CHAPTER XV.
Of the Defence of the Islands by the Oidor Don Simon de Anda.
On the day before the capture of Manila, Señor Anda quitted the city, with the title of visitor and lieutenant governor, in order to maintain the islands in obedience to the King of Spain. He arrived at Bulacan with forty orders under the royal seal, which were the only supply of arms and money with which he was furnished, as the treasure had been sent to the Lake Bay. As soon as it was known in Bulacan that the English were in possession of Manila, he summoned a meeting, at which were present the Father Hernandez, who filled the office of provincial of St. Augustine, the chief magistrates of the province, and other Spaniards and Augustine friars, and laying before them the resolutions of the Royal Audience, and the authority with which he was furnished by the Governor to defend the islands, he at the same time adverted to the insufficiency of their force to make resistance to the English. They highly praised all the measures of the Royal Audience and the Governor of Manila, and promised to spill the last drop of their blood rather than forsake him. The monks offered to raise troops in the towns for the service, and conduct them to the field. He gave them thanks for their loyalty, and thinking that the title of visitor appeared of too little importance for the undertaking he was upon, he declared himself under the necessity of having recourse to certain old established regulations, which ordain that the Royal Audience may be preserved in the person of one Oidor, and in case of a vacancy in the government seat, that the Royal Audience may take the government, and the oldest Oidor command the military, unless any other arrangement should be made by his Majesty. And on this occasion the other Oidors and Governor being prisoners of war, and dead in the eye of the law, all these offices fell of necessity on him. He accordingly got himself acknowledged as Governor of the islands, in which capacity, joined to the office of Royal Audience, he circulated his orders to the different alcaldes and ecclesiastical superintendants of missions, no one, in the smallest degree, questioning his authority.
Señor Anda fixed his residence, and the seat of government, at the town of Bacolor, the capital of the province of Pampanga, where he sent the Augustine friars, accompanied by some troops, some fugitives from Manila, and some Indian militia: the friars were directed to watch over the tranquillity and security of the provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan. Had the English then despatched a small detachment for the purpose, they would have got possession of those two provinces; but General Draper was not disposed to think the acquisition of these islands an object of such difficult attainment as to require such prompt measures.
The British council left by General Draper in Manila followed his plans, and convening a meeting of the principal inhabitants of the city, Señor Anda was declared by this assembly a seditious person, and deserving of capital punishment. The same censure extended to the Marquis of Monte Castro, who having been allowed his parole of honour, had not returned at the appointed time, and likewise to the provincial of Saint Augustine, who had joined the party of Señor Anda: all the Augustine friars too were declared traitors. At this meeting much discussion took place on the subject of making up the deficiency of the million in specie which had been stipulated for, but the Spaniards replied, that with what had been taken in the Trinidad, which, according to the articles of capitulation, was not to be deemed a prize, the amount had been made good, and the religious establishments pleaded that they had been stripped of all their valuables.
The English council forcibly recommended, that the friars should impress upon the Indians the necessity of peaceable conduct under the novelty of their situation, as otherwise their interference with them would be totally interdicted. But the prior of St. Augustine being urged to use his influence with the friars of Bulacan and Pampanga, answered, that they were not under his authority, but under the provincial, who was his superior. For this guarded reply he was ordered to be confined in his convent; and although he in person represented to the council that he ought not to be considered as a prisoner of war, having come to Manila under a protection granted by them, they refused to listen to him, but ordered him to be escorted back to his convent with bayonets fixed, leaving a guard to prevent his quitting it.
The English perceiving that decrees were of very little service, and that it was necessary to have recourse to force, determined to take possession of a position on the Pasig, in order to open a passage for provisions from the Lake Bay; and Thomas Backhouse, whom the Spaniards called Becus for that purpose, filed off with five hundred men to the left of the river. He arrived in front of Maybonga, where the famous Bustos was stationed with his Cagayans, ready to defend the passage of the river. He fired upon the first English party that advanced, but as soon as they returned it, he retired to Maraquina with his people. The enemy passed the river without hesitation, and sent an officer with a white flag, to summons the Indians to surrender. The boasting little Governor answered, that the Pasig was not Manila, and if the Spaniards had given that up to them in a treacherous manner, he would defend his post to the last; adding, that should the officer return with the white flag (a trick he might deceive children with), he would hang him on the first tree. This reply being reported to Backhouse, he immediately ordered the troops to march, and the two field-pieces he had with him beginning to play, the Indians became alarmed to such a degree, that they fled precipitately. Such, indeed, was their hurry and confusion at the bridge near the convent, that numbers of them were drowned.
The English got possession of the convent without resistance, and pursued the Indians as if they had been a flock of goats as far as the river Bamban, which they swam over, at least all those who had the good fortune to escape the enemy’s bullets. The King of Jolo, attempting to defend a post occupied by his family, was obliged to surrender. The English fortified this post, and maintained themselves in it till the peace.
By this time Señor Anda had collected some troops, which he was enabled to maintain with the money which had been saved in Pampanga. Bustos, in the capacity of his lieutenant-general, paraded the province of Bulacan, making an ostentatious display of the power of Señor Anda; and the Pampangan Indians, commanded by a Franciscan and an Augustine friar, advanced to Maysilo, about two leagues distance from Manila, idly expecting that Bustos would support them under all circumstances. The English sallied out to dislodge them; and our Indians formed an ambuscade, in which they hoped to succeed by counterfeiting death, when it was said that many of the enemy fell; but a friar asserted, that by means of a glass he had observed from the Tambobon tower that the Indians only let fly their arrows, and immediately made the best of their way. Certain it is that the English burnt Maysilo, and re-entered Manila with their field-pieces, without any diminution of their numbers.