Manila, thus isolating Span ish and Portuguese, disunited in Europe by the successful revolt of the latter in the same year. Then, in 1642 the Dutch took the Spanish post which had been founded sixteen years before on Formosa, and thus ended their brief rivalry for the control of the island. Once in control of the spice trade, the Dutch aimed at a monopoly of the other great oriental staple, Chinese silks. "After the Dutch had established themselves in the East Indies," wrote Churchill, the English geographer, "they made it their chiefest Care to settle a good Correspondence in China, both to carry on their Traffick in those parts, and to annoy the Spaniards their Enemies, who carried on a considerable Commerce with the Chineses from the Philippine Islands." Here again the Spaniards in the Philippines were the chief obstacle, while the Portuguese at Macao were but a minor impediment to their schemes. In this field the Dutch relied on practically the same tactics which they had used in their fight for the Moluccas: the cutting of the two trade-routes vital to the interests of the colony, that to China and THE DUTCH 35i the galleon line to New Spain. Of the Dutch plan of campaign in 1615, Richard Cocks, factor of the English trading post in Japan, said: "Their plot is great and yf it take effect, will utterly overthrow the Spanish and Portingalle dissignes in these parts of the world." The cessation of either or both branches of the Spanish trade for even a few consecutive years would bring the commercial life of the colony to complete stagnation and prob ably lead to the withdrawal of the Spaniards, thus deprived of their necessary resources from the entire East. To this effect wrote Peter Nuyts, the Dutch factor on Formosa, to the council of the East India Company, in 1629: "We must do our utmost to destroy the trade between China and Manila, for, as soon as this is done, we firmly believe that your Excellencies will see the Spaniards leave the Moluccas, and even Manila of their own accord." The Dutch desired possession of the Philippines, not only for the purpose of removing a barrier to their commercial ambi tions in the Orient, but also for the sake of controlling the positive commercial advantages of the islands themselves. Though they probably overestimated the possibilities of spice culture in the southern islands, they were clearly aware of the superiority of Manila as the center for the trade of the entire Farther East. In entertaining the belief that the Spaniards would voluntarily re linquish the Philippines after two or three years of the interrup tion of their trade, the Dutch must have known of the existence of such sentiments in Spain as were expressed in a resolution of the Cortes in 1621, when withdrawal from the islands was pro posed. However, they did not reckon with the strength of the religious motive, which during the seventeenth century was probably the predominant reason of the Spaniards for the reten tion of the colony, or with the national pride that was so little perturbed by adverse fortune. On the other hand, the objective of the Dutch was not alto gether an immediately commercial one. They were satisfying religious hatreds, for the memory of the persecutions of the Span ish Inquisition had not yet died out in the Dutch states, while Dutch prisoners of war were sometimes turned over at Manila to be punished as heretics by the Philippine branch of the Holy Office. Moreover, until Spain acknowledged in 1648 the inde pendence of the United Provinces, the struggle against the 352 THE MANILA GALLEON Spaniard was a war of liberation, although independence was actually attained long before the Spanish government would recognize the accomplished fact. As it was, the Dutch owed the final attainment and maintenance of their independence to their command of the resources of the East. Governor Acuna wrote to Philip III in 1605: "I think that to drive the enemy from the Moluccas and from the islands of Banda will be of great advan tage to our affairs in Flanders, since the rebels of Holland and Zeeland harvest the products of these islands, and draw from them great wealth, by means of which they carry on war and become rich." The first phase of the Dutch program, as it concerned the Chinese trade, was the commercial isolation of the Philippines. To cut off the commercial connections of the Spanish colony with China and Japan they stationed ships along the coast of Ilocos or Pangasinan, or sent them toward the Chinese mainland. In some years they waylaid and plundered nearly all the junks bound for Manila. Valerio de Ledesma, the Jesuit provincial, informed Philip III in 1616 that there had been a great fallingoff in the trade with China, due to the depredations of the Dutch. In that year but seven junks reached Manila, instead of the fifty or sixty of former times. An entry in Richard Cocks' Japanese diary for June 8, 1617 reads: "The 2 Holland ships and prize came into the roads at Cochy. It is said that they have taken and spoiled all the junckes which went this yeare for the Manillias. They took 14 or 15 sayle, but thought to be much more." Later he writes: "Jno. Derickson Lamb sent two ships abootehawling on the coast of China, and from thence to the Manillas, where they had the rifling of XVI seale of China junckes, and filled them with such as they liked and set the rest on fire, and brought the China junckes along with them." In their attacks on neutral shipping, which amounted to virtual piracy, the Dutch seized Japanese as well as Chinese ships. An anonymous writer said in 1619: "The Japanese mer chants complained that, because of the robberies which the Dutch had committed the last two years on the coast of Manila, they had lost the profit which they had usually drawn from the trade with the Philippines. It may be hoped that this will result in the expulsion of the Dutch from Japan." The Chinese and Japanese began to prefer the voluntary suspension of their trading voyages THE DUTCH 353 to the high risk of loss, one of the very aims of the Dutch pro gram. Another unnamed chronicler had written the year before from Manila: "The Chinese will not dare to come to this city with their ships, and commerce will cease. Everything will then be lost, because the prosperity of these islands depends solely upon trade with China." In their efforts to gain the Chinese silk trade the Dutch had needed a more convenient local center of operations than they possessed in the southern islands. Such a place must serve both as factory and as point of attack against the Spaniards, and also against any Chinese ships that might venture out toward Luzon in defiance of the Dutch assertions of maritime and trading monopoly. It was in this role that the island of Formosa played a very important part in the struggle between Dutch and Spanish for the Chinese trade. Besides the strategical importance of its position—directly north of the Philippines,—for whose conquest it would offer an excellent base of operations, its tenure by a for eigner would vitally affect the economic life of the Spaniards in the Philippines. It lay in the path of the junks from Amoy and was dangerously near that of the Canton fleet and of the craft engaged in the Philippine-Japanese trade. The control of these subsidiary trade routes by a hostile power would be a menacing circumstance for the commercial interests of Manila, and so for the very maintenance of the colonial establishment in the islands. "The Authorities at Manila know only too well that they have no other way of retrieving their lost position than by obtaining possession of Formosa," wrote Peter Nuyts to the heads of the Dutch East India Company in 1629. Spanish interest in Formosa began in the days when some of the early governors of the Philippines planned the conquest of China. When the great Hideyoshi designed its occupation from Japan, Juan Zamudio was sent from Manila in 1597 with orders to take initial steps for forestalling the Japanese and to warn the Chinese authorities of the dangers that would arise from the presence of the Japanese on Formosa. Though nothing substan tial was accomplished by either Japanese or Spaniards at this time, a force sent out in 1598 by Iyeyasu actually invaded the island, but was successfully withstood by the ever-truculent na tives. So far the danger was from the north. However, it was the Dutch who anticipated the Spaniards on 354 THE MANILA GALLEON Formosa. Between 1604 and 1607 persistent attempts were made to secure from the Chinese a grant of land for a factory and for mal consent to trade, but the Chinese authorities refused the con cession. Engrossed in other fields, the Dutch did not press their requests with the Chinese until about 1622, at which time they were at open war with the Spaniards, whom they intended to strike indirectly through the Chinese trade. Accordingly, they began the establishment of a post near Macao, which they be sieged for a time. From here they could cut off this traffic at its source, and, moreover, use the port as the site of a factory for their own projected commercial dealings with the Chinese. How ever, this aggression in violation of their sovereignty aroused the Chinese, who prepared to destroy the Dutch settlement. Upon this the latter agreed to abandon their plans for a Dutch Macao and to retire to Formosa. In 1625 they laid the foundations of their settlement at Taiwan on the southern side of the island. "The Dutch then planned the capture of Formosa," wrote Padre Zuniga, "with a view to interrupt the commerce to China, and as a ladder for the conquest of the Philippines." The same year Governor Fernando de Silva advised Philip IV of the importance of its position, while he predicted that the Dutch would seize it in case the Spaniards should not forestall them. Silva declared that the proximity of Formosa made it vital to the defensive scheme of the islands. Juan de Medina said: "The Governor thought that from there the Dutch were depriving us of the trade; this would mean the destruction of Manila, which only a lucrative trade could sustain. To remedy all this he thought to capture Formosa." Silva followed up his design with the despatch of a force under Antonio Carreno de Valdes, who laid the foundations of a Spanish base on the northern side of the island. But this was in 1626 and the Dutch had already made their settlement at Taiwan. The Spaniards made one unsuccessful attempt to drive them away, after which the two co-existed on the island until the reopening of hostilities in Europe. Meanwhile, the Spaniards were gradually transferring to Formosa some of the trading that ordinarily took place at Manila, so that the factory at Kelung thus became a way-station between the Chinese coast and the Philippines. Also, after a period of hesitation the Chinese began to bring their merchandise in large THE DUTCH 355 quantities to the rival Dutch entrepot. Peter Nuyts wrote in 1629: "Chinese vessels gradually began to visit us, so that during the last five years, very little trade has been carried on at Manila." Not only was this shifting of trade highly prejudicial to the in terests of Manila, but the situation was potentially full of menace the moment war should break out again. "We in the islands were very anxious because of the nearness of the Dutch on Formosa, a suitable way-station for any purpose," wrote Padre Casimiro Diaz at the time. And war came soon. On the withdrawal of the small Spanish garrison from Formosa in 1642 the anomalous condition of two hostile powers holding establishments in the same island was ended. The Dutch could now utilize their advantage to further their ambitious schemes about the China Sea at the expense of the Spaniards. For another twenty years the Dutch held their posts on Formosa. From there their ships operated to cut off the Chinese junks bound for Manila. The menace from the side of Formosa was not only greatly minimized by the peace which followed the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648, but so far as it came from the Dutch it ceased entirely with the occupation of the island in 1662 by Koxinga, the Chinese pirate chieftain. By 1643 the Dutch offensive had swept on to the Philippines, but here, as always, the Spaniards held firm. For another four years they kept the islands in a turmoil with their raids and maraudings. Their fleets blockaded Manila Bay, as in 1621, or cruised among the Visayas, so that the colony's lines of com munication with the outside world were severed for months at a time. During these years of stress the Manila Galleons had several encounters with Dutch ships which were patrolling the straits. This was in spite of precautions taken to warn the incoming gal leons as they first approached the Luzon coast from Acapulco. When one Dutch fo/ce, which had recently attacked Zamboanga, was defeated by the Spaniards off the Punta de Baliguasan in 1646, Governor Diego Fajardo then fitted out the famous gal leons, Rosario and Encarnacidn, with heavy guns from Cavite and 250 picked men under Lorenzo de Ugalde, Master of the Camp. Off Bolinao at the entrance of the Gulf of Lingayen they met the Dutch on March 15th of the same year. So heavy was the cannonading that a heavy pall of smoke soon hung over 356 THE MANILA GALLEON the combatants. Firing stopped at dusk and during the night the Dutch ships withdrew from the scene of the day's battle. On the evening of July 29th the galleons came upon the same Dutch force off Marinduque. After battling all through the night both drew off in the morning. In the afternoon the Dutch attacked with fire ships but did no damage. On the third day the battle was renewed in the waters off Mindoro, but at the end of six hours of severe fighting the Dutch sailed off to Java. During the same summer three Dutch ships attacked the galleon San Diego near Mindoro, as she was on her way to Acapulco. The galleon retreated, fighting, into Manila Bay, where she was joined by the Rosario and the Encarnacidn. The three ships then put to sea in company and in a ten-hour fight in the waters between Lubang and Ambil put the Dutch to flight. Two years before the San Diego had put back to Manila on find ing her way out the Embocadero blocked by the Dutch. In June of the next year, 1647, twelve Dutch ships entered Manila Bay and violently assailed the fortified works at Cavite. With the aid of the galleon San Diego and other shipping in the harbor the Spaniards drove off the Dutch. The enemy's flagship was sunk and his admiral killed in the battle. The same year the Dutch watched in vain in the Embocadero for the galleon from Acapulco. "This was the last exploit of the Dutch enemy in these islands, which they had infested for many years with extraordinary pertinacity," wrote Padre Casimiro Diaz. The Dutch remained in the vicinity of Luzon for several months and even held a position on the coast for a while, from which they raided several towns in the neighboring provinces. It was not until news of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War in Europe, arrived in the East, that the Dutch finally withdrew to their bases on Java. When the long series of Dutch aggressions ended in 1648, the Spaniards still held the Philippines and the Acapulco line was yet to continue for over a century and al!alf. But the traffic's splendid possibilities of expansion had been checked. Of course, the restrictive policy of the Spanish government played its part in this result, but the cost of the Dutch attacks was irreparable. Not a galleon was taken by the enemy, though a few were driven ashore to be broken up by the waves, or scuttled to prevent their capture. However, to the comparatively slight loss of cargo that THE DUTCH 357 accompanied this sacrifice of the ships themselves, there must be counted in the cost of the Dutch wars: the capture of many Chinese and Japanese vessels with lading for the galleons; the drain of men from a small population; the diversion into defense against the Dutch of money and energies that should have gone into commerce; the complete cessation in some years of the traffic, and so, the temporary disruption of the whole economic life of the colony; the entrance of vigorous competition into the Chinese field, which the Spaniards had hitherto enjoyed largely to themselves; and the almost complete loss of all Spain's pos sibilities in the coveted spice trade. PART IV THE AMERICAS AND SPAIN >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER I I MEXICO AND PERU THE viceroyalty of New Spain, or more exactly, that part of it which lay within the jurisdiction of the Audiencia, or high administrative court, of Mexico, was the principal market for the cargoes of the Manila Galleons. Until the period of adminis trative reforms in the eighteenth century the Spanish Empire in the New World was divided between the two viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru. The nucleus of the one was the conquests of Cortes; of the other, those of the Pizarros. In fact, the vice regal governments were set up in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and in Lima before the conquerors were removed from the scenes of their prodigious exploits. Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy of New Spain, arrived in 1535; Blasco Nunez Vela succeeded the king's agent, Cristobal Vaca de Castro, as first viceroy of Peru in 1544. The viceroyalties were in turn subdivided into districts gov erned by an audiencia, or a captain-general, or by a dual regime of the two. Many of the present.day republics are direct descen dants of these districts. In 1717 the northern provinces of the southern viceroyalty were cut off and incorporated into the new viceroyalty of New Granada, with its seat of government at Santa Fe de Bogata, the present capital of the Republic of Colom bia. In 1776 the lands to the east of the southern Andes, includ ing the territory subject to the Audiencia of Charcas, which comprised most of the present area of Bolivia, were organized into the Viceroyalty of La Plata, with its capital at Buenos Aires. During the same period some of the old captaincies-general, such as those of Cuba, Venezula, and Central America, were made independent of the respective viceroyalties and given an autono mous government under the crown and the Council of the Indies. Also, the outlying districts of the viceroyalty of New Spain on the north, including upper California and New Mexico, were set apart in 1776 as the Provincias Internets, or Interior Provinces, 361 THE MANILA GALLEON under the authority of a commandant-general, who was in turn subject to the orders of the viceroy at Mexico City. Save for a brief period, sale and consumption of the galleon's cargoes were limited by law to the northern viceroyalty, and trade in oriental goods with other provinces of the Spanish Em pire was contraband. The interest of the Mexican Spaniards in the commerce was second only to that of the Manilehos, and within Mexico itself the arrival of the galleon was as eagerly looked for as that of the flota, or trading fleet, from Spain. "The failure of the Philippine Galleon to arrive causes a scarcity of many things in this country," said the Marques de Croix in 1769. And the viceroy adds significantly that it promises a more bril liant fair at Jalapa, the town in the tierra templada above Vera Cruz, where the cargoes of the flota were sold. All classes, from the Indians of the towns in the torrid low lands, whom Spanish-made conventions and laws compelled to wear clothing, to the pampered creoles of the capital, went dressed in the fabrics of the Far East, the cottons of Luzon or India and the silks of China. "The Chinese goods form the ordinary dress of the natives of New Spain," declared the Regula tions of 1720; and said Viceroy Revillagigedo: "The Philippine commerce is acclaimed in this kingdom, because its merchandise supplies the poor folk of the country." The bulk of the Chinese silks were consumed by the peninsular and colonial Spaniards and the better-to-do mestizos of Mexico City, though the larger provincial towns like Guadalajara and Puebla also took a share of them. Few of the Oriental goods found their way across to Spain. The proverbial wealth of the viceregal capital usually assured a rich outlet for the imports from China. This wealth, founded largely on mining and trade, was long a substantial fact, though it was partly responsible for the exaggerated glamor which the dazzled and inaccurate imagination of Europe had thrown over the whole Spanish empire of the Indies. Foreigners like Thomas Gage and Gemelli Careri, and in later times Alexander von Humboldt, actually saw the luxury and display of the capital of New Spain. "Both men and women," says the Irish friar, who lived in Mexico in the early seventeenth century, "are exces sive in their apparel, using more silks than stuffs and cloths; precious stones and Pearls further much their vain ostentation; MEXICO AND PERU 363 a hat-band and rose made of Diamonds in a Gentleman's hat is common, and a hat-band of Pearls is ordinary in a Tradesman." And writing of the 2,000 or more coaches that rolled back and forth each afternoon in the Alameda, "full of Gallants, Ladies, and Citizens, to see and to be seen, to