The Augustine friars still remained prisoners in their convents, although sometimes permitted to leave them, but restricted within the walls of the city. A counter order, however, was very unexpectedly issued, depriving them of that indulgence. It was thought that the English had recourse to this method, to compel them to deliver up the money, which, it was said, they had secreted. Persevering, however, in their firmness, they were accused of a participation in the plans of the Augustine friars of Pampanga, who favoured the views of Anda, and twelve of them were embarked for Europe, of whom, however, one was liberated at the request of the Archbishop.
The remaining friars being embarked, the English entered the convent, and stripped it of every valuable. They found six thousand dollars in coin in the garden, together with the wrought silver they had hid during the treaty for the million. The reliques of the Saints even were not spared, and were torn down, in order to carry off the cases which contained them. Before the vessels sailed in which the friars were embarked, the British commander determined upon an expedition against Bulacan, in the expectation that this would finally close the undertaking, and enable him to sail for Bombay and England. The convent of Bulacan was in some respect fortified with three small guns and six falconetes, and there were in it some artillerymen, and many Indians with bows and arrows. It was the object of the English, of course, to dislodge these troops, for which purpose a squadron sailed on the 18th of January, 1763, under the command of Captain Eslay, of the grenadiers, who arrived with about six hundred men, ready for action, many of them Chinese, who followed the English. Their intention was to enter the bar of Binoangan, but being prevented by contrary winds, they proceeded to that of Pumarava, close to Malolos. The following day they arrived there, and coasting for two leagues by the marshes they arrived at Malolos, where they effected the landing without any impediment whatever, for the troops which we had there retired precipitately, the Indians to their houses, and the Spaniards to the convent of Calumpit. Whilst the English were marching to Bulacan, Bustos sallied out to reconnoitre them, and seeing they were superior to him in numbers, he returned to the convent, persuading the alcalde mayor and the Franciscan friar who commanded there, to burn the convent and retire; but unable to succeed in his object, he retreated with his people. The English force arriving in sight of the convent, our people did much mischief by means of a cannon loaded with case-shot, which commanded the street, and as the Chinese composed the vanguard, they alone suffered, and that severely. The English commander ordered his field-pieces to be pointed at this gun; and so correct was the aim, that the head of Ybarra, who commanded there, was carried off, which so appalled the Indians, that they fled in a most tumultuous manner; the consequence of which was, that the gates being forced, the enemy entered sword in hand, and an indiscriminate slaughter took place. The alcalde mayor and the Franciscan friar (who was the head of the clergy there) fell in this action, and of two Augustines one escaped, and the other being taken, was, with all the Indians found in the place, delivered up by the English to the Chinese, who murdered them in cold blood, in revenge for the death of their countrymen during the attack. Having got possession of Bulacan, the English commandant despatched the principal part of his force to Manila, remaining with three hundred seapoys only. Bustos and Eslava advanced against him, and though they brought with them eight thousand men, all Indians, six hundred of whom were cavalry, they were not hardy enough to attempt to dislodge him; and they contented themselves with cutting off his communications, and giving him occasional alarms. The English commandant having sent some small parties against them with little effect, he sallied out in person, with the major part of his people, and made our troops run in a most dastardly manner, under the apprehension that he would pursue them to the province of Pampanga; but he did no more than cut down the underwood, which served as an ambush for the Indians, and then returned to the convent.
Bustos, as soon as the English retired, returned to occupy his old position; but from this he was a second time dislodged as shamefully as at first. This kind of warfare, however, was very useful; for the English commander, not daring to advance far, obtained permission from the British council to retire from the position, which he executed in an orderly manner, without any interruption from our people, having first burnt the church and convent of Bulacan.
Admiral Cornish now determined to return to the peninsula, but before his departure, he ordered the remaining two millions to be raised and paid in, threatening to give the city, and its suburbs, up to plunder a second time, if his requisition was not complied with. This gave the Archbishop excessive uneasiness, and he did not rest until he persuaded him to take an order on the treasury of Madrid. Señor Anda, in consequence of the death of the alcalde of Bulacan, appointed Bustos governor of that province, continuing him as his lieutenant-general, and ordering him to raise troops, and teach them the manual exercise, while the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of Manila, with the monks, contributed arms, lead, and other articles of war, exciting, at the same time, desertion from the city, and expecting by all these means to enable Anda to form a respectable body of troops, with which he might confine the English to Manila, and possibly drive them out of it. A French serjeant, named Bretaña, favoured much the desertion of the Frenchmen, which the English had brought with them of those they captured in Pondicherry; and he himself having also deserted, Señor Anda made him a captain.
The Spanish regulars, too, who had been made prisoners in Manila, deserted very generally, and at a public entertainment which the English gave, many of them escaped through a small breach in the fort, whilst the attention of the enemy was otherwise engaged.
