By way of India, one may sail from the Filipinas to España, by making the voyage to Malaca, and thence to Cochin and Goa, a distance of one thousand two hundred leguas. This voyage must be made with the brisas. From Goa one sails by way of India to the cape of Buena Esperança [Good Hope], and to the Terceras [i.e., Azores] Islands, and thence to Portugal and the port of Lisboa. This is a very long and dangerous voyage, as is experienced by the Portuguese who make it every year. From India they usually send letters and despatches to España by way of the Bermejo ["Red">[ Sea, by means of Indians. These send them through Arabia to Alexandria, and thence by sea to Venecia [Venice] and thence to España.
A galleon bound for Portugal sails and is despatched from the fort of Malaca, in certain years, by the open sea, without touching at India or on its coasts. It reaches Lisboa much more quickly than do the Goa vessels. It generally sails on the fifth of January, and does not leave later than that; nor does it usually anticipate that date. However, not any of these voyages are practiced by the Castilians—who are prohibited from making them—except the one made by way of Nueva España, both going and coming, as above described. And although the effort has been made, no better or shorter course has been found by way of the South Sea. [438]
Laus Deo
NOTES
[1] Cea is a small town situated in the old kingdom of Léon, on a river of the same name. It was a seat of a chateau and a duchy. The name of the first duke of Lerma was Francisco Gomez de Sandoval y Rojas. Hume's Spain (Cambridge, 1898), mentions one of his sons as duke of Cea, who is probably the Cristoval Gomez de Sandoval y Rojas of Morga's dedication.
[2] The facts of Doctor Antonio de Morga's life are meager. He must have been born in Sevilla, as his birth register is said to exist in the cathedral of that city. He sailed from Acapulco for the Philippines in 1595 in charge of the vessels sent with reënforcements that year. He remained there eight years, during which time he was continually in office. In 1598, upon the reëstablishment of the Manila Audiencia he was appointed senior auditor. In 1600 he took charge of the operations against the Dutch and commanded in the naval battle with them. He left the islands July 10, 1603, in charge of the ships sailing that year to Mexico. After that period he served in the Mexico Audiencia; and as late as 1616 was president of the Quito Audiencia, as appears from a manuscript in the British Museum. His book circulated, at least, in part, in manuscript before being published. Torrubía mentions a manuscript called Descubrimiento, conquista, pacificación y población de ias Islas Philipinas, which was dated 1607, and dedicated to "his Catholic Majesty, King Don Phelipe III, our sovereign." Morga combined the three functions of historian, politician, and soldier, and his character is many sided and complex. He is spoken of in high terms as an historian, and Rizal, as well as Blumentritt, exalts him above all other historians of the Philippines.
[3] Throughout this work, all notes taken entire or condensed from José Rizal's edition of Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas por el Doctor Antonio de Morga (Paris, 1890), will be signed Rizal, unless Rizal is given as authority for the note or a portion of it in the body of the note. Similarly those notes taken or condensed from Lord Henry E. J. Stanley's translation of Morga, The Philippine Islands…. by Antonio de Morga (Hakluyt Soc. ed., London, 1868), will be signed Stanley, unless Stanley is elsewhere given as authority as above.
Dr. José Rizal, the Filipino patriot, was born in 1861 at Calamba in Luzón, of pure Tagál stock, although some say that it was mixed with Chinese blood. Through the advice of Father Leontio, a Tagál priest, he was sent to Manila to the Jesuit institution Ateneo Municipal—where he was the pupil of Rev. Pablo Pastells, now of Barcelona. His family name was Mercado, but at the advice of his brother, who had become involved in the liberal movement, he took that of Rizal. After taking his degree at Manila, he studied in Spain, France, and Germany. He founded the Liga Filipina, whose principal tenet was "Expulsion of the friars and the confiscation of their property," and which was the basis of the revolutionary society of the Sons of the Nation. On Rizal's return to Manila, after several years of travel, in 1892, he was arrested and exiled to Dapitan. In 1895, he was allowed to volunteer for hospital service in Cuba, but was arrested in Barcelona, because of the breaking out of the Filipino insurrection, and sent back to Manila, where he was shot on December 30, 1896, by native soldiers. Besides being a skilled physician, Dr. Rizal was a poet, novelist, and sculptor, and had exhibited in the salon. His first novel Noli me tangere appeared in Berlin in 1887, and was, as Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera remarks, the first book to treat of Filipino manners and customs in a true and friendly spirit. It was put under the ban by the Church. Its sequel El Filibusterismo appeared in 1891.
Sir Henry Edward John Stanley, third Baron of Alderley, and second Baron Eddisbury of Sinnington, a member of the peerage of the United Kingdom, and a baronet, died on December 10, 1903, at the age of seventy-six. He was married in 1862 to Fabia, daughter of Señor Don Santiago Federico San Roman of Sevilla, but had no issue. He spent many years in the East, having been first attaché at Constantinople and Secretary of Legation at Athens. He embraced the Mahometan religion and was buried by its rites privately by Ridjag Effendi, Imaum of the Turkish embassy.
[4] Charles chose as his motto Plus ultra, being led thereto by the recent world discoveries and the extension of Spanish dominions. This motto is seen on his coins, medals, and other works.