court and to be courted," he observes that "they spare no Silver, nor precious stones, nor Cloth of Gold, nor the best silks from China to enrich them." It was in the "rich and comely" street of San Agustin that these silks had been retailed, as La Platerta, now a part of Calle Madero, was the center of the jewelry trade. There, says Gage, "a man's eyes may behold in less than an hour many millions worth of gold, silver, pearls, and jewels." Not only did Mexican merchants make a large profit in the sale of these goods, but they often increased their gains by making their purchases at Manila instead of at Acapulco, and thereby eliminating the Manileno as a middleman. This practice must have begun early, since a protest from Manila in 1586 declared: "One of the things which has ruined this land is the large con signments of money that rich persons in Mexico send here." A law granting the petition of the islanders was issued seven years later. However, the continued complaints of the Manilenos are evidence of the ineffectiveness of the decree. In 1602 they threatened to abandon the colony if the Mexicans and Peruvians did not limit their operations to the eastern side of the Pacific. Some of the latter were men who had accumulated a fortune during a few years' residence in the islands and still maintained their trading connections in Manila by means of reliable agents, who represented them for a commission. These agents were registered citizens, and as such were legally qualified to draw boletas or shipping licenses and consign goods on the galleon. They were so well supplied with money that the bona-fide mer chants could not compete with them, since prices to the Spaniards were sometimes doubled when the Chinese learned that there was . a large supply of Mexican and Peruvian silver in the city. Some times the Spanish-American merchants would go to Manila in person to make their purchases and then return on the next gal leon. However, a law was issued in 1604 to prevent these busi ness trips out to the islands. "The greater part of the people who each year go from' New Spain to the Philippines," it says, "do not remain there, but return presently after investing the 364 THE MANILA GALLEON money which they have." The viceroy was not to permit anyone to go to the Philippines without such person giving bond to become an actual resident of the colony and agreeing to remain there for eight years. Such legitimate emigrants might take out with them whatever funds they possessed, regardless of the limita tion of the permiso on the passage of silver to the islands. After the procurador, Grau y Monfalcon, had declared that most of the evils of the trade were due to the interference of the Mexicans, whom the Manilenos always made the scapegoats for their own excesses, the prohibitions were reissued in 1639. At the same time the king refused the request of the City of Mexico for permission to invest annually 250,000 pesos in the Philippine trade. The Mexicans had alleged as the reason for their petition the expense of maintaining the armada de Barlovento, or Wind ward Fleet, whose function was the policing of the Gulf and Caribbean regions against pirates. A few years later the Audiencia of Manila excluded several Mexican merchants from trade in the islands, confiscated their goods, and fined them 273,113 pesos. However, in 1683, the City of Manila complained to the king that citizens of Mexico had sent 400,000 pesos for investment. A few years later the Andalusians charged that in 1686 Viceroy Galve sent two ships to Manila with merchants from both viceroyalties, and all well supplied with money. These men were said to have gone on to China, where they established direct trading connec tions and left samples of goods to serve as models for the Chinese silk weavers. It is clear that even if any such enterprise was undertaken at that time it was not prosecuted beyond the initial stage. And though the Regulations of 1720 and 1734 ordered the confiscation at Acapulco of all goods known to be consigned to Mexicans, "of whatever rank, quality or condition they may be," yet Revillagigedo informed his successor in 1754 that it was morally impossible to keep the Mexicans from sending money to Manila to invest in the galleon trade. Even the closest official surveillance could not bring to light the frauds that were so skillfully concealed by a resort to "dummies." In 1776 the fiscal of the Council of the Indies, Tomas Ortiz de Landazuri, told Charles III that the Mexicans were the real masters of this traffic, "reputed to be the most fortunate and lucrative of all those that are known in Europe and America." Silk manufactures were long maintained in Mexico on the MEXICO AND PERU 365 basis of raw materials from China and from domestic produc tion. The Mexican silk industry was older than the galleon commerce, and in fact dated from the very time of Cortes. The area of production centered in the Misteca district, and the city of Puebla gained considerable local fame for its looms and neigh boring mulberry groves. Until the Peruvian market was closed and the disastrous Chinese competition had begun to undermine its prosperity the prospect for the native silks was bright. "The policy of the Council of the Indies," wrote Humboldt, "constantly unfavorable to the manufactures of Mexico on the one hand and, on the other, the most active commerce with China, and the interest which the Philippine Company has in selling the Asiatic silks to the Mexicans, seem to be the principal causes of the gradual annihilation of this branch of colonial industry." Of the state of the industry at the time of his visit to New Spain Humboldt says further: "With the exception of a few stuffs of cotton mixed with silk, the manufacture of silks is at present next to nothing in Mexico." In 161 1 Viceroy Montesclaros, arguing for the suppression of the Acapulco trade, said that Mexico could supply all her own demand for silk from the Misteca and other sources within the country. However, the decline had then already set in, and the local manufacturers were henceforth dependent for their raw material upon the raw Chinese silk. Grau y Monfalcon declared in 1637 that over 14,000 laborers were engaged in this industry in Mexico City, Puebla and Antequera. He asserted that the Oriental silk was superior in quality to that produced in the Misteca district, which was, moreover, inadequate to supply the demand in Mexico. Woodes Rogers, writing in 1712, said: "Abundance of raw Silk is brought from China, and of later Years worked up into rich Brocades equal to any made in Europe." Peru early promised to be an even more lucrative market for Oriental goods than was New Spain. Here was a population wealthy, inordinately given to luxury and display, and recklessly extravagant. In the Calle de Mercaderes, or Street of the Mer chants, in Lima the luxuries of Europe and Asia could be found in forty shops, some of whose owners possessed a capital of over a million pesos. In 1602 Viceroy Monterey described to the king the luxury of the capital of the great viceroyalty. "All these people live most luxuriously," he says; "all wear silk, and of the 366 THE MANILA GALLEON most fine and costly quality. The gala dresses and clothes of the women are so many and so excessive that in no other king dom of the world are found such." High in the Andes, Potosi, "the Imperial City," and "heart of the Indies," was in her bonanza times and leading a riotous career of indulgence, for which the stream of silver from the Cerro furnished abundant means. This city of feverish life a Portuguese Jew called, "by reason of its riches the most fortunate and happiest of the world's cities." A century later Woodes Rogers wrote of the Peruvians: "The Spaniards here are very profuse in their Clothing and Equipage, and affect to wear the most costly things that can be purchased ; so that those who trade hither with such Commodities as they want, may be sure to have the greatest Share of their Wealth." Said Rogers: "The Ladies, who are extravagant in their Apparel, impoverish the Country by purchasing the richest Silks." Frezier, the French scientist, writing about the same time, said: "The men and women of Lima are equally given to magnificence in their dress." Royal sanction was given for the Chinese-Philippine trade with New Spain, Peru, Guatemala, and Tierra Firme or the "Spanish Main" by a decree of April 14, 1579, fourteen years after the beginning of the galleon commerce. Governor Sande early planned a direct trade from Manila to Peru, but it was his suc cessor, Gonzalo Ronquillo, who sent the first ships to Callao, the port of Lima. One crossed in 1581 and another followed the next year. Both were highly profitable ventures, and Peruvians and Manilenos hoped for an indefinite continuance of the voyages. However, a royal order of 1582 interdicted the traffic at its very beginning, and caused the cessation of the direct voyages. For this new line threatened serious competition with the Porto Bello galleons, which had hitherto supplied this field from Spain. A whole series of prohibitory legislation followed. A law of 1591 forbade trading between Peru, Tierra Firme, Guatemala, "or any other parts of the Indies, and China or the Philippines." An order of the next year, successively re-issued in 1593, 1595, and 1604, merely stated the same principle in an other form, in restricting the trans-Pacific trade to New Spain. The reiteration of these prohibitions and the severe penalties always fixed for their violation—a ruinous fine, or the confisca tion of the property of all implicated in the offense, or even exile MEXICO AND PERU 367 or the galleys—show the anxiety with which the central govern ment attempted to maintain the peninsular monopoly in that region. The attempt of Governor Luis Perez Dasmarinas in 1596 and the project of Governor Fajardo in 1620 for sending a yearly ship to Panama, there to make connections with the Peruvian merchants, failed to shake this resolution, as did the petition of Governor Arandia in the middle of the eighteenth century. It was not until 1779 that the Manilenos were permitted to trade directly with Peru. This was during the War of American In dependence, and the concession, which was intended to alleviate the straits of both the Philippines and the American colonies of Spain, was limited to two years. The only other avenue for the entrance of Asiatic goods into Peru was by way of Acapulco, through transhipment from the Manila Galleons to the vessels locally known as the "Lima ships." From very early a flourishing trade was carried on at Acapulco between merchants from Peru and the Manila representatives. The islanders welcomed the coming of the Peruvians to the fair, for they always came well supplied with silver, and their competi tion with the Mexicans for the galleon's cargo raised prices. From 1585 Viceroy Villamanrique levied duties on the exports to Peru, but in 1589 he temporarily suspended the traffic, on the grounds that it was contrary to royal orders and that it would, moreover, cause a scarcity in New Spain, since the arrival of the flota for that year was uncertain. Philip II had issued the in evitable ban on the trade in 1587, two years before the viceroy's act of suspension. This order, reiterated in 1593, and twice in 1599, was one of the most momentous decrees in the history of the commerce, for it closed, at least legally, a field for oriental imports that would in all probability have been a richer market than even New Spain could be. However, permission was conceded for two ships to carry to Peru the investments of 200,000 ducats in exclusively Mexican products. The latter limitation could not be enforced, and in 1604 all trade between the two viceroyalties was ordered to cease. "Inasmuch as the trade in Chinese stuffs has increased to exces sive proportions in Peru," runs the law, "notwithstanding so many prohibitions expedient to our royal service, the welfare and utility of the public cause, and the commerce of this king dom, I command the viceroys of Peru and New Spain to pro 368 THE MANILA GALLEON hibit and suppress, without fail, this commerce and trade between both kingdoms, by all the ways and means possible." "This pro hibition shall be kept strictly and shall continue to be so kept," was the mandate that closed the edict. And the decree was re issued in 1609, 1620, 1634, 1636, and finally in 1706! Several auxiliary laws were intended to aid in the enforce ment of the main prohibition. Thus, ships plying between Callao, Guayaquil, Panama, and Nicaragua ports, and which were accustomed to proceed on to Acapulco from the latter to take on goods from Manila, were ordered in 1621 to discontinue the final and illegal stage of their voyage. Three decrees, all of which apparently dated from 1604, were directly complementary to the central law. One prohibits the carrying of Chinese goods from Acapulco to Peru on a non-commercial vessel under any pretext, such as that they were a gift to church or charity. For prodigious donations of this kind often furnished a sacrosanct cover to large smuggling operations. A second decree fixed severe penalties for port or ship's officials, whose negligence or criminal connivance was responsible for the passage of any Chinese goods into Peru. The third was a general order to the viceroy of Peru, enjoining the "exact execution and fulfillment" of the aforesaid ordinances. The immediate charge of the ad ministration of these laws was to be entrusted to a member of the Audiencia of Lima, in whom "entire confidence" could be placed. Seldom was the execution of any group of laws in the colonial code of the empire insisted on with equal persistence or rigor. The king charged the "conscience and care of his servants," and trusted to their "complete faithfulness." And, indeed, an in exorable visitador or viceroy might make the laws a reality for a short period, as did Viceroy Gelves and Pedro de Quiroga at Acapulco and Viceroy Monclova at Lima, while the removal of a lax viceroy of Peru in 1678 showed that they were not entirely a dead letter. However, these violent and temporary efforts by unusually zealous officials, while they had a certain deterrent effect for a time, only caused the habitual inobservance of these laws to be the more evident. There were few men whose resolve, even when fortified by the king's express commission and armed with the dire penalties provided by the laws, could long face the almost unanimous hostility of citizens and fellow officials to these irksome prohibitions. MEXICO AND PERU 369 The venality and corruption in every rank of the viceregal government in Peru seems to have been almost universal. "From viceroy to archbishop everyone trades, although secretly and by the agency of another," wrote the Portuguese Jew, quoted be fore. These precautions were made necessary by various con siderations. The viceroys usually came of noble families, and the traditions of their class, as well as the viceregal instructions, forbade participation in trade, while the clergy were expressly forbidden by law to engage in commercial transactions. Officials were also suspicious of one another and the long arm of the residencia might reach them, in spite of the usual power of their accumulations to negative that ordeal. "The Corregidores make vast Advantages," said Woodes Rogers, "by their seizures, and trading privately themselves. . . . The Spaniards say, and I be lieve, not without Reason, that a Viceroy, after purchasing his Place with all that he has, quits Old Spain like a hungry Lion, to devour all that he can, and that every officer under him in all the Provinces (who are ten times more than are necessary) are his Jackals to procure Prey for him, that they may have a share of it themselves." Private traders, he says, who refused to compound with the officials, were treated with great severity and, though seized "in the King's name," the goods confiscated from these men were divided among the customs officers. The most serious revelations of conditions in Peru were made by the royal commissioners, Jorge Juan y Santacilla and Antonio de Ulloa, who visited South America in 1735. "Neither honor, con science, fear, nor recognition of the fact that they are paid high salaries by the King can keep these officials faithful to their charge," they declared in their confidential report. Customs officials offered inducements to contraband traders to frequent their ports, for the opportunity it gave them to share in the profits of smuggling, and the very guards of the revenue service aided in convoying inland to Lima or up to Cuzco or Potosi goods whose introduction had been notoriously illegal. The same lax state of affairs was found to exist at Guayaquil, the port of entry for the Quito country. Juan and Ulloa saw Chinese porcelain for sale in the shops of Lima, and Chinese silks were sold and worn quite openly from Chile to Panama, where the Oriental stuffs predominated in the garb of the Spanish population, from the vestments of the priests 370 THE MANILA GALLEON to the mantos and silk stockings of the Limenas. The trade in goods from Manila was so much more profitable than that in imports from the peninsula that the traffic with Acapulco con tinued in spite of all the repeated legal precautions which have been enumerated, and by means of the almost universal suborna tion of compliant officials. The Lima ship continued its voyages with more or less regularity after the decree of 1604 and its accom panying and subsequent fulminations. Its operations even sur vived the investigation of the relentless Quiroga, who was de termined to suppress once for all this defiant traffic, and who at least effected a temporary suspension of its activities. However, at the end of the seventeenth century Peruvian ships came every year to Puerto del Marques, a few miles north of Acapulco. In the early part of the next century English privateers tried to take the Lima ship out of Acapulco harbor. "She arrives a little be fore Christmas," says Dampier, "and brings Quicksilver, Cacao and Pieces of Eight. She takes in a cargo of Spices, Silks, Calicoes and Muslins and other East Indian commodities for the use of Peru." The order of 1706, which revived the old prohibitions, comments on "the lack of observance of the laws, and the very serious damage that results from it to the commerce of these kingdoms." "The relaxation of the laws," it continues, "has reached the point where the exportation of Oriental goods to Peru has become a frequent and customary traffic." This trade was carried on by ordinary merchant vessels which left Callao or some other Peruvian port, with Acapulco or Puerto del Marques as their express destination, or by coasting ships that ran up above the prescribed limits on the west coast to invest in a cargo of the forbidden merchandise. The transfer of digni taries between the two viceroyalties was a frequent occasion for a voyage, and these ships, southward-bound out of Acapulco, seldom went in ballast. Below the hatches were rich bales and chests, of whose presence the viceroy or archbishop on board was either not cognizant, or conveniently ignored, unless he were more directly interested in their ownership. On the other side of the continent ships carried on a similar, though lesser trade, with other parts of the Spanish colonies. In 1748 representatives of Andalusian commercial interests in Mexico charged that the cargo of the Manila Galleon was dis tributed very widely throughout Spanish America, in contraven MEXICO AND PERU 37i tion of the law which limited its sale and final consumption to New Spain. Imports from this source reached not only Peru, but Guatemala, Tierra Firme, Campeche, Caracas and the Wind ward Islands, as well as the Greater Antilles, either by way of Vera Cruz or Panama-Porto Bello. When Andres de Urdaneta selected Acapulco as the Amer ican terminal of the Philippine-American navigation, he chose the best harbor on the west coast of America, with the possible exception of San Francisco. Legaspi's expedition for the occupa tion of the Philippines sailed from Navidad, but Acapulco soon took the place of the more northerly port. In 1572 Viceroy Enriquez wrote to Philip II: "Acapulco is coming to be the first port for the trade with the Philippines, because of its nearness to the City of Mexico." Frequent proposals were made during the history of the galleon trade to change the terminal from Acapulco to some other port, for which there was claimed greater accessibility to Mexico, a superior climate, or other advantages. The most serious schemes of this sort were for the transfer to San Blas or to Val de Banderas on the Guadalajara coast. As the northwest provinces of the viceroyalty became more thickly settled in the eighteenth century, the movement to have the gal leons put in at a northern harbor gained strength. Particularly was this so after the establishment of the Department of San Blas. The latter port had become increasingly important, be cause of its position as the starting-point for the new activities along the coast of California and farther to the northward. In his instructions to his successor, Viceroy Revillagigedo contended for the retention of the