committed byrthe native¡chief, Solimán, a convert to the Mahommedan religion the
t h í ™ atta;Cked by 80 Spaniards, taken, burnt, and its artillery carried off. 7 1571
the year of his death, Legaspi himself, undertook, and in a good measure achieved
force°of'280 SD ^ sh “^ 0™ ^ - ^ muc\ ? hort of twice the size of Ireland, with a
^ 7 f 8’. Wlth some thousands of auxiliaries from Cebu and
P inJÍ ^1S sh°rt administration of six years, he brought under subjugation
f iv ew 7 t3n°f geb^TLeyt6’ P a ^ .M in d an o , Masbate, and sevfral nations o W t h e
I d I S 3 1 7 ° “’ embraCmS Pr0ViaCeS Which now contain above a million
PhdTrme;n 7 8>,!!r3t K °nqU^ tS’ S 10 m0st Prominent incidents of the history of the
have beeV th e attempts made to subdue the Mahommedan tribes and
7 Sem the 7 berD 3 °f *he Archipelago, or the Malayan countries bordering
on them , the invasions and insurrections of the Chinese and Japanese, and the attacks
or invasions of European nations. If the Spaniards found it a comparatively easy
i, / 7 T pI® pagan inhabitants of the northern islands of the
Archipelago, they have found, by near three centuries experience, the subjugation of
the more civilised Mahommedan tribes and nations of the southern islands wholly
impracticable. Against the Sulu Islands and southern parts of Mindano not fewer
than twelve different expeditions have been fitted out from Manilla, the earliest in
1577, and the last in 1850. To defeat these tribes, and to capture and destroy their
strongholds was not a matter of much difficulty, but their permanent subjugation
and religious conversion have hitherto been found impossible. It has beeif the
same with the huge island of Borneo, the conquest of that portion of it to which this
esPeoially belongs, having been attempted with a fleet of thirty sail as early as
1577. instead of being able to subdue these tribes, the Spaniards have found them
frona the first moment of the conquest to the present day, through their piracies the
greatest scourge of their possessions. *
The Chinese and Japanese, as already stated, had carried on some commercial
m^ercourse with the Philippines before the arrival of the Spaniards, but t h " no
w i fi!! « be7 ha^ S forced any settlements within them. No sooner, however
had the Spaniards established themselves than we find both nations in great numbers’
either as corsairs and invaders or peaceful settlers. In 1574, only three vears after
the foundation of Manilla, this place was attacked by a powerful corsair, called by
tfce P 1~?Qa‘hon&,fud to have been a native of the province of Canton, and
the son of a highway robber. By skill, courage, and good management he had
contrived to assemble a considerable piratical fleet, which plundered the coasts of
China, and set the imperial navy at defiance, much in the same manner as Chinese
pmates have often done in our own time. The corsair in question, in the course
of his depredations having heard of the supposed riches of the Spanish settTe!
f % ino 1accordingly made two different assaults on it, the
first with a force of 400, and the last with one of 600 men headed by himself. He
met with a very different reception from what he had been accustomed to on the
coast of China, for he was beaten off by a mere handful of Spaniards, and afterwards
T j ™ Provmce of Pangasinan, where his whole force was either
destroyed or (hspersed. This event it may be observed, took place about four and
7 r ,y I ^ C°n1UT3 Í northern Provinces Tartars, and the piracy of Li-ma-hong was, no doubt, onolyf Cphairnt ao bfy t hthee syMsatenmch ooof
disorder m the government of China, which portended the revolution which over-
threw the native dynasty of Ming, and substituted for it that of a foreign conqueror
Chined 38 °r 7!Í ? . two and thirty yeara of the foundation of Manilla, the
T T f h • i! 7 S67 7 gr?at numbera in the capital and its neighbourhood
? exci*nig the fear and jealousy of the Spanish authorities, they
P, p fd to ™taT?reS restriction. This brought on an insurrection, in which all
>7? n H/6’ • f T pfc10? of 2000’ were involved. Twenty-three thousand are
said, on this occasion, to have lost their lives, 100 of the actual insurgents only saving
them lives, and those, on surrender, bemg condemned to the gallies. In 1639 or only
thirty-six years after this event, the Chinese amounted already to 30,000, an n e x e
no doubt, caused, m a great measure, by the emigration, which the progress ofThe
Tartar conquest, which had now reached the southern provinces of Chifa, had pro
duced. Measures of persecution on the part of the Spanish government, T i n drove
them to insurrection, and thisrebellion ended in the surrender of the^Tvivom
r A 7 7 gf°Mn^ “ ,°re tha? 700°- In 1759< “ consequence of repeated com m T T froS
the court of Madrid, an order was issued for the total expulsion from the Philippines of
all Chinese that had not adopted the Christian religion, and a locality was appointed, to
which they might resort for the purposes of trade, after the maimer practised by the
Chinese towards the nations of Europe, and by the Japanese towards the Chinese and
Dutch. The edict, however, so injurious to the Spanish colony itself, was never carried
into effect, and three years after its promulgation, the English captured Manilla, when
the Chinese, of course, heartily joined the invaders. . . . , ,.