In order to check this spirit of desertion, Admiral Cornish confined all the Frenchmen, and the Spanish regulars, to the side of the town next the sea, using every precaution in his power to prevent Señor Anda from receiving any succours from the town and its suburbs. In consequence of these precautions, many were caught in the act of absconding, and friars and secular clergy formed a large portion of the number. In that number were Señor Viana, the fiscal, and Señor Villa Corta. This latter, whilst a prisoner, very incautiously wrote to Señor Anda, and gave a man fifty dollars to convey the letter. The guard intercepted the money and letter; and a council of war was held on him, which sentenced him to be hanged, and his four quarters to be exhibited in the public places. Having accordingly confessed, and prepared himself for his fate, the Archbishop obtained his pardon, on condition that Señor Anda would retire from Pampanga to another province. The Archbishop and Villa Corta wrote to Señor Anda, supplicating him to accede to the proposal of the English, in order that that magistrate might be saved from the ignominious death which awaited him. He replied to Villa Corta, lamenting his situation, but refusing to accede to his application. To the Archbishop his letter was of so shameful a nature, that the English having perused it, ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman, not permitting the Archbishop to read it.
This mode of saving Villa Corta’s life having failed, he availed himself of other means, and for three thousand dollars paid down, the sentence pronounced against him was remitted.
During these transactions in Manila, the commanding officer of Pasig (Backhouse) had gone to the provinces of the Lake and Batangas, in order to intercept the money of the Philipino, which, it was said, was on its way thither. He left his position on the Pasig with eighty mixed troops, arrived at the bar of Tagui, and removing the sampans (which our people had grounded on the bar to prevent his passage), he entered the Great Lake, and proceeded to Tunasan; from whence dislodging the troops which had fortified themselves in the government-house, he plundered it of every thing. He did the same in Biñan and Santa Rosa, where he embarked for Pagsanhan, the capital of the province of the Lake. As soon as our people perceived him, they set fire to the church and convent, and took precipitately to flight. Backhouse returned to Calamba, and entering the province of Batangas, he traversed it completely, making prisoners of some Augustine friars, who had the direction of that province; and in the town of Lipa he got possession of three thousand dollars, which some Spaniards had secreted there. In this town he took up his quarters, in expectation of the money being landed from the Philipino; but he shortly after understood that it had been secretly ordered away by sea to the opposite coast of Santor, a town of Pampanga, by which precaution the money was saved; and Backhouse, being woefully disappointed of his booty, returned to Pasig. Señor Anda, by the possession of the Philipino’s money, was enabled to collect a respectable force; all the Spaniards who had retired from Manila, and lived in misery, enlisting under his banners, to procure pay and subsistence. This force being appointed and rendered effective, he ordered his Lieutenant-General, Bustos, to form a camp at Malinta, a house belonging to the Augustine friars, a league and a half from Manila. The officers took up their quarters in the house, and the soldiers pitched their tents around. This disposition of the encampment being made, to strengthen it some redoubts and palisadoes were constructed by the Serjeant Bretaña, who had been promoted to a company, and was apparently the most intelligent of the whole of them. From this place our people made excursions to the outskirts of Manila, and on one occasion they took the horses from the coach belonging to a dignified clergyman. On another occasion, the English commander himself had nearly been taken by them. One night Bustos sent a piquet guard to get possession of the bells of the town of Quiapo, close to the walls of Manila, in order to be cast into cannon, which were much wanted; and so alarmed were the English, that they sent out one hundred fusileers, and fifty horse, with an immense number of Chinese; but notwithstanding this, after an action of an hour and a half, the piquet succeeded in bringing off the bells. The English finding themselves very weak, and rather alarmed at these incursions of the troops of Malinta, called in all the piquets which were without the city, and dug ditches, in order to cut off the communication, and have a less extended line to cover; and in a manifesto which they published, ordering the Spaniards to retire within the walls of the city, out of the range of the artillery, which they were obliged to keep playing against these Malinta troops, to prevent their surrounding them, they bestowed on these troops the appellations of canaille and robbers.
On the 19th of May, 1763, Señor Anda published in Bacolor a counter-manifesto, in which he complains that the English put the guns they took in Bulacan under the gallows, in contempt of the magistrate from whom they had taken them; that they called the King’s troops robbers and canaille; that they had promised five thousand dollars for his head, dead or alive; and in consequence of all this, he declared Drake and his colleagues, Smith and Brock, tyrants, common enemies, and unworthy of human society, offering for either of them, alive or dead, ten thousand dollars. The English council replied to all these charges in a manifesto, in which they complain of the conduct of the Spaniards; but as a paper war was of little avail in furnishing them with the provisions they were deprived of by the interruption occasioned by the Malinta troops, they resolved to dislodge Bustos, and with the greatest secrecy despatched three hundred and fifty fusileers, fifty horse, together with a great number of Chinese, to convey the necessary guns and ammunition. The English made this sortie on the 27th of June, and arrived at the river, in front of our post, before day-break. As soon as our people discovered them they began to form, but before we were prepared the fire with their field-pieces commenced, the Spaniards answering with five small guns, followed up by the musketry; but neither daring to pass the river, they were expending their powder to no purpose until eleven o’clock, when the English retired in good order to the King’s house at Maysilo, where they remained until it was understood that Bustos had burnt Malinta house, and removed his camp to Meycavayan. They then retired into Manila in the evening. On our side we had two killed and seven wounded, of which five afterwards died; and of the enemy there were thirteen wounded, of which five or six died afterwards in the hospital. The Indians of Caloocan intercepted some people conveying provisions to the English camp; and another party of Indians made prisoners a party of Chinese, who had strayed for the purpose of plunder. These were the last actions of this war, for on the 23d of July an English frigate arrived with the preliminaries of peace, and a cessation of hostilities of course took place.