terminal at Acapulco, but Branciforte favored San Blas, while he proposed that the fair be held at Tepic. However, by that time the Philippine commerce was notoriously on the decline, and Acapulco was permitted to hold the position which she had occupied for over two centuries by right of official inertia and her incomparable harbor. The harbor is nearly surrounded by precipitous mountains, whose abrupt descent on their southern side leaves but a small shelf of land for habitation. This circumstance also accounts for its unusual depth, which is so great that the galleon was sometimes made fast to a tree on the shore, instead of anchoring out in the bay. In the cove immediately in front of the town 372 THE MANILA GALLEON depths range from five to ten fathoms; over most of the bay there is from sixteen to thirty fathoms of water. The entrance which opens towards the southwest, is broken by the Isla de la Roqueta into two mouths of unequal width. The easterly pass known as the Boca Grande, or "Big Mouth," has a breadth of about a mile and a half, while the other, or Boca Chica, is only about 260 yards wide. Though the breadth of the former admits seas and winds that would interfere with the security of vessels lying opposite this mouth, ships find entire safety when moored in front of the town in the sheltered inner bay which projects to the northwest from the main body of the harbor. Thus, the port has the advantages of being both safe and deep. Domingo Fernandez de Navarrete, a much-traveled friar, called it "the best and safest harbor in the world, as was duly asserted by those who have seen many others." Of the size of the harbor Dampier remarks: "The Port of Acapulco is very commodious for the reception of Ships, and so large, that some hundreds may safely Ride there without damnifying each other." Lord Anson considered it "the securest and finest in all the northern parts of the Pacific Ocean." Malaspina, one of the most skilled of Spanish navigators of the later eighteenth century, a scientific seaman of the type of Cook and Bougainville, favored the further development of Acapulco as the Spanish naval base for the northern Pacific and as a great commercial port. For these purposes he held it much superior to San Blas. "No one can deny," he said, "that Acapulco has great advantages which are found together in very few ports of the globe." Humboldt, who saw the place in 1803, thus describes the harbor, which he called "the finest of all those on the coast of the great ocean," and again, "one of the finest ports in the known world:" "The port of Acapulco forms an immense basin cut in granite rocks. ... I have seen few situations in either hemisphere of a more savage aspect. I would say at the same time, more dismal and more romantic. The masses of rocks bear in their form a strong resemblance to the dentillated crest of Montserral in Catalonia. . . . This rocky coast is so steep that a vessel of the line may almost touch it without running the smallest danger, because there is everywhere from 10 to 12 fathoms of water." The Frenchman, Gabriel Lafond de Lurcy, said of the port and its surroundings: "This bay forms the finest and safest port MEXICO AND PERU 373 along the entire Mexican coast. It is immense, and extends over three leagues inland, with a width of about one league. The anchorage is everywhere excellent, and a ship is everywhere sheltered from all winds, for it is surrounded in all directions by mountains, that close it almost hermetically, and even shut out the view of the sea. The whole aspect is sombre and wild and inspires a profound melancholy. The shore that rims the bay offers the very image of chaos." Another French navigator of the same period, Abel du Petit-Thouars, writes of the location of Acapulco: "Some lofty mountains serve it as ramparts to west and north. To the south it is protected from the sea by a wooded peninsula of moderate height, which shelters the anchorage. Towards the east the view extends over the harbor and the peninsula which separates it from Puerto del Marques and the open sea." Acapulco itself was of no importance except as the terminal of the Asiatic galleon line and of a southerly coastwise trade of lesser consequence. "As for the city of Acapulco," says Gemelli Careri, "I think it might more properly be call'd a poor Village of Fishermen, than the chief Mart of the South Sea, and Port for the Voyage to China; so mean and wretched are the Houses, being made of nothing but Wood, Mud and Straw." By 1598 there were 250 houses of various kinds in the town, the majority of which could scarcely have been more than huts or cabins. Among the public or religious buildings were the Contaduria, or headquarters of the treasury officials, a "cathedral," or parish church, a Franciscan Convent, and the Hospital of San Juan de Dios. However, none of these were imposing edifices, though the religious establishments were bountifully supported by the piety of those who had survived the galleon voyage or the in clemencies and risks of the journey from Mexico. To the north east of the town was situated the Castle of San Diego, which protected the town and the anchorage ground of the galleons from the incursions of foreigners. During most of its history there were mounted on its bastions between forty and eighty brass cannon of large bore. But whatever its actual strength, it had almost as forbidding a reputation among the enemies of Spain as did the more formidable works of Cartagena and of San Juan de Ulua at Vera Cruz, and it at least fulfilled its func tion more effectively than did either of those great fortresses. 374 THE MANILA GALLEON The ordinary population of Acapulco consisted of Indians and Orientals, and of mestizos and mulattoes of every possible degree of mixture. This nondescript lot were generically classed outside of Acapulco as "Chinese." Few Spaniards remained in the town beyond the term of the galleon fair, at which time the permanent population of the place was swelled by the influx of thousands from Mexico, Peru and the Philippines. Humboldt gives the stable population at the beginning of the nineteenth century as about 4,000, which was increased to over 9,000 at the time of the fair. The natural environment of the place was not favorable to the growth of a flourishing population of whites. Not only was the country to the immediate rear of the town so sterile and waterless that provisions had to be brought from a distance, but the climate was forbidding to any but the mongrel inhabitants who had become inured to its intemperate heat and immune to its "Distempers." "The ill Temper of the Air," said Gemelli, "and the Mountainous Soil, are the cause that Acapulco must be supplied with Provisions from other Parts, and therefore it is dear living there, besides a Man cannot eat well under a piece of Eight a day; the place, besides being dear, is dirty, and incon venient. For these reasons it is inhabited by none but Blacks and Mulattoes." The extreme heat of the tierra caliente was little mitigated by the circumstances which sometimes favorably modi fied the weather in other places in the same climatic zone. In stead it was aggravated by peculiar local conditions. Thus, the rock walls behind the town not only reflected the heat into the basin, until the air was stifling, but this very enclosure kept out the sea-breezes and prevented the circulation of air within the harbor. However, in the latter part of the eighteenth century Josef Barrero, warden of the port, had a gap cut through the hill which intervenes between the town and the sea in order to admit the cooling breezes from off the ocean. Humboldt declares that he experienced the salutary effects of this "bold undertak ing." "Acapulco is one of the most unhealthy places of the New Continent," he said. "The unfortunate inhabitants breathe a burning air, full of insects, and vitiated by putrid emanations. For a great part of the year they perceive the sun only through a bed of vapours of an olive hue. . . . The heat must be still more oppressive, the air more stagnant, and the existence of man more painful at Acapulco than at Vera Cruz." MEXICO AND PERU 375 Simon de Anda said that Vera Cruz, which was never famed for salubrity, was a paradise in comparison with the "abbreviated inferno" of Acapulco, with its "heat and its venemous serpents, and the constant trembling of the earth." He calls it the "sepulchre of Mexicans and Filipinos." "All the treasures of this world," he declared, "could not compensate for the necessity of living there or of traveling the road between Acapulco and Mexico." Anda preferred Val de Banderas or Chacala to Acapulco. Of the former region he said: "It is a country abound ing in everything. It has good climate, good water, and plenty of wood, while the road thence to Mexico for 150 leagues can be traveled in a carriage, and through the thickest populated and most flourishing part of New Spain." In 1598 the royal treasury officials wrote to the moribund old king of the hard ships of existence in a "hot and sickly land, where one lives with great risk to his health," and eight years later Juan Rodriguez de Salamanca petitioned to be "freed from the captivity" of serv ing as royal factor in "this unwholesome port." Lafond de Lurcy writes of Acapulco, "this city so famed in the annals of commerce: It is quite probable that this place, when it was the entrepot of the treasures of Mexico and of the Indies, saw as much wealth pass through it as did Genoa or Venice. However, not the least vestige of all this remains. Now one sees only the most paltry village. ... In the time of its greatest prosperity it counted 4,000 inhabitants, and this figure reached 12,000 at the season of the arrival of the galleons. "The climate is frightful; a sky of bronze, a stifling heat, and no motion of the air. There is nothing to compensate for this desolate picture. The land, except for some trees about the houses, is stricken with sterility. There are neither streams, nor grass, nor flowers, nor shade, but everywhere extraordinary land scapes, a surface that has been unheaved, and burned-up valleys that betray an earth tormented by subterranean fires." When Duflot de Mofras visited Acapulco in 1840 he said: "The town of Acapulco is considerably fallen from her ancient splendor." But Acapulco was never "splendid," even during the heyday of her fairs. Her habitual squalidness was then only the better set off by the contrast of the motley and picturesque concourse that gathered to the feria and of the rich merchandise then piled high in her warehouses. When all this heterogeneous crowd went northward into the interior with its laden caravans 376 THE MANILA GALLEON of mules, or westward by the galleon to the Philippines, Acapulco relapsed into its wonted insignificance. The head of the administrative machinery at the port of Acapulco was the castellan, so called from the fact that his duties included those of warden of the Castle, or Fort, of San Diego. In later times he also acted as "Deputy Governor of the Coast of the South Sea," and the Supplementary Regulations of 1769 designated him as gobernador or governor. Though his jurisdic tion over local affairs was very wide, his principal functions con sisted of the receipt and despatch of the galleon, and of the conduct of the fair. In accordance with the official venality prev alent at Acapulco he gained , annually from his various irregular perquisites as high as 25,000 pesos, though his salary was but a fraction of that sum. On rare occasions a special commissioner, known as a visitador, or visitor, was sent down to Acapulco by the viceroy. This officer then held precedence over the ordinary body of port officials for the duration of his commission. In 1704 Viceroy Albuquerque appointed to this place Joseph de Veitia Linage, author of the Norte de la Contratacidn, the classical work on the trade between Spain and America, and an official of wide ex perience in the commercial service of the government. The viceroy characterized him as an official of "unusual honor, in tegrity, and zeal," while the king declared himself and the vice roy well satisfied with Veitia's work at Acapulco. Sometimes Acapulco came within the scope of a more gen eral investigation. As we have seen, in 1636 Pedro de Quiroga y Moya threw the trade into confusion by his rigorous exercise of this office, but the old easy-going regime at the port was in a measure restored by his successor in the same office, Palafox y Mendoza. Other examples of the visitors-general who held charge at Acapulco were Pedro de Galvez, who followed shortly after Palafox in 1650, the Marques de Rubi in 1764, and Jose de Galvez in 1766. The essentially fiscal side of the administration at Acapulco was in the hands of the two treasury officials. In the beginning of the Philippine trade there was no separate customs service at Acapulco, but that port was under the immediate jurisdiction of the treasury officials at the capital. However, with the grow ing importance of that traffic a separate fiscal management was MEXICO AND PERU 377 introduced, though it continued responsible to the superior finan cial authority of the capital. In 1593 a factor was commissioned by Viceroy Velasco with "jurisdiction over everything pertaining to the royal treasury." The establishment of a special financial arrangement for the port dated from 1597, when a royal order created separate accounting and procurement offices. The heads of these departments constituted the local bureau of accounts, with charge of the double-locked chest, in which the moneys and financial records of the port were kept. They were primarily customs officers in the modern sense of the word, that is, they collected the duties levied on the cargoes of the galleons. They also had general supervision over all other transactions at the port which might affect the financial interests of the crown. They were required to remain at Acapulco until the middle of April, and might then leave for Mexico only with the consent of the viceroy. In order to prepare for the arrival of the next galleon they must leave the capital for their post on the day fol lowing the Feast of the Conception. In some of their functions they were associated with the castellan, or warder of the port, with whom, however, their relations were not always entirely amicable. In his individual capacity each of the treasury officials had a separate set of duties. The proveedor or procurement officer was the purchasing agent of the port. As such his most impor tant task was to supply the galleon with arms, provisions, and other ships' supplies for the return voyage. The contador or accountant was directly responsible for the auditing or certifica tion of the register and other papers pertaining to the cargo of the galleon, whether that of the incoming nao or silver for the return voyage. Among other functionaries at the port were the guardamayor, who acted as chief of the customs guards, the chief clerk of the treasury board, and the commissioner of licenses, who issued the permits for the transport of the silks and other goods to points inland. Ecclesiastical authority at Acapulco was wielded by a parish priest, "The Curate," says Gemelli, "Tho' the King's allowance to him be but 180 pieces of Eight, makes 14,000 a Year, exacting a great rate for burying of strangers, not only those that die at Acapulco, but at Sea aboard the Ships from China and Peru; as 378 THE MANILA GALLEON for instance he will expect iooo pieces of Eight for a rich mer chant." The proceedings which attended the reception of the Manila Galleon, the disposal of her cargo, and the preparations for her return were regulated with the same minuteness of detail as accompanied the operations at Manila. The early rules for gov erning the transactions at Acapulco were contained in a body of viceregal instructions and ordinances. These were supple mented on the one hand by occasional royal decrees and on the other by local orders issued by the port officials on their own responsibility. It was not till the eighteenth century that any effort was made to organize or codify this often conflicting mass of regulations, whose very confusion fostered their frequent in observance. The principal objects of these regulations were to see that the volume of the trade was kept within the bounds pre scribed by law and that the duties on the cargo were properly collected and deposited in the viceregal treasury. Though an elaborate system of precautions was built-up to this end, their purpose was largely defeated by the temptations of the premium placed on their violation. On the first sight of the approaching nao by the lookout stationed on the high Mira to the rear of the town a launch was sent out to meet her and escort her into the harbor. This boat was to see that no one approached the galleon before she was moored and turned over to the custody of the port officials. In case the galleon reached the vicinity of the entrance during the night she had to lie to outside, until daylight and the veering of the breeze to landward enabled her to work her way in through the narrow channel of the Boca Chica. At such a time contraband goods were often lowered over the sides into boats under cover of darkness and carried to a place of concealment on shore. Once inside the harbor and the formal salute ex changed with the guns of the castle, an additional guard was placed upon her, with orders to prevent any unauthorized com munication between vessel and shore. Any craft which ap proached without permission from the guardamayor or his su periors was to be promptly turned away. As soon as the galleon was moored at her place in front of the town, the castellan and treasury officials went on board to make their first visit of inspection. The latter received the ship's MEXICO AND PERU 379 register and book of manifests from the hands of the purser or accountant. The register was then sent off to the capital by special courier and delivered over to the superior bureau of ac counts, which assessed the duties for the cargo on the basis of its contents and then returned it to the coast. The regulations designed the first visit of inspection to be a zealous search for contraband lading, but it usually amounted in reality to a very perfunctory scrutiny of the hold. When the letter of the law had been complied with in this fashion and healths drunk all around, both parties proceeded to the real business of the oc casion—the making of arrangements for the landing of the illegal merchandise. After these preliminary formalities were concluded the work of disembarcation began. The passengers were first allowed to leave the ship, and those who were in health walked in proces sion to church, preceded by the image of the Virgin, while the sick were taken to the hospital. The first goods carried ashore were the personal baggage of the passengers, and the unloading of the main body of the cargo did not begin until these effects were on shore. In fact, the hatches over that part of the hold remained sealed meantime. The laws required that, when once commenced, the landing of the commercial cargo be carried out as expeditiously as possible and that the proper official surveil lance be exercised to see that nothing was sent off which was not duly marked and registered. Each lighterful of bales or chests must proceed as directly to the landingplace as the oars men could row it, and on the way no speech must be held with any suspicious looking craft that might be lurking in its path. As each lot of goods was landed, the second royal official, or his deputy, compared its distinguishing marks with the correspond ing invoices in the book of manifests. Throughout most of the history of the commerce the ship per's own sworn statement—the factum jurada—was accepted without question as a declaration of the contents of the respective packages. The only alternative was, of course, the actual ex amination of the bale or chest. However, the aversion to this procedure was so great on the part of the Manila interest that few officials were daring—or disinterested—enough to defy opinion in both communities by resorting to such a measure, logical and just as it was. The most hated name in the history 38o THE MANILA GALLEON of the commerce was that of Pedro de Quiroga, who opened packages indiscriminately in 1636, thereby violating tradition and the gentleman's understanding that were the guiding principles of the commerce after the early traders had established the rule of illegality. Quiroga's revolutionary activities were not allowed to become a precedent for the future guidance of the port officials, for not only did a decree of two years later prohibit the opening of packages without first notifying the consignor, or his agent, of such intention, but an order of 1640 to the visitor, Palafox, forbade him to make "any innovations in the opening of packages." During the few years when the decree of 1720 was in operation the physical examination of goods was again insisted upon. However, the Regulations of 1734 restored the old custom to a status of legality and the Adiciones of 1769, while granting the power to open packages which appeared particularly sus picious, did not