The Chinese in the Philippines are still placed under restraints and disabilities
unknown in the possessions of the other European nations, and especially in those
of the English ; and hence, although the Philippines be for more conveniently situated
for an intercourse with China than the possessions of the Dutch or English, the total
number of Chinese in them, native and mestizo, does not exceed one-fourth ot those
of Java, and hardly equals that of the small island of Singapore. But for the accidental,
and it must be added, fortunate presence of the Spaniards, it is certain that
at this day the Philippines would have been principally peopled with Chinese, in the
same manner as is now the case with the island of Formosa; and it is a mystery not
easily explained how it came to pass that this did not happen both with Formosa
and the Philippines long before the arrival of Europeans, considenng the strong
and decided tendency to immigration on the part of the Chinese which was evinced
almost immediately on the occurrence of that event.
The Japanese, before their laws excluded them from all communication with the
rest of the world, showed the same disposition to frequent and to settle m the
Philippines as the Chinese, and in the early history of the Archipelago we find a
considerable number of this people as settlers m Manilla. They were, indeed,
encouraged in this by the Spanish authorities, on account of the fabrics of their
native country which they imported, and which were found to be well suited to
the once celebrated Acapulco trade. In 1603, they were settled m such numbers in
Manilla, that the Spanish government, taking advantage of their well-known antipathy
to the Chinese, employed them in counteracting the machinations of the latter.
The Spaniards, however, found them equally unmanageable as the Chinese. Ihus
in 1581 a Japanese pirate with a large fleet, landed, encamped in, and took possession
of the province of Cagayan, at the northern end of the island of Luzon^ a place
not less than 1000 miles distant from the nearest part of the Japanese Archipelago,
yet an easy voyage at the height of the monsoons. “ I t was no easy matter says the
Spanish writer from whom I quote, " to expel them, for the Japanese fight with
obstinacy, not retreating before fire-arms, but rushing to receive death on the points
The Portuguese first, and afterwards the Dutch, made some feeble efforts to dispossess
the Spaniards, but the only serious invasion of the Philippines ever made by
an European power, was that by the English in 1762, during the seven yearff war
The attack was made from Madras, by a force of 2300 men, a part of it consisting of
sepoys, a description of troops which, at this early penod of ora dominion m India,
could not have been of a superior quality. The naval part of the equipment consisted
of thirteen men-of-war and transports. Such was the force destined for the
conquest of a vast Archipelago, in which it had taken the Spanish nation two centuries
to establish their power and their religion. The Spanish authorities were taken by
surprise for they had not even heard of the war which England had declared against
Spain the year before. The English expedition landed without resistant», besieged
Manilla battered, breached, stormed and captured the town within ten days of its
landing The citadel capitulated, the governor, an archbishop, engaging to pay a
ransom of four millions of hard dollars, 862,500/., on condition that the sack should
last only three hours. According to the Spanish accounts it lasted for four-and-
twenty ! The public treasure, a small sum, had been removed into the interior, and
of the whole ransom a contribution levied on the city of Manilla, together with the
confiscation of some church plate, yielded no more than a fourth part of the
stipulated sum. The governor drew a bill for the balance on the Treasury of.Madrid,
which was very properly dishonoured. The commander of the expedition was Sir
William Draper, celebrated for his controversy with Junius on this very subject.
The Spanish troops composing the garrison of Manilla did not exceed 550 nien, and
therefore a force of 5000 Pampangas, supposed to be the bravest people of the
Philippines, was called in as auxiliaries. With the help of these, two sorties were
made against the British entrenchments, both easily defeated. I t was no dimcult
enterprise to capture and hold Manilla, but the British conquest never extend«!
beyond ten miles from its walls, and after a ten months occupation, Manilla itself
was restored by the Treaty of Paris. Its chief result was ^ an insurrection