prescribe such procedure as the ordinary rule of action, but only an expedient to be resorted to in unusual cases. Finally, it must be remembered that, in view of the size of the cargo and the methods of packing employed at Manila, the open ing of all the bales and boxes was out of the question, on account of the sheer physical labor that would have been involved, as well as on account of the derangement of the goods which it would have entailed. After the registered cargo had been accounted for in ac cordance with the certified invoices the goods found to be con sistent with their bills of lading were removed to the warehouses, where they were stored, in bond as it were, until the opening of the fair. In case any lot of goods was confiscated such mer chandise was deposited in the royal warehouse until it could be sold on the king's account. Meanwhile, on the return of the courier from Mexico with the statement of the duties which the central bureau of accounts had levied on the cargo, the agents of the Manila shippers arranged with the treasury officials for the lump payment of the tax, which was assessed pro rata on the consignment of each merchant. When all the goods entered on the register and presumably comprehended within the limits of the permiso had been landed, the second inspection was made for the purpose of discovering if anything remained concealed on board. This ceremony completed, the galleon was turned over to the officers of the local shipyard, for the careening MEXICO AND PERU 38i and repairs which were necessary to fit her for her return voyage. The Acapulco feria, which was opened after the termination of these preliminary proceedings, Humboldt called "the most renowned fair of the world." Its general characteristics were similar to those of the fairs long held at Jalapa on the other side of Mexico and at Porto Bello on the isthmus. There were the same regulated transactions between two groups of merchants— three in the case of Acapulco—proceeding from widely separated regions of the same empire, and the same ephemeral transforma tion of an otherwise unimportant place into a city of feverish and picturesque activity. Although the approach of the galleon was known as soon as a courier reached the capital from some point on the north west coast with news of its having been sighted or with its first papers, the official proclamation for the opening of the fair was not issued in Mexico and the other cities of the viceroyalty until the nao had reached her destination and the duplicate papers had arrived from Acapulco. However, before the day set by the viceroy thousands were pouring southward over the "China Road" to the coast of the Pacific. There were traders of every category—from Indian hawkers and hucksters to great merchants of Mexico; soldiers and king's officials; begging friars and curs ing muleteers and porters; and the fringe of followers who went to minister to the pleasures of the rest. In Acapulco they mingled with those who had come from Peru and with those whom the galleon had brought from the Orient. For the greater picturesqueness of the throng the latter added the Filipino and Lascar seamen, often some Chinese, and perhaps a few Kaffirs that had been carried to Manila from the Mozambique country by way of Goa. Gemelli Careri thus describes the metamorphosis which he saw come over the town in two days of January 1697: "Most of the Officers and Merchants that came aboard the Peru Ships, went to lie ashore, bringing with them two Millions of pieces of Eight to lay out in Commodities of China; so that Friday 25 Acapulco was converted from a rustick Village into a populous City; and the Huts before inhabitated by dark Mulattos were all fill'd with gay Spaniards; to which was added on Saturday 26th a great concourse of Merchants from Mexico, with abundance of pieces of Eight and Commodities of the Coun 382 THE MANILA GALLEON try and of Europe. Sunday 27th there continu'd to come in abundance of Commodities and Provisions to serve so great a multitude of Strangers." For the direction of the actual commercial transactions at the fair, as distinguished from the supervisory authority of the regular port officials, the viceroy named two representatives of the trading interests of the capital. These men, with an agent from Puebla, were to treat with the deputies of Manila for the terms of exchange, such as the price at which each class of goods was to be sold. The settlement of the sale value of the cargo in this fashion and the rigid observance of the limitation of the permiso would have precluded the possibility of any subsequent bargaining between the merchants of the two parties. However, as between the official theory and the actual practice of the traders there was the usual inconsistence. There was always much haggling and sharp dealing. Though a conspiracy by either side to force a scale of prices on the other was not permitted by the law, the trading agents and supercargoes from Manila often found themselves the victims of an agreement among the united Mexican interests. Sometimes a combination of the richer trad ing houses of the capital attempted to dictate prices to the Manilenos, or they might delay making their purchases as long as possible, in order to force the latter to sell at low figures for the sake of returning to Manila with the proceeds by the galleon of the year. The islanders' chance for a favorable market depended largely at such times on the strength of the competition of the Peruvians. As the latter were usually better supplied with silver, they did all possible to bargain independently with them. Gemelli thus describes his experience with a Peruvian: "Tuesday 5th, I was much annoy'd with the Heat and Gnats; but much more on Wednesday 6th, by the babling of a Merchant of Peru, for he according to the Custom of that Nation, endeavouring to talk me into a Bargain, gave me a violent Headache, and yet we con cluded upon nothing. The Spaniards of New Spain are of an other Temper, for they deal Generously and Gentilely as becomes them." In case the Lima ship failed to come, or in the rather unusual eventuality of a union of the Mexican and Peruvian buyers, the Manilenos were liable to be driven to hard straits to dispose of their cargo at any advantage. Their position was MEXICO AND PERU 383 often made more difficult by the interested collusion of the port officials with their rivals, as well as by the vexations and extor tions to which those officials subjected them. Thus, the officials sometimes delayed the publication of the viceroy's proclamation for the opening of the fair until a few days before the date set for the clearing of the galleon for Manila, a manoeuvre which had the same effect as the decision of the Mexican buyers to withhold their purchases until the last moment. But neither were the Manilenos without guilt. The trampas de la China, or "Chinese frauds," by which they strove to defeat the purpose of the permiso restriction, and to introduce their excess lading into New Spain without paying either duty to the crown or com position money to the crown's officials, certainly gave them little ground for complaining of the tricks and devices of their rivals, and in fact emulated them by their own conduct. Or again, it might be the small Mexican buyers who suffered, when the more powerful merchants arranged with the Philippine committee to take over the larger part, or all, of the cargo. Sometimes the latter bought the mass of the cargo before the galleon had reached Acapulco, by sending an agent to the ship as she proceeded down the northwest coast. Finally, these Mexican and Peruvian traders merely claimed consignments made to them by their agent in the islands under a fictitious entry in the galleon's register. Thus, the fair, which was designed to proceed with "all formality and quietude," was only too often a hurly-burly of questionable deal ings and violent contentions, mitigated only by the restraint of Spanish hidalguia and the occasional vigilance of loyal officials. All sales made in the ordinary course of the fair had to be registered in detail at the local bureau of accounts. These cer tificates of sale not only served as basis for the issuing of the licenses which had to accompany every consignment destined for the interior, but such records were essential in computing the aggregate returns of silver to Manila. All the silver which en tered Acapulco was, moreover, required to be accompanied by a license issued at the place from which it had come. In fact, so great was the anxiety of the official regulations to keep the trade within bounds that scarcely a peso was permitted to cir culate about Acapulco without being registered somewhere. No buyer was allowed to remove his purchases from Acapulco until the fair was officially proclaimed to be closed, nor could one of 384 THE MANILA GALLEON the Manilenos anticipate the arrival at Mexico of the authorized mule-trains by forwarding goods ahead to be sold before that date. When that time came the long caravans of mules laden with merchandise trailed out of Acapulco and up the mountain road into the interior. The more affluent merchants and passengers off the galleon went north in festive cavalcades, though some, like Gemelli, preferred the hardier and more sure-footed mules for their journey. With them went all those who, in one way or another, had shared in the harvest that attended the feria. The Peruvians, who may have carried on their operations quite openly at Acapulco, or more clandestinely at the nearby haven of Puerto del Marques, boarded their ship and cleared her for the south. "Thursday, 7th," reads an entry in Gemelli's journal, "the Porters of Acapulco made a sort of Funeral, carrying one of their number on a Beer, and bewailing him as if he were dead, because their harvest was at an end; for some of them had got three pieces of Eight a day, and the worst of them one." There only remained the permanent inhabitants of the place, and those who were engaged in the preparation of the galleon for her return voyage. In New Spain the "China Road" ranked in importance with the eastward camino by Puebla and Orizaba to Vera Cruz. About no leagues, by the computation of the muleteers, it stretched north from Acapulco to Mexico through the modern states of Guerrero and Morelos. Its course followed approximately the route of the 282 mile automobile highway opened a few years ago between the two places. As the road led out of Acapulco it entered the rugged defiles of the Sierra Madre del Sur; "vast high Mountains," Gemelli called them. Through this wild region the only signs of habitation were the inns located every three or four leagues and an occasional Indian village. The road led through dense forests over steep mountains, like that of the Papagayo, and across the river of the same name, and thence by the pleasant town of Chilpancingo, lying among corn fields. This was the most considerable place between Cuernavaca and Acapulco, and had several Spanish inhabitants. Above Zumpango there followed nine leagues of travel through a barren plain, which Gemelli likened to "that of Tirol." This brought the road to the Rio Mexicala, or Rio de las Balsas, as it was called AO/. Road from Acapulco to Mexico City. From copy of an Eighteenth Century map in the Library of Congress. 385 3«6 THE MANILA GALLEON from the rafts on which travelers crossed, propelled by swim ming Indians. The next stop was at Tuspa, or Pueblo Nuevo, as Gemelli knew it in 1698, a village situated by a small lake. Thence the way led through a mountainous country for some twelve leagues to another river at Puente de Ixtla, and beyond through a district of wooded hills and Indian villages to the rich valley of Cuernavaca. This favored region contained a large number of Spanish inhabitants and in it were situated the wide domains of the Marques del Valle, head of the Cortes family. After the capital, this was one of the best markets in all the viceroyalty for the goods which the mule caravans brought that way from Acapulco. From the brim of the ardent tierra caliente the road climbed onto the great central plateau, over the encir cling fringe of mountains and through a large pine forest, from which it descended by the Subida del Arencd into the Valley of Mexico. Thence it was a frequented route across a cultivated plain by the village of San Agustin de las Cuevas and the customs stations to the causeway that led over the lake to the gates of the capital. Travel over the "China Road" was mostly by mule-back, and little was done to make it usable for wheeled traffic until the last years of the galleon trade. After the discontinuance of the latter great blocks of stone lay alongside the highway that was to have been. Conditions of travel were always very primitive. Accommodations were few and discomforts were manifold. The arrieros, who conducted the long trains of mules, camped in the fields or woods with their charges. The ordinary traveler also spent the nights on the way lying "under the Canopy of Heaven," unless he were able to make the widely scattered inns at nightfall. These inns were very rude hostelries, except at Chilpancingo and Cuernavaca, and were usually conducted by Indian mesoneros, who though obliging, like the one Gemelli encountered at Amacusac, knew little of the fine art of tavernkeeping. The Italian globe-trotter passed the night in a posada at Atlaxo, which consisted of five cabins "Thatch'd and Palisado'd about." "Here a legion of Gnats sucked my Blood all Night," he complains, while the Tarascan inn-keeper forced him to pay a "Piece-of-Eight for a Pullet, and about a Penny a piece for Eggs." On the edibility of tortillas Gemelli remarked: "Hot they are tolerable; but when cold I could scarce get them down." MEXICO AND PERU 387 However, he was compensated for the fare at the inns by the game which he was able to kill along the way. The Jesuit, Pere Taillandier, who went down from Mexico to Acapulco in 171 1, says of the facilities for travelers : "The poor hostelries of Mexico had accustomed us to do without a bed and all the other douceurs which the traveller enjoys in France." When Teodoro de Croix journeyed over the road in 1767 to take up his duties as castellan at Acapulco he described the roads as "impracticable," and had to carry all his provisions from Mexico and sleep beneath the stars. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>®<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHAPTER 12 FLEETS AND GALLEONS IT was a proverbially unmercantile people who for two and a half centuries carried on the trade between the Philippines and Mexico. Foreign observers have been disposed to accuse the Spaniards of a lack of economic sense and application, while many national writers have frankly admitted and lamented their countrymen's lack of interest and understanding and initiative in commercial enterprise. Lafuente, the historian, explains the shortcomings of his people in this respect in these words: "Agri culture, industry and the arts could not prosper or flourish in a people who had lived fighting for eight centuries. Their hands had always been busy wielding a lance instead of a plow, a sword instead of a brush, and an arquebus instead of an ox-goad. Spaniards had spent their lives building and tearing down cas tles and fortifications in the mountains and on the hilltops in stead of toiling in the factories and workshops of the towns and cities." In 1619 Sancho de Moncada had said: "Since the for eigners are more diligent than the Spaniards, they fill almost all the trades in Spain. Thus, they perform what little work has remained to be done, and with their natural quickness they have excluded the Spaniards from everything, until they occupy all the gainful occupations that were once monopolized by the Moriscoes. Meanwhile the Spaniards go idle and poor." Fran cisco Leandro de Viana condemned his people's "pernicious vanity, inaction and sloth." In 1814 the Duque de Montemar wrote to Ferdinand II: "We must acknowledge in good faith that the foreigners excel us in activity and industry, although we are superior to them in other respects." Spanish society was long dominated by an aristocratic senti ment which discriminated against those who trafficked, and in a people so sensitive to personal dignity this prejudice barred a mercantile career to the ambitious or the socially aspiring. The 388 FLEETS AND GALLEONS 389 caste of grandees, with their vast landed territories, were pre vented by the traditions of their order from commercial activity, while their very riches placed them beyond the need for such enterprises. Below these, however, there was a very plague of nobility of lower category, but with all the pride of the Velascos or Guzmans, and with an equal disdain of profitable labor. The populations of entire towns or provinces were sometimes granted blanket patents of nobility, that were little more than general privileges of exalted idleness. An example is the town of Simancas, in whose medieval castle are kept the historical archives of the monarchy. For trade and hidalguia, in its literal sense as the status of an hidalgo, were incompatible. Nobility itself assumed the proportions of a profession, like arms and the service of the Church, both of which also enjoyed an exaggerated prestige and an exemption from profitable labor.1 The Spaniard had also long associated trade and other gainful pursuits with the Jew and the Morisco, who were racially and religiously antipathetic to him, so that his penchant for material disinterestedness be came, like the purity of his blood, a badge of national superiority. Thus, slothfulness gained a dignified standing that was irrecon cilable with the economic progress of the nation. Otium cum dignitate was in a real sense a national creed. The natural frugality of a people unused for centuries to luxury removed much of the spur for continuous effort that a business career would have enforced on them. Prejudices of caste and race, the ingrained habits of centuries, the lack of internal order, that increased the normal risks of trade—these were serious obstacles to Spain in the development of a healthy national and imperial economy. Finally, the intense individualism of the race, which made cooperative action so difficult and which caused the san guinary civil wars in Central America and Peru during the conquista, militated against the conduct of large business undertakings, at which the English and the Dutch were so apt. The judgment of commercial disinclination or ineptitude cannot be applied unqualifiedly to the entire Spanish nation. Among the different peoples of the Spains the Castilians, a 1 W. Somerset Maugham says of the Spain of the sixteenth century: "The times were insecure and means of livelihood hard to come by. The cloister promised safety and at least bed and board. Trade was disastrous and those engaged in it were despised." Don Fernando, p. 269. 39« THE MANILA GALLEON plateau race, without the instinct of coast folk for trade, were peculiarly unsuited for the conduct of business on a large scale. And the favored position of Castile in the imperial scheme scarcely tended to promote the economic welfare of the empire. On the other hand, the Basques, the Valencians, the inhabitants of the Andalusian port cities, and the Catalans must be excepted in varying degrees from this general estimate. The latter had long carried on a very considerable commerce the length of the Medi terranean, while Barcelona had been the peer of the maritime republics of Italy. Yet inhabitants of Catalonia were not con ceded the right to trade in the Antilles until 1765, in South America until 1775, and Mexico was not opened to them until 1789. In spite of this prohibition, it was a Catalan, Serra, who established the purely Spanish trade between the Philippines and India, and it was another, Grau y Monfalcon, one-time syndic of Barcelona, whose wide acquaintance with affairs of commerce so effectively served the interests of Manila as procurador-general of the colony. The conditions which operated against a healthy economic life in the peninsula were considerably modified in the overseas dominions of Spain, particularly in Peru and the Philippines. In a new environment, far from the prejudices and conventions of the homeland and with opportunities for enrichment all about, Spaniards might turn to a career of systematic money-making with unexpected initiative and energy. Juan and Ulloa, the royal inspectors, who visited South America from 1735 to 1746, said of the Peruvians: "Commerce is so far from being considered as a disgrace at Lima, that the greatest fortunes have been raised by it; those on the contrary, being rather despised, who not being blessed with a sufficient estate, through indolence, neglect to have recourse to it for improving their fortunes. This custom, or resource, which was established there without any determinate end, being introduced by a vain desire of the first Spaniards to acquire wealth, is now the real support of that splendour in which those families live; and whatever repugnance these mili tary gentlemen might originally have to commerce, it was imme diately removed by a royal proclamation, by which it was de clared that commerce in the Indies should not exclude from no bility or the military orders; a very wise measure, and of which Spain would be still more sensible, were it extended to all its FLEETS AND GALLEONS 39i dependencies." 2 They pointed out that, in contrast to the Quito country to the north, gain was "the universal passion" in Lima, "interest here preponderating against any other consideration." During the reign of the Catholic Kings there began within Spain a growth that would appear to belie the national reputation of commercial ineptitude. At that time several circumstances combined to give a vigorous impulse to the industries of the newly-united kingdom, especially to textile and metal manufac tures and to internal and foreign trade. The nation had not adopted the attitude of fierce intransigence toward foreigners which came with the full menace of Protestant heresy and with the bitter national antagonisms that grew up in the first half of the sixteenth century. However, the seeds of that time were already planted in the ambitious European policy of Ferdinand. Especially during the international regime of Charles V did foreigners take a prominent part in the economic life of Spain. Italians, Flemings and Germans were active in Spanish industry, banking, and trade, while flourishing relations with the Dutch and Genoese contributed to the new movement. To that extent it was an exotic development, fostered by impulses that were strange to the country. However, the Spanish mind was more alert than ever before, while the Inquisition had not yet discouraged secular thought. There was also a surplus of energy in the people and widespread confidence in the future. The rulers wisely encouraged the new growth, while they gave the first rational government Spain had known since the caliphs. After the feudal anarchy of the Trastamara period, royal tribunals of justice, inexorable corregidors, and the trained forces of the hermandades of the cities insured a measure of the order that was necessary to the prosecution of trade. Under such auspices Spain bid fair to have a real bour geoisie, rich and influential, and a population of skilled and in dustrious artisans. Added to these circumstances, the discovery and opening-up—the mise en vcdeur—of the New World gave to Spanish industry wide outlets that no other nation, save the Portuguese in India, were in a position to enjoy. Finally, the * A royal decree of 1621 directed the viceroys and audiencias in the Indies tcf urge all idle Spaniards to work. However, the king recommended that it be done "with great adroitness and good humour." 392 THE MANILA GALLEON possession of the gold and silver production of the American mines offered a valuable national asset—if put into its proper place in the economy of the country. Yet, it was a serious question whether Spain would be equal to the opportunities and responsibilities of her new situation. Her physical resources at home were none too great and her population was small, and further decimated by emigration to the colonies. Large-scale manufacturing and world commerce were strange adventures to the Castilians, unused to the sus tained effort required by such enterprises and somewhat doubtful of their propriety. Before the end of the sixteenth century this flourishing pros pect was cut off by a concurrence of disastrous influences which left Spain economically and politically decadent. Altamira, the Spanish historian, gives as the causes ,of the decline: "the igno rance of the great mass of the population; the economic inequal ity, which resulted from the concentration of property in entailed estates and in mortmain; the lack of communications; the burden of taxes; the disorder in the administration of the country; the frequent wars; and the persistence in a considerable part of the people of the repugnance for manual labor, and the survival of the old ideas on charity and mendicancy." Altamira writes with the perspective of centuries behind him, but contemporary Spaniards understood only imperfectly the national economy and the forces that determined its direction. An example of the current confusion is seen in Sancho de Moncada, whose Restauracidn politica de Espana was an effort to analyze the ills of the age. Along with many shrewd observa tions and bold suggestions, he proposes such odd remedies for the fallen state of the nation as the expulsion of the gypsies. Much of the decline he ascribed to the startling depopulation of the country. "We see Spain poor," he observed, "because she lacks inhabitants." The people gave themselves up to bad living and indulgence, he complained, frequenting "the places of vices, such as gaming houses, the comedy theatres, the taverns, and the places of vanity, like the tailors' shops." "Many are dying of hunger," he continues, "and the birth-rate has fallen greatly owing to the decline in the numbers of marriages by half." Moncada also condemned the number of ecclesiastics, for, "with the multitude of them, great relaxation of morals and evil ex FLEETS AND GALLEONS 393 ample have been introduced." The colonies he held of doubt ful value. "The poverty of Spain," he said, "has resulted from the discovery of the Western Indies." Finally, he ascribes the downfall of national industry to the entrance of foreigners and their wares into the commerce of the Spains. "The radical remedy for Spain," he concludes, "lies in prohibiting the entrance of manufactured goods from abroad." The change was at work before the abdication of the worldweary emperor in 1555, as Spain began to draw within herself and frown upon the foreigner, on whose importations she became more and more dependent in her own increasing industrial ster ility. Under the rule of Philip II and of his Hapsburg successors, the people went back to the old national habits, and the lately aroused commercial energies subsided before the military and missionary instincts of the old Castilian. Initiative was either buried in the pious inertia of convents, or the superior idleness of the impecunious caballero and the professional mendicant or it found a place in the program of royal or ecclesiastical ambition, —in the tercios or in the service of the Holy Office. However, when Rocroi followed on Breda and Nordlingen even the repu tation of the great infantry was gone. Fernandez Duro, the his torian of the Spanish navy, thus pictures the decay of the nation: "Her military reputation, her ascendency on the seas, her famed political policies, and the riches that seemed inexhaustible, had long since disappeared. There were left, for the remembrance of so much greatness, an undisciplined army, a navy of rotting ships, an incapable government, and an empty treasury." Yet, to the mass of Castilians, Spain was still "the terror of the na tions," and to them "the glory of the monarchy seemed almost eternal." The spirit of the cities, the one progressive element in the country, had been broken by the royal army at Villalar. The crown, absolute and unintelligent, remained ignorant or con temptuous of the economic needs of the nation. "Spain is on the verge of destruction," a commission, appointed to set aright the ruined state, warned the king in 1618. The looms stopped and the fields were deserted, but the Escorial had been built and the marriage ceremonies at the Bidasoa in 1660 were of sur passing magnificence. No line of modern kings has so ill served a state as the Hapsburgs served Spain. Neither did the three 394 THE MANILA GALLEON Philips nor Charles II, nor their favorites, the Lermas and Olivares, pursue more than a fitful policy toward the national resources. "The Castillian lawmakers," has written Lafuente, "were ignorant of the laws of commerce, as they were ignorant of the principles of a sound economic administration, and had the most erroneous ideas on the public wealth." The only approach to a guiding principle was a negative one—the exclusion of foreigners from the trade of the empire. The prohibitions against aliens fill thirty-seven laws in the Laws of the Indies, one of which, issued from the Escorial by Philip III in 1614, decrees the penalty of death and confiscation of all his property against any Spaniard who should trade with the for eigner. Spain's very expansion from a provincial state into a world empire entailed upon her complications with aspiring peoples who were more liberal and energetic and resourceful, if not more brave and devoted. Their hostility on the sea and their competition in the peninsular and colonial markets hastened the decline inaugurated by internal causes. Spanish industry was inadequately prepared to meet the great influx of foreign goods which undersold the native product. In the face of the decreas ing national capacity for production, and in spite of spasmodic protective legislation, Spaniards were driven more and more to dependence on the foreigners who were drawn to Spain by the presence of American gold and silver. "Our navy declined," wrote Viana, "our great manufactures in Seville, Segovia and other places retrograded, and our commerce deteriorated with the continental wars, and as we did not repair this damage, we were at the same time promoting the commerce of other nations. They have made themselves rich through our negligence and inactivity—selling to us all the more commodities the more we abandoned manufactures, and with their gains increasing their shipping the more that we gave up shipbuilding—until in these latest reigns our shipping and commerce have been re-estab lished." The foreigners broke into the American trade as well. There were two doors to this field,—the indirect gate through Cadiz, and direct smuggling into the colonies. By the former the foreign goods were brought to the Bay of Cadiz, and there loaded onto the ships of the fleets bound for the Spanish Americas. If the transfer at this point were too dangerous in view of the hos FLEETS AND GALLEONS 395 tility of the port officials, it was carried on through the interme diation of a Spanish agent, who lent his name to the transaction for a liberal commission. There were large colonies of foreign merchants in Seville and Cadiz from the sixteenth century. In 1712 there were over 5,000 Genoese in Cadiz, while at least twenty English trading houses were established there. "In Cadiz," wrote Viana, "the commerce of the foreigners is greater than that of the Spaniards, the latter (with the exception of some strong business houses, which have been built up in this century) support themselves by being figureheads for the former." The alternative was direct contraband operations to the coasts of Spanish America. When Spanish sea-power had lost its control over the trade routes, this illegitimate traffic reached large proportions. Here was a rich field defended by august threats and venal officials. In fact, the introductions of smug gled goods and the importations of foreign-made merchandise by the fleets came to exceed the sales of national commodities in the colonies. Sancho de Moncada declared in 1619 that nine-tenths of the trade with the Spanish Indies belonged to foreigners. "Thus the Indies belong to them," he said, "and only the title to them belongs to your Majesty." It was this trade for which England fought the War of the Spanish Succession. For an ef fective French monopoly then threatened to supersede a vulner able Spanish policy of exclusiveness ; but whereas France under Louis XIV enjoyed a specially favored status in Spanish com merce, England won by the Peace of Utrecht the famous asiento privilege. The concession of the Porto Bello ship, which was a feature of this treaty and which was so grossly abused by the Eng lish, only amounted to a legalization of long-standing contra band practices. These she continued in other parts of the Spanish Indies in spite of improved , measures of defense against interlopers, and after Spain in 1750 had obtained the revocation of the obnoxious asiento. It 1 was not only the competition with her own industries to which Spain objected, but the resultant loss of the precious metals that went to pay for foreign merchandise. As owner of the world's richest sources of gold and, silver, Spaniards had an extreme and unsound faith in their value as the ultimate com ponent of national riches, rather than as instruments for the fur ther increase of productive wealth. Too many Spaniards believed 396 THE MANILA GALLEON that the mere transfer of the silver of PorosLand Zacatecas to the national hoard of Spain would enrich th~ country beyond those prosaic peoples who toiled at looms and forges and pushed out into strange seas for new markets. The very influx of so much treasure into Spain led the Spaniards to | hold a false idea of the national wealth and lulled them into a mistaken sense of eco nomic security. Yet, in spite of elaborate precautions against this diversion, a large part of the gold and silver received from the Indies inevit ably found its way to other nations. "The Spanish Treasure cannot be kept from other kingdoms by any prohibition made in Spain," wrote the Englishman, Mun, in 1664; and over a cen tury later Adam Smith said: "All the sanguinary laws of Spain and Portugal are not able to keep their gold and silver at home." "All the silver that is coined in the 1 dominions of Spain," wrote Viana, "comes to a halt in foreign kingdoms, among our greatest enemies. The treasures of the Indies pass through the aqueduct of Cadiz without leaving even a trace in the conduits of the Spanish merchants, as can be demonstrated by comparing the riches that the Indies have produced and the poverty of the Spaniards." "It is well known," said the Marquis de Villars, who represented Louis XIV at the court of Philip V, "that of these great treasures of the Indies more than two-thirds go directly to foreign countries, without ever entering Spain, either as the pro ceeds of sales made in the Indies on their own account by dif ferent companies and private individuals, or through the use of Spanish agents." Colbert, Louis XIV's famous minister, re marked: "The more trade a state has with the Spaniards, the more money it has." If the moribund Spain of Charles II saw the almost total collapse of her economic order, the Bourbons who followed him on the throne eventually brought in a more intelligent direction of affairs and an economic policy that was more definite and thoroughgoing, though still nationalistic. The new regime reached its climax in the enlightened reign of Charles III (175988), though much of what was then gained was lost under his reactionary successors. His government encouraged the revival of manufacturing industry, introduced foreign workers to teach the Spaniards the industrial processes of the day, and recon structed the national marine. This was also the period of the FLEETS AND GALLEONS 397 Sociedad Econdmica, with its movement for economic enlight enment, of the Bank of San Carlos, the Royal Philippine Com pany, and the edict of Libre comercio, with its radical loosening of the old restrictions on colonial trade. "Only a free and pro tected commerce between Spaniards in Europe and in the Amer icas can reestablish agriculture, industry, and the people to their ancient vigor in my dominions,"—with these words began this famous law of 1778. The illiberality of the traditional restrictions on trade within the Spanish Empire is famed. Thomas Carlyle said of the com merce of Spanish America after the Wars of Independence: "Trade everywhere, in spite of multiplex confusions, has in creased, is increasing; the days of somnolent monopoly and the old Acapulco Ship are gone, quite over the horizon." Yet, it must be admitted in extenuation of their irrational character that other nations had not advanced far, if at all, beyond the Spanish concept of the relation of dependencies to the mothercountry. The England of George III was as jealous of the pros perity of its colonies as was the Spain of Charles III. "Other countries of Europe," has said a German historian, "built up their power via the same religious, political, and economic prin ciples, and came to no special harm through them. . . . All states were striving for nationalization of their economic life and freedom from foreign economic dominion. . . . Spain failed largely because of the lack of a cohesive government, able to hold the empire together, and because of the financial burdens of her international policy." Crawford, the Scotch historian of the East Indies, said in 1820: "The Spanish government has never, in the case of its Indian dominions, pursued, like other nations, the visionary and pernicious principle of drawing a direct profit from the commercial industry of the colonies, by appearing in the character of the sole or chief merchant. On the contrary, private industry, though injudiciously shackled, has been per mitted some scope and the wholesome principles of competition have had some operation." Over a century before it had been affirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht, as the "fundamental law" of colonial commerce, that no people might trade with the colonies of another. However, said the Duque de Montemar in 1817: "Even fundamental laws yield to the imperious law of necessity. Fundamental laws cease to be such the moment they serve rather 398 THE MANILA GALLEON for the destruction than for the conservation of a state, and the old mercantile system of the Americas is in this situation." For Spain the problem was the familiar one of colonizing powers of the mercantilist era. She would prevent a lusty com mercial growth in the colonies from competing with home in dustry; hence her concern over the effects of the Manila Galleon trade in Chinese silks on the colonial market for peninsula cloth. The colonies should contribute a steady supply of bullion to her store of the precious metals; hence her anxiety over the drain of Mexican silver to China. She would keep the colonies economi cally—and so, politically—dependent on herself; hence her dis trust of the silk industry in Mexico. For Spanish statesmen real ized that the consciousness of economic self-sufficiency might well be the prelude to aspirations for independence. Revillagigedo, one of the ablest of the later viceroys, said : "It should not be lost sight of that New Spain is a colony which ought to be dependent on the mother-country. For the benefits which it receives in the way of protection it should reciprocate with certain contribu tions. It requires great prudence to regulate this dependence and to see that the interest in its maintenance is mutual and recipro cal, for it would cease the moment that the necessity was no longer felt here for European [i.e., Spanish] manufactures and other products." Adam Smith, a contemporary of the viceroy, said: "To prohibit a great people from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind." Yet, the views of the author of The Wealth of Na tions had the support of only a small minority of British opinion. They certainly did not represent the policy of the government that lost the American colonies in his own time. In spite of the basic theory of her colonial rule and of the mass of restrictive laws that were designed for its application, Spain often compromised in practice with her ruling principles, in order to bring about a proper balance within the empire and, in fact, to hold it together at all. Even if grudgingly, she made many concessions from a policy that seemed inexorable, in order to preserve "the proper co-ordination of the members of the mystical body of the monarchy." Spain employed various devices for holding her colonies in FLEETS AND GALLEONS 399 economic dependence. She limited inter-colonial trade and communication, as between Peru and New Spain. It was in tended that migration from one part of the Indies to another should be made as difficult as possible. Thus, she preferred to colonize the Philippines with peninsular Spaniards rather than with the creoles from Mexico, whose dual loyalty was feared. Access to the colonies was limited to certain stipulated ports of entry. Vera Cruz, Cartagena, and Porto Bello were long almost the sole lawful gateways into Spanish America. The only per mitted avenue to Buenos Aires and the River Plate country was roundabout by way of the Isthmus of Panama and Peru. The fleet system of trade facilitated the enforcement of these restric tions, which also simplified the administration of colonial trade by restricting the points of entry. The arrangement was finally abolished in 1778, when the decree of Libre comercio opened twenty ports in the Americas to direct trade with Spain. The necessary complement of these restrictions was the monopoly of the American trade by Seville or Cadiz, whereby the colonies would only receive European goods through one of these ports. For the colonists violation or evasion was the only escape from the full effects of the restrictive system, unless tedious pe titioning could, after long efforts, gain extension of privilege. Consequently, official laxity and corruption prevailed everywhere. "Neither honor, conscience, fear nor recognition of the fact that they are paid high salaries by the king can keep the officials faithful to their charge," wrote Juan and Ulloa, the royal investi gators sent to Peru in the eighteenth century. "Charles V was right," said the Marques de Croix, viceroy of New Spain, in 1767, "when he said that it was less trouble to keep his Flemings from drinking than his Spaniards from stealing." The royal agents identified themselves with the creoles and aided in defeating the purpose of regulations they were sworn to execute. At least a passive resistance was offered to unwelcome decrees from Spain, and laws were often indefinitely suspended or altered in their interpretation from their expressed purpose. Such indirect diso bedience to royal orders was considered a venal offense in the official circles of the Indies. This prevailing attitude is well shown by the casuistical phrase current in the colonies: se guarda la orden, pero no se cumple. That is to say, royal orders were scrupulously respected, but not complied with. 400 THE MANILA GALLEON Except for the rather nominal legislative supremacy of the king—the lofty fiction of the "yo el rey"—the superior authorityover the commerce, as well as over other matters of the empire, was the Council of the Indies. "The Council shall have supreme jurisdiction over the Indies, and make laws, and examine statutes, and be obeyed in these and those kingdoms,"—so runs the old law. As in reality the final authority over the colonies, it decided the economic policies that were to govern the industry and trade of the overseas empire, and drew up the ordinances for their administration. The usual process of legislation was as follows: the first im pulse of a law generally originated in a memorial or petition addressed to the crown—in the later eighteenth century to the ministro-general, or "general minister." This request for legisla tive action was referred from the royal despacho or secretaria to the Council of the Indies. Here it was discussed, and the virtual form of the legislation to be issued was decided upon in consul tation with that most important official, the fiscal. The acuerdo, or decision of the Council, was then referred to the "King," whence it was despatched to the proper colonial authorities as the expression of the royal will. In its final form as a law the word ing of the royal cédula or decree often differed but very little from that of the memorial from the colonies which had pro voked it. The jurisdiction of the Council extended to the Philippine trade, as well as to that between Spain and the Americas. How ever, even in its period of highest efficiency and with the accumu lated colonial experience of its members, it was unable to handle adequately the enormous mass of business brought before it. On extraordinary occasions a junta of persons especially qualified to deal with the question at issue was convened for the purpose of advising the Council. During the eighteenth century the Bour bons, in line with their plans for greater administrative centrali zation, transferred much of the authority of the Council to a ministry of the Indies. The ministro-general, in the person of such men as Julian de Arriaga, Jose de Galvez, and Antonio de Valdez, then had the last word in overseas affairs. The body which exercised administrative control over the trade with the western Indies, and its subsidiary branches in American waters, was the famous Casa de contratacidn. It had FLEETS AND GALLEONS 401 little to do with the Manila-Acapulco line, beyond the prosecu tion of foreigners who were found within the sphere of the latter navigation. Its title can be translated literally as the "house of trade," but English writers, drawing on home analogy, have generally called it the "India House." It was founded at Seville in 1503, and so antedated the full organization of the superior Council of the Indies, to which it was forced to give up some of its attributes, and to which it was subordinated. From 1555 the Casa maintained a branch at Cadiz to take charge of such busi ness in connection with the commerce as must be transacted there. With the silting-up of the channel of the lower Guadal quivir, it became impossible for the larger vessels of the naviga tion to reach Seville. Cadiz thereby became the natural termi nal for the line, and in 1717 the Casa was transferred to the coast city, where it remained until its extinction in 1790. The removal of the Casa "ended the prosperity of Seville." The Casa's posi tion largely depended on the monopoly of the colonial trade by a single city, and when in 1778 the edict of Libre comercio threw the Indies open to nearly all the ports of Spain, the Casa thereby automatically lost much of its justification for existence, though the edict decreeing its suppression was not issued until 1790. Its powers during the remainder of the colonial regime were largely shared between the consulados of the newly privileged ports and the Ministry of the Indies, although the Consulado of Cadiz pre served a considerable residue of the declining prerogatives of the Casa. Like most such institutions, the Casa de contratación was at its foundation not endowed with the full attributes of its prime, but these were assigned to it gradually. It inherited some of the character of the old admiralty of Castile, with many of the func tions later exercised by Fonseca before the colonial service was completely organized. It was at first charged with the prepara tion of voyages of exploration to America. With the institution of regular commerce with the new settlements it took on the character of a trading factory, while it was also early endowed with the status of a judicial tribunal. Veitia Linage, the leading contemporary authority on its administration, wrote of the offi cials of the full-fledged Casa: "They had cognizance of the ob servance and execution of everything that was prescribed for the navigation and traffic with the Indies, both in civil and criminal 402 THE MANILA GALLEON matters." Its principal function was the preparation and despatch of the trading fleets and their convoys to the Gulf-Caribbean ports and their reception on their return from America. It had to find ships, armaments, and supplies for the fleets, and officers, crews, and soldiers to man them. On the return of the fleet the proceeds of the voyage were distributed to the respective shippers. The Casa was also charged with the collection of the duties on the cargoes and of the royal share of the gold and silver imported. It controlled emigration and passage to the Indies, and its cartog raphers drew up charts for the navigation, while it also trained the pilots of the line. In accordance with its status as a royal audiencia, it had a wide jurisdiction over cases which arose in connection with the trade and navigation. The Consulado of Seville, styled in the Laws of the Indies, Universidad de los cargadores a las Indias or "University of ship pers to the Indies," were organized by royal decree of 1543, largely on the models of the venerable bodies of Barcelona, Valencia and Burgos. Whereas the Casa represented the crown, the Consulados represented the interests of the merchants. They were essen tially judicial organizations, applying the commercial code to disputes and suits between individuals or companies over such business matters as sales, transactions in foreign exchange, com missions, insurance, and contracts of partnership. During the famous controversy between the interests in the carrera de Indias and the Manila-Acapulco line the Consulados of Seville and Cadiz acted as spokesmen for the former. In the course of time these bodies came to overshadow the Casa in importance and power. The Consulado system was extended to the colonies in 1592, when a royal cédula authorized their foundation in Lima and the City of Mexico. The legal attributes of the consulados in the two viceroyalties were largely analogous to those of the corresponding tribunals in the peninsula. However, their prestige was restricted by the viceroy and the audiencia, and, after the administrative reforms of the Bourbons, by the intendant. As we have seen,3 a consulado was not established in Manila until 1769, when the galleon commerce was already two cen turies old. Important decisions regarding the interests of the trade had generally been made by the body of the citizen-mer3 Sec p. 156. FLEETS AND GALLEONS chants assembled in "open cabildo,"—a town meeting of "city and commerce." Later four representative merchants, .increased to eight in 1708, were named to act as compromisarios, whose duty was to consult in regard to the general management of the commerce. Their recommendations were discussed with the rcgidores, or members of the city council, and on important mat ters were referred to "open cabildo" for final determination of the combined will of the galleon shippers. Strictly judicial cases which could not be settled by an outside agreement between the parties involved were referred to the audiencia or lower tribunals. The Consulado of Manila superseded the old scheme for the management of the galleon trade, with its loose and multifarious responsibilities. A new body of seven men, representing the purely mercantile interests of the colony, was henceforth to have the actual supervision of the galleon trade, subject only to the control of the governor. The great authority of the governor always qualified the ex tent to which the ordinary machinery for the management of the galleon trade exercised its functions. After all, his membership in the various boards which regulated the successive stages of the trading operations,4 his large appointive and ordinance powers, his often arbitrary intervention in the affairs of the commerce, made him the final and determinant factor in the administration of the trade. "No governor or, viceroy in Europe exercises such authority," said Hernando de los Rios Coronel. "Were not the Philippines so remote," wrote Gemelli Careri a century later, "that Government would be coveted by the chief Grandees, be cause his Government is unlimited, the Jurisdiction large, the Prerogatives not to be paralleled, the Conveniences great, the Profit unknown, and the Honour greater than that of Vice-Roy of the Indies." During most of its history the trade of the carrera de Indias between Spain and her American colonies was carried on by means of fleets. This plan was put into effect by royal decree of 156 1 as a means of safeguarding the trading ships from attack by foreigners. There were two of these fleets, which, however, generaly left the Spanish coast in company, to part later in the Antilles, usually in the neighborhood of Dominica or of Guada lupe. Thence the one proceeded westward along the chain of * See Chapter 4. 404 THE MANILA GALLEON the Greater Antilles to its destination in the port of San Juan de Ulua before Vera Cruz. On the way ships were despatched from the fleet to Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Jamaica, Santiago de Cuba, Havana, Honduras and Yucatan. The other directed its course from about Dominica to the Tierra-Firme, or Spanish Main, sending off vessels to various points on the coast—Rio de la Hacha, Venezuela, Cabo de la Vela, and the island of Margarita. The body of the fleet passed some time in the powerfully forti fied harbor of Cartagena de Indias, and finaly ended its voyage at Porto Bello on the isthmus. The general rendezvous on the return passage was Havana, where the united fleets cleared for Spain. The former of these two great sea-caravans, that which supplied New Spain, was known as the flota, or fleet; the other, which supplied South America, as the galeones, or galleons. It was thus called from the armada, or armed convoy of galleons, which guarded the trading-vessels on their passage through the Caribbean. At Jalapa, in the tierra templada above fever-plagued Vera Cruz, the fair of the flota's cargo was held, whence the goods were sent throughout the northern viceroyalty. The great fair of the galeones was held at Porto Bello, where there gathered for the occasion merchants from Peru and Chile, and even from Buenos Aires. From Panama, on the other side of the isthmus, the Armada del Mar del Sur, the so-called "Silver Fleet," carried the merchandise down the Pacific Coast, as it had brought the silver pesos and ingots for exchange at the fair and for shipment to the royal treasury. The galeones to the Spanish Main were discontinued in 1748, and the last flota reached Vera Cruz in January 1778. In each case navios de registro, or "registered ships," sailing singly or in companies, as momentary conditions dictated, superseded the old fleets on the same routes. It was the fact that Spanish silks constituted a substantial share of the cargoes of the trading-fleets which led to the bitter rivalry between the two lines of colonial trade. The hostility between the interests of Andalusia and Manila largely deter mined the character of the restrictive regulations issued for the Philippine-American trade. Agitation against the latter began almost from its inception—as soon as the importation of Chinese fabrics into Mexico and Peru was felt by the commerce of Seville. FLEETS AND GALLEONS 405 In 1589 the Consulado of Seville complained to Philip II: "When the fleets from Castille arrive they now have less sale for their goods, since the market is supplied by cheaper merchandise from China and the Philippines. This results in great damage and prejudice to the royal revenues, and is a grave blow to the com merce, since it is clear that the fleets do not go so heavily laden as formerly, nor do they bring back so much gold and silver on return." The Frenchman, Pyrard de Laval, who had traveled in the East Indies, wrote in 1608 of the Manila Galleon's trade in Chinese silks: "This renders these islands marvelously rich, but at the same time it diminishes the commerce of Spain with the Western Indies, for the cloth and silk fabrics of Spain are no longer carried thither as they were wont to be before this trade was established." A series of laws which antedated the occupation of the Philippines aimed to protect the silk industry of the peninsula against the competition of foreign manufactures. Thus, Charles V decreed in 1523: "There may enter no silk from Calabria, from the Kingdom of Naples, or from Calicut, Turkey, or Barbary." In 1590, when the Manila-Acapulco trade was al ready well established, Philip II enunciated the prohibition: "No foreigner shall introduce manufactured silks." The ban was one of the cardinal principles of Spanish commercial policy. The crux of the system which was designed to hold the galleon commerce within bounds was the permiso, limiting the volume of the trade to a certain figure. Another device was the prohibition of the subsidiary trade between Acapulco and the southern viceroyalty of Peru, thereby cutting off one of the rich est markets for Chinese silks. Finally, there was the elaborate system of inspection at both ends of the line, intended to enforce the provisions of the permiso, and reinforced at times by the extraordinary recourse to the visita. Yet, all this restrictive ma chinery failed of its purpose, except for brief intervals of un usual rigor at some vital point in the trade, as the visitas of Quiroga in 1635 and Galvez in 1766. Baffled by the inability of the ordinary precautions to control the rival trade, the peninsular interests proposed more radical ex pedients to gain the same end. The most thoroughgoing of these proposals was for the abandonment of the Philippines. Several petitions called for the suppression of the galleon line, the first in 406 THE MANILA GALLEON 1586, when it was only twenty years old, and again in 1604. Even more persistent was the clamor for the abolition of the trade in silks. This was actually granted by royal decree of 1718, re peated two years later, but the ban was raised by an order of 1724. When the important regulations of April 18, 1734, were issued by the king, sealing the final victory of Manila in its long and bitter struggle on behalf of the galleon trade, the royal cedula enjoined "perpetual silence on the commerce of Andalusia and the Consulado of Cadiz." For 250 years the galleon line had survived, in spite of the most difficult navigating conditions of any trade in the world, of the repeated attacks of the enemies of Spain, of the persistent opposition of the most powerful commercial interests in the peninsula, and of a system of restrictive legislation designed to prevent its natural expansion. It had outlived the incompetence and fitful rigors of administration, a long chain of shipwrecks and other disasters, the direct loss of five galleons at the hands of foreigners, and the indirect loss of many millions in cargoes. That it endured so long was due, not only to the courage and faith of the men who shipped and sailed on the galleons, and to the paradoxical wisdom of a government that winked at the violations of its own laws in order to promote the larger good of the whole empire,5 but to the vitality inherent in a trade, all of whose natural foundations were so sound and so strong. 5 The historian, Robertson, wrote in 1777: "There is not in the commercial arrange ments of Spain any circumstance more inexplicable than the permission of this trade or more repugnant to its fundamental maxims of holding the colonies in perpetual depend ence on the mother-country, by prohibiting any commercial intercourse that might suggest to them the ideas of receiving a supply of their wants from any other quarter." The History of America, II, 428. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ® <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< APPENDIX >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 9 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< APPENDIX I THE ROYAL PHILIPPINE COMPANY ONE of the most momentous events in the history of the Philippines in the eighteenth century was the opening of direct trade with Spain. Though such an innovation was con sidered from very early times, nothing definitive was accom plished until 1766. Various obstacles had prevented its consum mation. The papal bull of demarcation had, by implication, closed the Cape route to the Spaniards, and the latter had ob served the restriction with singular scrupulousness. "Not any of these voyages," said Antonio de Morga, "are practiced by the Castillians, who are prohibited from making them." The ap pearance of the Dutch in this field at the beginning of the seven teenth century added greatly to the risks of such an undertaking, and this element of hazard might have necessitated an expensive armed convoy to insure the safety of the voyage. The route from the other direction—around Cape Horn, or through the Straits of Magellan—was even more impracticable. Moreover, the Andalusian interests opposed this course, because of the opportunity it would offer to trade with the west coast of the American conti nent, which was a market reserved to the Porto Bello galleons. Burney says of the exploring expedition of the Nodales brothers to the Straits of Magellan in 1619: "The expedition gave all the encouragement which could have been expected to the plan for establishing a direct trade from Spain to the coast of Peru and to the Philippines; but every proposal to that effect met with so much opposition from the administrators of the commerce to Panama, and from other interested persons, that the project was thrown aside." Besides the natural obstacle of the inordinate distance from Seville or Cadiz around South America to Manila, and the ob structions placed in the way by the hostile peninsular interests, the contrary winds in the lower Pacific made the return voyage even more difficult than was the westward crossing. The only 409 410 THE MANILA GALLEON alternative was the portage at Panama. This route was fre quently proposed and was a feature of Viana's ambitious scheme of 1765, which further involved the project of connecting the two oceans. Here again the Andalusians interposed their opposition, for Panama was a terminal of the Peruvian "fleet of the South Sea," and so, within the area of their monopoly. Finally, what ever goods reached Spain before the return voyage of the Buen Consejo in 1767 arrived at Cadiz by way of Acapulco and Vera Cruz. However, the cost of transport across New Spain nega tived the practicability of this route for an extensive trade. Proposals were made early in the seventeenth century to divert the trade of the Philippines from Mexico to Spain. In 1610, Philip III sent a circular letter to the following officials to sound their opinion on the subject: the viceroys of New Spain, Peru and Portugal, the Audiencias of Mexico, Lima, and Manila, and the governor of the Philippines. The Marques de Montesclaros, at that time viceroy of Peru, and formerly viceroy of New Spain, warmly recommended the suggested change, but no fur ther steps were taken to carry the project into execution. The unfortunate expeditions of Ruy Gonzalez de Sequeira in 1613, and of Zuazola in 1619 might have aided in the inception of such a scheme, but Spanish powers of initiative had already begun to decline, to revive for a season in the grandiose spurts of Olivares. So, the conception of a direct connection between Spain and the Philippines lay dormant during the decadencia, until the coming of the Bourbons and the revival of the eight eenth century. With the more energetic and enlightened rule of that period the idea gained new life. However, the first attempt to give it concrete form resulted in failure. In 1733, largely through the instrumentality of the minister, Jose Patino, a trading company was actually formed, but it never undertook any operations. The Manila interests opposed its foundation, as did the Dutch, and the unfavorable state of foreign affairs did not make this a very propitious time for launching a new commerce that would compete with other nations long established in the field. The agitation was continued by the ablest and most publicspirited officials in the islands, as well as in Spain. In 1748 Pedro Calderon Enriquez recommended the erection of a company on the pattern of the great Dutch and British companies, whose sue THE ROYAL PHILIPPINE COMPANY 411 cess he, like most Spaniards, overrated. The Spaniards were, in fact, obsessed with the utility of the company form of trading organization, since they were ignorant of the financial and politi cal difficulties of the companies which operated in India and the archipelagos and only considered their plausible prosperity. Governor Simon de Anda, who otherwise favored the idea of direct trade between Manila and Cadiz, strongly opposed the suggestion of a commercial company. The Hispanicized Briton, Nicholas Norton Nichols, who resided in Manila for several years heartily endorsed the connecting of the colony with the metropo lis by means of such a company. The most comprehensive scheme proposed was that pre sented in 1765 by Francisco Leandro de Viana. In one of the most remarkable documents in Philippine history he laid before the central government a detailed exposition of the whole project. He proclaimed the right of the Spaniards to sail the Cape route to the East, in spite of the ancient ban of the papacy, of the Treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht-Munster, or of the outworn theory of the mare clausum. His project carried with it an elab orate plan for the development of the resources of the islands themselves, including the promotion of spice culture. It was the next year after Viana presented his memorial that direct communications were opened with the islands. In the first days of October of that year there arrived at Manila a sixtyfour gun frigate of the royal navy, the Buen Consejo, under the command of a French captain, Caseins. As a semi-state venture, she had been dispatched around the Cape with a cargo of Euro pean merchandise to be exchanged at Manila for Oriental goods. However, the Manilenbs believed that this voyage was the signal for the suppression of the Acapulco line, and accordingly gave the ship a cold reception, dubbing her—with a play on her name —the Mai Consejo. They refused the proffered invitation to participate in the new undertaking, and with such an attitude of passive resistance on the part of the creoles success for the new line was almost impossible. Yet the voyages continued until 1783, when the Asuncidn made the fourteenth and last. The re sults had not been such as to encourage further expeditions of the kind. With the single ship operations had necessarily been on a restricted scale, but this tentative enterprise was shortly followed THE MANILA GALLEON by a far more ambitious effort. For, on March 10, 1785, the Real Companta de Filipinos received its charter from the king. "From the beginning of my reign," says the enlightened Charles III, in the preamble of the document, "I have desired to stimulate my beloved subjects to undertake direct commerce with the Philippines, and accustom themselves to the navigation of those seas." It was to arouse them to the value of this that he had sent ships of the royal navy on various expeditions to the East within the last few years. At this moment the dissolution of the Royal Caracas Company offered an excellent opportunity for the creation of a similar organization to operate in the Orient. The Guipuzcoa Company (Real Compama Guipuzcoana de Caracas) was refused a recharter, and its last junta had decided to divert the resources and personnel of the company to trade with the Philippines. It asked the royal permission for the change, which was authorized after the proposal had been re ported favorably by the council of ministers. The chief advocate of the company was the Frenchman, Francois Cabarrus, then in charge of the national finances, and sponsor of the royal Bank of San Carlos. The charter provided for the liquidation of the assets of the Caracas Company and the transfer of the proceeds to the new company. In the central governing board, to have its headquarters at Madrid, three directors of the dissolved com pany were to sit, while the remainder of the junta was to be com posed as follows: two directors of the Bank of San Carlos, two of the Bank of Havana, two of the Bank of the Guilds, and one of the Bank of Seville. A further concession to the old company was the requirement that the ships of the Philippine Company carry 2,000 tons of goods annually to Caracas, Cumana, and Maracaybo, the former field of operations of the Basque com pany on the Spanish Main. The company was chartered for twenty-five years—that is, until July 1, 18 10. The capital stock was set at 8,000,000 pesos, in 32,000 shares of 250 pesos each. This was purchasable by anyone, ecclesiastics not excluded. A considerable part of this was as sumed by the shareholders of the Caracas Company, who were directed to surrender their paper at the equivalent in stock of the new issue. Spanish-American creoles of means were also en couraged to invest, while the king himself subscribed for a mil lion of stock to express his confidence in the undertaking, and THE ROYAL PHILIPPINE COMPANY 413 thereby set an example to moneyed individuals or organizations in the peninsula, whose capital was idle or relatively unproduc tive. Three thousand shares were also set aside for disposal in the Philippines. The company was to have a monopoly of trade between Spain and the Philippines, whether direct or via the ports of South America. The main business of the company was to be the exchange at Manila of Spanish for Oriental goods, although its ships might annually carry to the east 500,000 pesos of coin to invest. Its field was to be wider than this, and there were to be several minor subsidiary branches. European merchandise might be carried to Spanish-American ports on the outward pas sage and exchanged there for colonial products to be carried on to the Far East for disposal, though it was prohibited to carry on trade in the opposite direction between Asia and America. The king thus suspended in favor of the company long-standing laws that had prohibited trade between South America and the Orient. However, this latter restriction was virtually nullified by the pro vision that the company's ships might transship to those very American ports Asiatic merchandise which had first been brought to Cadiz around the Cape, with the sole limitation that such goods, on being reexported, should pay the export duties required by the general Reglamento of 1778. Moreover, the company might deal directly with the Asiastic coast, or send its ships thither from Manila. It was particularly desired to open up intercourse with the Chinese ports, though trade might be carried on along the southeastern coasts of Asia, wherever the dominant European power did not refuse admittance. The com pany was declared in the charter to be devoid of any political character, as against the dual political-economic position occupied by the Dutch and English companies. It was accordingly di rected to maintain good relations with the native Asiatic peoples, and to avoid any complications that might raise a military issue. The route to the Orient might be either by the Cape or around South America. In the latter case a stop at Buenos Aires was obligatory, but the company was warned against excessive extractions of silver and goods from that city, which might be used for trading in the east with the French and Dutch—"an abuse prejudicial to the national commerce, and to my royal treasury." Stops at the west-coast ports were optional. How 414 THE MANILA GALLEON ever, all ships were compelled to return to Cadiz by the Cape route—largely a check on trading voyages from Asia across the Pacific to the American colonies. Factors or agents of the com pany were to be stationed in Mexico, Vera Cruz, Lima, Buenos Aires, and several other important cities, to care for the local business of the company. The adjustment of the great undertaking to the traditional economic interests of the colony—that is, to the galleon line— was a very delicate problem. The promoters of the company knew from the past experience of such attempts the irreconcilable antipathy with which the insular creoles viewed the innovation of direct trade. They were aware, too, how little chance of suc cess the company would have in the face of this opposition. Consequently, the prejudices of the Manilenos were humored, and concessions were made to gain their cooperation in the new enterprise. In the first place, as we have seen, 3,000 shares of stock were reserved for distribution among them. "For," said the king, "the prosperity of the Philippine Islands and of their inhabitants has been the principal motive that has moved my paternal love to protect and to share in this undertaking; and I have desired that besides the advantages which will result to them through the increase of their agriculture, industry, and marine, they should have a direct share in the profits of this commerce." So he hoped that the consulado and the obras pias would take the proffered shares. The company was expressly forbidden to interfere with the trade of the islanders with Asia or with the inter-insular traffic. Apparently the most assuring statement was that contained in clause 43 of the charter, which was intended to quiet the fears of the Manilenos as to the pos sible intentions of the company. "I permit," said the king, "the inhabitants of the Philippines to continue for the present their trade with New Spain." The particularly equivocal part of this was the expression "por ahora," which should hardly have been expected to ease the chronic and overwrought suspicions of the islanders. Just what were the ultimate ideas of the peninsular Spaniards at this time as regarded the disposition of the galleon trade we cannot say. They might gradually encroach on the field of that line until it died of inanition. Thus, the concession to import into Vera Cruz 800 tons of goods a year may have been a deliberate and none too skillfully planned move in this direction; THE ROYAL PHILIPPINE COMPANY 415 for the Manilenos recognized the evident sinister probability for their established interests contained in this permission, which was granted to the company. The 800, or more, tons of Chinese and Indian merchandise thus introduced into the front door of New Spain could not but seriously affect the market for similar com modities brought in from the rear. The company was, however, prohibited from taking any pecuniary interest in the galleon line. They might have goods brought from Acapulco which they needed for their dealings in the east, but they must pay the ordinary freight rates for the transportation of these consign ments. In order to urge the creoles to take an active part in the transactions of the company, they were conceded one-fifth of the lading space of the company's homeward-bound bottoms for their shipments. Moreover, the insular products thus sent to Spain were to be exempt from the payment of export duties at Manila and of import duties on entering a Spanish port. Another part of the company's program which would affect the galleon trade less immediately was its comprehensive project for the development of the archipelago's resources as a comple ment to its essentially commercial objects, a possibility consistently neglected by the beneficiaries of the old commerce. In the first place, four per cent of the profits of the company were to be devoted to that kind of work so aptly described by the Spanish term, fomento, or promotion of the internal development of the islands. This meant above all the encouragement of new cul tures, such as the growing of spices, and the promotion of manu factures of cloth and other commodities. In this the company would work in unison with the Sociedad Econdmica. Another instance of the unusually high plane on which the Philippine Company was to work was that in its scheme for the agricultural and industrial development of the islands it made no provision for the forced labor of the natives. It was this omission, accord ing to the German traveler, Jagor, that caused the ultimate failure of this part of the company's program, as he declared tropical plantation culture on such a scale impossible without the im pressing of the natives. On the other hand, the Spaniard, Montero y Vidal, cites this feature as a distinct proof of the superiority of the Spanish system to that adopted by other nations, like the Dutch, in a similar situation. The charter required the company to carry artisans, who desired to settle in the islands, 416 THE MANILA GALLEON without charge for transportation, and likewise to provide free passage for professors of mathematics, chemistry, or botany—a concession to the scientific spirit that actuated the men who were directing the revival of Spain. Finally, the local governing board at Manila was to be composed, among others, of a deputy representing the insular interests. The governor was to preside over this body, which was to consist further of the intendant, the local directors of the company, a director of the Sociedad, and the chief accountant and treasurer of the company. This board was granted large discretionary powers in the local administra tion of the company, and was allowed wide latitude in the execu tion of the ordinances issued by the central junta. During the first year of its operation the company sent out three ships. One, which cleared from Cadiz in October 1785, passed through the Straits of Magellan and called at Callao on its way to Manila. Two others, which left later, followed the Cape route to the East. The early voyages were successful ventures, the cargoes of 1787 realizing fifty per cent profit at Cadiz. By 1792 the value of the shares had risen to par, and the prospects of the company appeared very bright. These flush times were of short duration, though the returns continued fairly satisfactory for a few years more. To January 1806, the com pany's sales in Europe amounted to 384,778,000 reales. In 1803 the limit of the charter was extended fifteen years, or eight years beyond the time set for its expiration by the original cedula. At the same time the capital stock was increased to 12,500,000 pesos, of which the king, Charles IV, held 3,943,000 pesos. Not even this new lease of life could save the company from the forces that militated against its success. It dragged along through the period of the Napoleonic wars, but not even the restoration of peace and more normal conditions could restore the early prosperity, though the existence of the company was not terminated legally until September 1834. Its program had been too ambitious from the beginning for the resources at its disposal. A combination of causes had op erated to bring about its failure. Its promoters were not familiar with the peculiar conditions of oriental trade, and had to pay dearly for experience which had been the property of their rivals for centuries. They were, in fact, driven to buy some of their commodities from those very competitors, and there was scarcely ' THE ROYAL PHILIPPINE COMPANY 417 any advantage in buying cinnamon from the Dutch at Batavia over buying it from them at Cadiz. Moreover, they were never able to establish such direct relations with the native peoples as would have freed them from this fatal dependence. The com pany was also hampered by its subordination to the government and by the over-regulated rigidity of the form of organization. On the other hand, it could not always control the acts of its agents, who persisted in trading on their own account, in viola tion of the regulations of the company. Undoubtedly this laxness of responsibility among its subordinates—an evil from which all the great companies suffered—was partly due to the semipublic character of the organization and the consequent im personal nature of its directive authority, as well as to the im possibility of a minute supervision of its widely scattered opera tions. Again, the voluntary labor of the native Filipinos was not adequate to the gigantic task of developing the resources of the islands, which was an important phase of the company's program. Nor would the friars have permitted forced labor on a sufficient scale to ensure the success of this part of the com pany's program. The disruption of normal economic life in the peninsula during the Napoleonic wars has already been men tioned as an influence hostile to the progress of the company. Finally, it was handicapped by the resistance of the insular interests. The reception of the company's overtures and ships at Manila was what might have been expected, in view of the customary attitude of the Manilenos toward the principle of direct trade. They appeared to desire the indefinite perpetuation of their isola tion from the metropolis and of the secular galleon traffic with America. The latter was already noticeably on the wane, but its accelerated decline in the second half of the eighteenth century was laid to the competition of the company. The words of the charter had expressly insured the galleon line against the more evident and direct encroachments of the company. The northern Pacific was still to be a field reserved for the naos. But the market of New Spain was no longer the almost exclusive monopoly of the Manilenos. Foreigners had long smuggled large quantities of goods into Mexico, and the flota had introduced a share of its silk imports, but now the peninsular Spaniards were free to ship Oriental products into Vera Cruz. The immunity 4i8 THE MANILA GALLEON from all but a slight export duty at Cadiz gave the company a considerable advantage over its rival. The consulado declared in 1786 that this discrepancy in costs amounted to a premium of 62% percent in favor of the company. Moreover, the company did not adhere scrupulously to the prohibition against trading eastward across the Pacific to the western coasts of South America, but even sent ships to San Blas, just inside the entrance to the Gulf of California, while in 1803 the company received a license to send a ship to Peru. If the company's consignments to New Spain reached Vera Cruz before the arrival of the galleon at Acapulco the market for the latter's goods was spoiled for the year. Though the company eventually failed, the future was with the idea of direct trade which it represented. The islands hence forth looked toward Spain, and not toward Mexico, and this reorientation of the colony was in large part the work of the company. It marked the end of the long era which began with the expedition of Villalobos, and the beginning of the final epoch in the Spanish history of the islands. >>>>>> >>>>>» 9 <<<<<<<<<<<<<< BIBLIOGRAPHY UNPUBLISHED SOURCES Archivo de Indias, Seville, Spain. (The three figures given with each title to designate the legajo (bundle) or series of legajos refer consecutively to the number of estante, or case, the cajón, or shelf, and the legajo. Thus, "67—6— 1 á 3" signifies estante 67, cajón 6, legajos 1 to 3 inclusive). Audiencia de Filipinas. I. Simancas: Audiencia de Filipinas. 67—6—1 á 3 67—6—4 Ramo secular y eclesiástico. Consultas originales correspondientes á dicha Audiencia, 1586-1700. Decretos originales correspondientes á dicha Audiencia, 1594-1698. 67—6—6 á 17 67—6—18 á 26 67—6—27, 28 67—6—29 á 33 67—6—34 á 42 6$—1—i, 2 68—1—22 68—1—25 68—1—26 Ramo secular. Cartas y expedientes del gobernador de Fili pinas, vistos en el Consejo, 1567-1699. Cartas y expedientes del presidente y oidores de Filipinas, vistos en el Consejo, 1583-1699. Cartas y expedientes del cabildo secular de Manila, vistos en el Consejo, 1570-1699. Cartas y expedientes de los oficiales reales de Filipinas, vistos en el Consejo, 1564-1698. Cartas y expedientes de personas seculares de dicha Audiencia, 1565-1650. Idem de idem, 1650-1699. Testimonio de visitas y registro de champanes y pataches que llegaron al comercio de Fili pinas, 1657-1686. Testimonio de autos sobre la rebelión, con versión y espulsión de los Sangleyes de China, 1687-1690. Testimonio sobre la arribada del galeón Santo Niño y Nuestra Señora de Guía, y sobre en terar en la real caja los descaminos de dicho buque, 1688-1701. 419 THE MANILA GALLEON 68—i—27 Testimonio de autos sobre sublevación de los Sangleycs sustanciados y determinados por el oidor Don Sebastian Bolívar y Mena, 16861690. II. Secretaría de Nueva España: Audiencia de Filipinas. Ramo secular y eclesiástico. 68—2—8 á 12 Consultas y decretos originales, 1630- 1769. 68—2—13 Traslados auténticos de reales cédulas, 17111725. Ramo secular. 68—3—1 á 3 Cartas y expedientes del virrey de Nueva España que tratan de asuntos de Filipinas, 1699-1760. 68—3—4 á 33 Cartas y expedientes del gobernador de Fili pinas, 1675-1747. 68—4—1 á 11 Idem de idem, 1747-1765. 68—4—12 á 35 Autos y expedientes del presidente de oidores de aquella Audiencia, 1608- 1762. 68—5—1 á 3 Cartas y expedientes del cabildo secular de Manila, 1 700-1759. 68—5—4 á 6 Cartas y expedientes de los oficiales reales de Manila, 1638-1735. 68—5—7 á 13 Cartas y expedientes de personas seculares, 1645-1761. 68—5—14 Espediente sobre el despacho de la armada para aquellas islas á carga de Don Francisco Tejada, 1613-1618. 68—5—16 Espediente sobre la espulsión de los Sangleycs, 1684-1744. 68—5—17 á 23 Espediente sobre el comercio de aquellas islas con el reyno de Nueva España, cuyo espediente consta de 7 legajos, 1684-1737. 68—5—24, 25 Espedientes sobre las medidas de cajones y demás piezas que trajo el galeón de Filipinas de Sacra Familia, 1685-1736. 68—5—27 Espediente de Sevilla, Cadiz y otros pueblos de España que tratan de asuntos de aquel dis trito, 1704-1 741. 68—5—28 Espediente sobre la manifestación de la plata que llevó el galeón San Francisco Javier, 1708. BIBLIOGRAPHY 68—6—11 68—6—13 68—6—14, 15 68—6—18 68—6—19 68—6—21 68—6—22 68—6—23 68—6—27 68—6—37 68—6—38, 39 68—6—48, 49 68—6—50, 51 421 Espediente sobre el registro del galeón de Filipinas nombrado el Santo Cristo de Burgos que hizo viaje el año de 1729 desde el puerto de Cavite al de Acapulco. Espediente sobre el aumento del situado de aquellas islas, 1727- 1728. Espediente sobre la pérdida del galeón capitana nombrado Santo Cristo de Burgos al cargo del general Don Francisco Sanchez de Tagle, 1727-1734. Espediente sobre la llegada del navio Nuestra Señora de Guía al puerto de Acapulco, 1730. Espediente sobre la instancia del castellan y oficiales reales de Acapulco en que declaran la sesta parte de comisos hechos en naos de Fili pinas, 1730-1733. Espediente sobre el recibo del galeón capitana Nuestra Señora de Guía á cargo del general Don Francisco Antonio de Abarca y Valdés, 1734. Espediente sobre el desfalco que hacian los oficiales reales del puerto de Acapulco á la gente de mar con el título de débitos, 1734. Espediente sobre los 162,992 pesos que se sacaron del comercio, 1735-1741. Espediente sobre los dos navios holandeses que desde Batavia fueron á comerciar á la Nueva España, 1739-1753. Espediente sobre comisos de géneros del navio Nuestra Señora del Pilar construcción de un nuevo galeón para Nueva España y carga que salió de aquellas islas para Acapulco, 17431744. Espediente sobre la presa que hicieron los Ingleses del navio Cobadonga y libertad de los oficiales que mandavan dicho navio, 1743-1753. Testimonio de autos que tratan del comercio establecido por el gobernador de Filipinas con el rey de Sian cuya capitulación no fue valida por no haver tenido real aprovación, 1752. Espedientes sobre las alteraciones que ha tenido aquel comercio por las novedades intro ducidas por el gobernador Marqués de Obando, 1752-1755. THE MANILA GALLEON 68—6—53 69—2—1 Espediente sobre los escesos que cometió el gobernador Don Pedro Manuel de Arandía, 1756-1758. Ramo eclesiástico. Tres testimonios de autos que pertenecen á un espediente del cabildo eclesiástico de Manila sobre asignación de boletas, 1730-1731. III. Audiencia de Filipinas. 105—1—1 á 10 105—2—11 á 18 105—2—25 105—2—27 á 31 105—3—25 105—3—26 105—4—1 105—4—2 105—4—3, 4 105—4—5 105—4—6 106—5—5 106—5—15 á 24 Ramo secular. Registros de oñcio; reales órdenes dirigidas á las autoridades del distrito de la Audiencia, 1597-1804. Registros de oñcio y partes: reales órdenes dirigidas á las autoridades y particulares del distrito de la Audiencia, 1568-1808. Registros, órdenes, instrucciones, títulos, etc., para la armada que llevaba el socorro á las islas Filipinas, 1619-1621. Inventario de cédulas y consultas, 1670-1831. Consultas, decretos y órdenes originales, 1724!774Gobiernos de los capitanes generales Marqués de Torre-Campo, Don Fernando Valdés Tamón, Don Gaspar de la Torre e interino del obispo de Nueva Segovia, 1729-1748. Gobierno del capitán general Marqués de Obando, 1746-1767. Gobierno de los capitanes generales Don Pedro Manuel de Arandía y Don José Crespo, 1762. Correspondencia del gobernador Marqués de Obando dando noticia del estado de aquellas islas, 1753. Correspondencia con gobernadores, 1759-1821. Gobierno del capitán general Don Simón de Anda, 1769-1780. Gobierno de los capitanes generales Don José Vasco y Vargas y Don Felix Berenger de Marquina, 1776-1787. Sección de fomento establecimiento de dades económicas, 1779- 1798. Cartas y expedientes, 1751-1765. BIBLIOGRAPHY 106—6—i á 29 106—7—i á 25 107—1—11 it 20 107—2—1, 2 107—2—25 107—2—26 107—2—27 á 30 107—3—1, 2 107—3—3 á 6 107—3—7 107—3—12 107—3—17 á 29 107—4—i á 27 I07—5—14 107—7—22 á 24 107—7—25 á 32 108—i—i á 6 108—i—30 108—i—33 108—3—8 108—3—9 423 Cartas y expedientes, 1766-1777. Cartas y expedientes, 1778-1800. Espedientes é instancias de partes, 1719-1778. Espedientes é instancias de partes, 1719-1849. Espediente sobre que el virrey de Nueva España revocó los nuevos establecimientos de la caja de ahorros y plan de guerra para la mejor navegación defensa de la nao y ahorro de la real hacienda, 1753. Espediente y autos sobre la conversión y re ducción de los Indios infieles y sublevación de los Sangleyes, 1747-1751. Espediente sobre espedición de los Sangleyes ó Chinos Católicos por delito de infidelidad y otros delitos durante la ocupación de la plaza de Manila por los Ingleses, 1755-1759. Espediente de la reclamación por Inglatierra de los millones de pesos capitulados en la toma de la plaza de Manila, 1762-1766. Espediente relativo al sitio y toma de Manila por los Ingelses, 1762-1765. Sección de fomento establecimiento del jardín botánico cultivo de la canela por Don Fran cisco Salgado y concesión á este de título de Castilla, 1770-1792. Ynforme de real hacienda, 1 682-1818. Tribunal de cuentas, oficiales reales, y las de pendencias, 1716-1741. Ibid de ibid, 1742-1795. Espediente sobre establecimiento de yntendencias y subintendencias, 1784- 1787. Estados cortos y tanteos de real hacienda, 17541831. Cuenta de real hacienda, 1759-1775. Ibid de ibid, 1775-1831. Reales cédulas, ynformes, y cuentas sobre alcabalas y almojarifazgo, 1735-1816. Espedientes de real hacienda, 1765-1789. Espediente sobre licencia de embarco á aquellas islas, 1787- 1823. Reales cédulas, providencias é ynformes sobre materias de comercio y naos de Acapulco, 17001824. THE MANILA GALLEON 1 08—3—n 108—3—12, 13 108—3—14 108—3—15 108—3—17—18 108—3—19, 20 108—3—21 108—3—22 á 27 108—4—1, a 108—4—3 i 6 108—4—7 á 10 108—4—11 108—4—13, 14 108—4—15 108—4—17 108—4—25 á 29 108—5—i 108—5—2 á 4 Despachos del galeón Santíssima Trinidad para Acapulco, 1753-1754. Despachos del buque San Carlos para Aca pulco y sus incidencias, 1764-1781. Representaciones mandadas tener presente sobre el incendio de la fragata San Carlos y su carga á tiempo de salir para Acapulco, 1776. Espediente en que se aprueba al gobernador la sentencia que dió en la residencia tomada al general y oficiales de la fragata San Carlos, 1768-1781. Espediente sobre adelantamiento y mejora del comercio con Nueva España, navegación á Acapulco y otros particulares, 1769. Registro de embarcaciones que arribaron á estas islas procedentes de China, 1771-1777. Registro para Acapulco de la fragata Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, 1774. Registro para Acapulco de la fragata San José, 1775-1787. Registro para Acapulco del navio San Pedro, (á) el Caviteño, 1778-1782. Registros para Acapulco de la fragata San Andrés, 1787-1796. Registros para Acapulco de la fragata San Fernando (á) el Magallenes, 1793-1800. Registros para Acapulco de la fragata San Rafael (á) el Comercio, 1800. Registros para Acapulco del navio Magallanes, 1809. Reales cédulas, ynformes, proyectos, y regla mento del consulado de Manila, 1734-1823. Espediente del consulado erigido en 1779 sobre el mal estado de aquel comercio y medio de su restablecimiento, 1773 [sic]. Espedientes del consulado y comercio, 17601832. Reales cédulas de erecciones, ynformes y patentes de la Real Compañía de Filipinas, 1788-1821. Acuerdos de la junta de gobierno de la Real Compañía de Filipinas, 1789-1825. BIBLIOGRAPHY 108—5—5 108—5—6 á 17 425 Espediente sobre la decadencia de la Real Compañía de Filipinas y medio para su fo mento según real cédula de 1790, 1789-1794. Espedientes de la Real Compañía de Filipinas, 1785, 1836 y 1840. IV. Real patronato. 1 1 X^23 t t 3/25 2—5—1/18 2—5—2/21 Descubrimientos, descripciones, poblaciones, y gobierno de las islas Filipinas, 1537- 1606. Ordenanzas para el buen gobierno de esta navegación, derrotero de algunos viajes y otros papeles muy curiosos, 1567-1619. Gobierno y navegación; corsario ynglés, Fran cisco Drak,—Son papeles pertenecientes á las invaciones y robos que hizo este corsario en las costas del mar del Sur, 1575-1587. V. Estado: Filipinas. Estado—2, 3, 4. (Legajos 2, 3, 4.) Audiencia de México. I. Simancas: Audiencia de México. Ramo secular del distrito de toda la Audiencia. 58—3—8 á 22 Cartas y expedientes del virrey vistos en el Consejo, 1536-1637. 58—4—i á 28 Idem de idem, 1635-1693. 58—5—1 á 7 Idem de idem, 1694-1701. 58—6—9 á 37 Cartas y expedientes de personas seculares del distrito de esta Audiencia, 1519-1604. 60—3—22 Cartas y expedientes del Consulado del Méjico vistos en el Consejo, 1595-1697. Ramo secular: Mechoacán y Acapulco. 60—4—36 60—4—37 Cartas y expedientes de los oficiales reales Acapulco, Potosí y Guanajuato, vistos en Consejo, 1598-1697. Viaje y derrotero de las naos que fueron descubrimiento del puerto de Acapulco cargo del general Sebastián Vizcaino, 1602. de el al á THE MANILA GALLEON II. Secretaría de Nueva España. Ramo secular del distrito de toda la Audiencia. 61—i—17 á 34 Cartas y expedientes del virrey, 1606-1718. Idem de idem, 1719-1747. Idem de idem, 1748-1763. Cartas y expedientes pertenecientes á las Cajas de Mégico, Guanajuato y Acapulco, 1 700-1 759. 62—1—15 Expediente sobre la dependencia de Dn. Mateo de Morales y el Conde de Peñalva que enten dieron en el despacho y recibo de la nao de Filipinas nombrada Nra. Sra. de Begoña, 171 11718. 62—1—18 Testimonios de autos formados por Dn. Juan José de Veitia Linage, juez privativo de arri badas sobre lo que hizo el navio Nra. Sra. de Guadalupe al puerto de Manzanillo, 1714. 62—1—19, 20 Testimonio de diligencias sobra la presa de dos embarcaciones ingleses, que en el Valle de Vanderas hizo Don Antonio del Real y Quesada, 1714-1719. Ramo secular: Puerto de Acapulco. 63—3—36 Cartas y expedientes del castellano y oficiales reales del puerto de Acapulco, 1723-1735. 63—5—37 Expedientes sobre siete comisos de embarca ciones egecutadas por Dn. Juan José de Veitia Linage en el Puerto de Acapulco, 1712-1715. 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Cadiz, controversy with Manila, 45, 51, 404-405. Calderon Enriquez, Pedro, 53, 93, 244, 266, 410. California, 15, 232-234, 241-246. Cambodia, 50, 144. Cano, Sebastian del, 18, 19. Cargoes of galleons, 32, 33, 50. Caroline Islands, 250. Carrion, Juan Pablo, 45, 69, 118. Casa de contratacion, 131, 400-402. Casafuerte, Juan de Acuna, Marques de, viceroy, 51. Cavendish, Thomas, 242, 299, 303, 305313Cavite, 183, 195, 198, 253. Cermenho (Cermeno), 240. Charles III, 53. Charles V, 19-20. Chinese, Chapter 1 ; trade with Philippines, 26, 69-79; Spanish voyages to China, 64, 67; in Philippines, 37, 79-83. 8598. Church, 44, 51, 52. Baguios (typhoons), 29, 217, 251. Clipperton, John, 320, 329-330. Basco y Vargas, Jos£, governor, 54-55. Cocks, Richard, 103, 109, 125, 214, 351, Beauchesne, Gouin de, 296. 352. Belhoso, Diogo, 144-150. Berenguer de Marquina, Felix, governor, Colin, Francisco, 50, 214. Compromisarios, 156, 209, 403. 40. Concepcidn, galleon, 225, 259, 277, 281. Boletus, 158-167, 172-177, 363. Consulado, Manila, 57, 156, 159. 164, 172, Borneo, 31, 143-144. 402-403; in Spain, 402. Boucourt, Antoine Limarie, 208, 266. Cook, James, 229, 295, 298. Brouwer, Hendrick, 301. Bucarely e Ursua, Antonio Maria de, vice Corcuera, Sebastian Hurtado de, governor, 89, 157. roy, 245. Cornish, Admiral, 338-341. Buccaneers, 299, 314. Buen Consejo, voyage from Spain to Cortes, Hcrnan, 19, 21. Cotton goods, 32, 46, 48, 49, 56. Manila, 57, 410-41 1. Council of the Indies, 400. Buen Socorro, galleon, 196. Abrcu, Antonio de, 16. Acapulco, 60, 367; Mexican terminal of galleon line, 24, 371; harbor, 371-373; town, 373-376; port administration, 186, 376-380; fair, 170, 381-384. Acuna, Pedro Bravo de, governor, 30, 85, 125, 139, 173, 345. Adams, Will, 109, 124, 345, 346. Aguilar y Ponce de Leon, Rafael Maria de, governor, 53, 133. Albuquerque, Affonso de, 16. Albuquerque, Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva, Duque de, viceroy, 266. Almojarifazgo, 1 80-181. Alvarado, Pedro de, 21. Anda y Salazar, Simon de, governor, 40, 58, 94, 338, 339, 375. Anian, 242, 298. Anson, George, 303, 330-337. Arandia y Santiesteban, Pedro Manuel de, governor, 52, 154, 228, 271. Arellano, Alonso de, 24, 219. Arriaga, Julian de, 400. Arribadas, 252, 260-261. Audiencia, 78, 173. 450 INDEX Covadonga, galleon, 38, 193, 268, 303, 334-337Cruillas, Joaquin de Monserat, Marques de, viceroy, 32, 187. Cruzat y G6ngora, Fausto, governor, 166, 248, 275. Curuzealegui y Arriola, Gabriel de, gov ernor, 275. Dampier, William, 314-321, 325. Dasmarinas, Gomez Perez, governor, 31, 34. 73. 84. 106-107, 131, 180. Dasmarinas, Luis Perez, governor, 66, 84, 88, 144, 146, 168, 367. Date Masamune, 101, 127-128. Diaz, Casimiro, 74. Drake, Francis, 294, 303-30;. Draper, General, 41. Dutch, 58, Chapter 10; early voyages to East Indies, 343; attacks on Spaniards in the Philippines, 31, 344, 346, 348353. 355-358; voyages in the Pacific, 344. 345El Pinal, 66, 67. Embocadero, see San Bernardino, Straits of. Encarnacion, galleon, 244, 259, 303, 326327. 356Encomiendas, 52. English, Chapter 9; attacks on the gal leons, 304-341; trade in East Indies, 58, 135. 343Enriquez de Almansa, Martin, viceroy, 305. Espiritu Santo, galleon, 122-123, *", 24°. 254, 258, 261, 280. Fajardo y Tenza, Alonso, governor, 39, 348, 367Varna, galleon, 264. Filipino, galleon, 198, 339, 340. Fiscal, 45, 157, 177, 178, 183. Flotas, trading fleets between Spain and Mexico, 403-404. Formosa, 31, 350, 353-355French, 135-136, 302. Fuenclara, Pedro Cebriin y Agusrin, Conde de, viceroy, 187. Gage, Thomas, 362. Gali, Francisco, 231-232. Galleons, Chapter 5; number, 193; size, 194-195; construction, 195-196; cost, 197-198; officers, 200-209, 257; crews, 209-212. Gallinato, Juan Juarez, 87, 146. Galvcz, GenSnimo, 206-208. Gdlvez, Jose1 de, 178, 245, 376, 400. Galvcz, Manuel, 237. Gam a, Joao da, 131. Gama, Vasco da, 16. Gemelli Careri, Francesco, 29, 253, 267, 384. Goa, 100, 129, 350. Goiti, Martin, de, 25, 83. Gold, Philippine production, 18, 23, 32, 44. 46. 47Gonzalez, Blas Ruys de Hernan, 144-150. Governor and captain-general, office of, 403. Grau y Monfalcon, Juan, 28, 364, 390. Guam, see Ladrone Islands. Guadalcizar, Diego Fernandez de Cordoba. Marques de, viceroy, 249. Guadalupe, galleon, 153, 196. Guzman, Francisco Tello de, governor, 78, 344Hately, Simon, 330. Hawaiian Islands, 228. Hawkins, Richard, 313. Hermann, Heinrich, 209, 237. Hezcta, Bruno de, 303, 246. Hidetada, 101, 103, in. Hideyoshi, 99, 101, 105-108, 122. India, trade with the Philippines, 32, 50, 134-138. Isla, Juan de la, 24, 64, 200. Iyeyasu, 99-100, 108-110, 119, 124, 125, 126, 353. Jalapa, fair, 362, 404. Japan, Chapter 2; relations with Spaniards in Philippines, 31, 50, 87, 93; galleons in Japanese ports, 102, 107, 120-125; Japanese voyages to Mexico, no, 125, 127. INDEX lava, 143. Jesus Maria, galleon, 240, 254, 261. Juan Fernandez, island, 320, 323, 332. Junta de evaluo, 177-179. Junta de repartimiento, 156-158. Kelly-Kelly, Raymond, 209. Kendrick, John, 208. Kino, Eusebio, 243. Koxinga, 90-91. Ladrone Islands, 247, 317, 328-329, 334. La Fertilise, Jean Francois Galaup de, 29, 296. Lavezaris, Guido de, governor, 26, 64, 70. Legaspi, Miguel Lopez de, 22-25. Legeni.il de la Galaisiere, Guillaume Jo seph Hyacinthe Jean Baptiste, 42, 53, 205. Leon, Manuel de, governor, 70, 134. L'Hermite, Jacques, 350. Lima, 365. Limahon, 26, 82. Line of demarcation, 16-17. Loaysa, Juan Garcia Jofre de, 19. Macao, 27, 66, 67, 100, 129-134, 300. Magallanes, galleon, 261. Magdalena, galleon, 257. Magellan, Ferdinand, 17-18, 69. Malacca, 16, 134, 300, 347, 350. Manila, 25, 27-29, 34-39, 50, 58; bay, 29. Manrique de Lara, Sabiniano, governor, 90. Martin, Lope, 219, 277-279. Martinez de Zuiiiga, Joaquin, 27, 39, 43. Medina, Andres de, 20 1, 249. Mendana, Alvaro de, 231, 290-291. Mendocino, Cape, 226, 239. Mendoza, Antonio de, viceroy, 21, 361. Mexico, City of, 362-363, 365. Misericordia, Hermandad de la, 167, 169. Moluccas, 16, 19, 20, 30, 44, 49, 138-142, 343. 345. Moncada, Sancho de, 388, 392. Montciro, Geronimo, 206, 237, 243, 335. Monterey, 225, 226, 232, 240, 242, 244246. 45i Monterey, Gaspar de Zuniga y Acevedo, Conde de, viceroy, 232, 365. Montesclaros, Juan Manuel Hurtado de Mendoza y Luna, Marques de, viceroy, 210, 232, 365, 410. Morga, Antonio de, 31, 67, 73, 86, 116, 127, 149, 234, 254, 344-345. Moros, 23, 25, 43. Narborough, John, 313. Navidad, 22, 220, 371. Nichols, Nicholas Norton, 411. Nobunaga, 99, 101. Noort, Oliver van, 344, 345. Nuestra Senora de Begoha, galleon, 276, 281, 303, 327, 328. Nuestra Senora de Gula, galleon, 228, 251, 281. Nuestra Senora de la Vida, galleon, 258. Nuestra Senora de los Remedios, galleon, 258. Nuyts, Pieter, 351. Obando y Soils, José Francisco de, gov ernor, 131, 154, 157, 173, 174, 254, 266. Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, 188, 376. Palaos Islands, 250. Panama, 300, 410. Pancada, 77-78, 115, 133. Parian, 72, 79. Perez Dasmarinas, see Dasmarinas. Permiso, 45, 155, 181, 405. Peru, 365-371. Philip II, 22, 393. Philippines, occupation by Spaniards, 20, 22; products, 20, 23, 44-49; plans to develop resources, 53, 55, 56, 415. Piezas, 158. Pigafetta, Antonio de, 46. Pilar, galleon, 260, 334. Playa Honda, battle of, 348, 349. Portuguese, Chapter 3, 129-135, 139, 140142; Spanish conquest of Portugal, 293, 342. Quiroga, Pedro de, 51, 187, 368, 376, 379-380. 452 INDEX QuircSs, Pedro Fernandes de, 290-293. Residcncia, 172, 173, 185, 202. Revillagigcdo, Juan Vicente de Giiemes Pacheco de Padilla, Conde de, viceroy, 226, 362. Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata, 126, 231238. Rios Coronel, Hernando de los, 67, 116, 173, 212, 224, 234. Rogers, Woodes, 242, 303, 321-329. Rojas, Pedro de, 39, 173. Rojo del Rio y Vieyra, Manuel Antonio, governor, 52, 339. Ronquillo, Diego, governor, 47. Ronquillo, Gonzalo, governor, 79, 139, 366. Rosario, galleon, 227, 235, 241, 248, 257, 264. 3°3. 3". 356Route, Chapter 6; prevailing winds, 216217; discovery of eastern route, 217: 1; eastward route, 221-246; sehas, or signs of land, 238-240; westward route, 224-250; plans for change of route, 224226. Royal Philippine Company, 57, 60, 67, Appendix 1. Saavcdra, Alvaro de, 19, 69, 218. Sacra Familia, galleon, 235, 264. Salamanca, Juan Cerezo de, governor, 113. Salazar, Domingo de, 166, 312. Salcedo, Diego de, governor, 52, 173, 249. Salcedo, Felipe de, 24, 220. Salcedo, Juan de, 25, 26, 83. Salinas, Luis de Velasco (II), Marques de, viceroy, 121. San Andres, galleon, 160, 251, 255, 260, 261, 267. San Antonio, galleon, 257, 258, 262. San Antonio de Padua, galleon, 241, 251. San Bernardino, Strait of, 221-222, 280. San Blas, 60, 371. San Carlos, galleon, 198. San Carlos Borromeo, galleon, 167, 221. San CristSbal, galleon, 193, 235, 260. Sande, Francisco de, governor, 45, 64, 68, 144, 366. San Diego, galleon, 251, 356. San Diego, port, 242, 243. San Felipe, galleon, 102, 121-122, 246, 258, 261, 262. San Francisco, 225, 226, 245. San Francisco, galleon, 109, 124, 258, 261, 262. San Francisco Xavier, galleon, 189, 248, 260. San Cer6nimo, galleon, 24, 256, 264, 277279. San ]osi, galleon, 158, 189, 198, 22;, 228, 246, 258, 259-260, 264, 266. San Juan, galleon, 251. San Juan de Letrin, galleon, 218. San Juanillo, galleon, 24. San Lucas, Cape, 239, 266. San Lucas, galleon, 219-220. San Martin, galleon, 132, 160, 251. San Nicolas, galleon, 259, 348. San Pablo, galleon, 24, 220. San Pedro, galleon, 226. San Sabiniano, galleon, 261. Santa Ana, galleon, 38, 47, 124, 211, 303, 307-308. Santa Barbara, 246. Santa Margarita, galleon, 255. Santa Rosa, galleon, 158, 167, 198, 206, 261, 262, 276. San Telmo, galleon, 214, 261, 276. Santiago, galleon, 268, 310. Santisima Trinidad, galleon, 189, 196, 198, 210, 213, 221, 228, 251, 255, 261, 264, 266, 276, 281, 282-283, 303, 339-341. Santo Crista de Burgos, galleon, 259, 260, 262, 330. Santo Domingo, galleon, 255, 281. Santo Nino, galleon, 214, 275. Santo Tomis, galleon, 189, 255. Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro, 290. Schapenham, Hugo, 350. Scurvy, on galleons, 265. Sebastian, Cubero, 265, 274. 2T2('» j Selkirk, Alexander, 320, 323-324, 328. Senas, 238-240, 272. Sequeira, Diogo Lopes de, 16, 18. Serrab, Francisco, 16, 17, 18. Shelvocke, George, 329-330. RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (415) 642-6753 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW AUG 3 1992 04 'no (JUL 2 5 2005