[The greater part of the seventh book is taken up with the translation or condensation from the Dutch relation of the first voyage of van Nek to the East Indies. A critical resume of Erasmus's description of Holland and its people is given, which allows Argensola, as a churchman and good Catholic, to inveigh against the heresies and many religions of the Dutch. As a consequence of the Dutch expedition, the Ternatans gain new life in their opposition to the Portuguese and Spaniards. Frequent embassies are sent to Manila from the Portuguese and natives at Tidore, requesting aid for the Moluccas—which Francisco Tello was neglecting, as other matters appeared more important. One embassy, in charge of the brother of the king of Tidore, is followed by another in charge of a Portuguese, Marcos Diaz de Febra, who presents a letter from the Tidore ruler to Dr. Morga. The embassy is successful, and in 1602 Diaz returns to Tidore with reënforcements and a promise of an expedition from Manila. In the Philippines themselves, the Chinese are continually congregating in greater numbers, and are rapidly becoming a menace, although the governor is blind to that fact, and claims that they are necessary to the well-being of the community.]
Conquest of the Malucas Islands
Book Eighth
[Molucca affairs are given considerable attention in the administration of Governor Pedro de Acuña. The petitions for aid, sent to the Philippines from those islands, continue. Tello is removed from the governorship, and Acuña sent to take his place. The latter is received in Manila (May, 1602) with great rejoicing, as his merits and reputation are well known. Tello's death occurs in Manila while waiting to give his residencia. Acuña enters into affairs with great energy. The narrative continues (p. 270):]
… The new governor was pained at beholding the poverty of the royal chest and treasury, and himself under the obligation of preserving the king's and his own credit. The Malucas formed part of this consideration, for their reduction was a considerable part of his duty. But he reassured himself, believing that he might supply the lack of money by energy. He attended to matters personally, as was his custom, both those in Manila and those in its vicinity. He built galleys and other boats, which were greatly needed for the defense of the sea, which was then infested by pirates and near-by enemies, especially the Mindanaos. He visited then the provinces of Pintados, and attended to the needs of those regions. In one of these visits, besides the storms suffered by his little vessel (which carried only three soldiers), another signal danger overtook him. Twenty-two English vessels, enriched with the booty that they had seized from the islands of that government, tried to attack and capture him. But for lack of a tide they remained stranded, and could not row. Don Pedro saw that they threw overboard more than two thousand of their many Spanish and islander captives in order to lighten themselves. They also threw overboard a beautiful Spanish girl seventeen years old. Later, the Manila fleet went in pursuit of them, and it was able to capture some of the pirates, and they were punished. But that punishment was much less than their cruelty. [292] Don Pedro tried to remove the hindrances to the enterprise that he was meditating; but had to delay for some months what he most wished to hasten, in order to despatch Joloan and Japanese matters.
Chiquiro, the Japanese ambassador, had recently arrived in Manila, bearing a present of the products and industries of those kingdoms, and letters; he also had orders to negotiate for friendship with the governor, and commerce between the Japanese emperor (by name Daifusama) and the Filipinas and Nueva España. The proximity of those provinces, the power of the Japanese kings, their natural dispositions, and other circumstances which experience showed to be worthy of serious consideration, demanded that that commerce be not refused—although, for the same reasons, the opinion was expressed that it was not advisable. But since that barbarian had once espoused that desire, it was not easy to find a means to settle the matter without causing jealousy or anger. Dayfusama requested then that the Spaniards trade in Quanto, a port of one of his own provinces; that they establish friendship, so that the Japanese could go to Nueva España; that the governor send him masters and workmen to build ships for him in Japon, in order to continue that navigation. Dayfusama insisted upon this, having been persuaded by one of our religious of the Order of St. Francis, one Fray Geronymo de Jesus, whom the Japanese king esteemed greatly. This was a serious matter, and in many ways most damaging to the Filipinas. In those islands, the greatest security against those provinces has consisted for many years in the lack of ships and pilots among the Japanese, together with their ignorance of the art of navigation. It has been observed by experts that, whenever that insolent barbarian has shown any intention to arm against Manila, he has been prevented by this obstacle. Consequently to send him workmen and masters to build Spanish vessels for him, would be equivalent to providing him weapons against the Spaniards themselves; and the navigation of the Japanese would be the prelude to the destruction of Filipinas and Nueva España, while long voyages by the Japanese were inadvisable, and moreover contrary to safety. Considering all these reasons, Governor Don Pedro de Acuña ordered the ambassador Chiquiro to be entertained splendidly. He gave him some presents for his king and for himself, and despatched a vessel with another present—a moderate one, so that it might not argue fear, as it would if he took too much. It sailed together with the ship of Dayfusama and his ambassador, both being filled with articles of barter. The letters of Don Pedro contained long compliments at his pleasure in procuring the establishment of greater friendship. But he said that, although he had received full power from King Filipe for things pertaining to the government of Filipinas, that part of the king's embassy touching his request for sailors and the building of Spanish ships he was unable to decide, until he should inform the viceroy of Nueva España; nor could the viceroy decide it without special orders from his Majesty. He promised the Japanese king to write about it for him, and to aid the accomplishment of so just a desire. But he warned him that it would be necessary to wait more than three years for the furtherance and resolution of the matter, because of the distance and accidents of so long voyages. It was ordered that the same Fray Geronymo himself should deliver all this message to Dayfusama. Geronymo de Jesus was written to in secret, instructing and reproving him. He was ordered to tell the Japanese monarch that the governor esteemed his good will exhibited toward the commerce and friendship of the Spaniards, and his own great desire for them. He was to encourage him to keep the peace, which the governor himself would keep without any infringement. But he was ordered subtly to divert the king's mind from similar desires and propositions, and not to facilitate any of them; for although perhaps there were no hidden deceit in the then reigning monarch, or any interest greater than that of friendship, it might cause great harm in times of a less well-intentioned successor, who might abuse the navigation, and turn it against those who taught it to them. The governor promised to send another ship soon to trade. Fray Geronymo was to give the king hopes that some Spanish masters of Spanish boats would sail in it. Dayfusama was to be patient, and should consider how offended he would be, if his servants were to open up any new commerce without consulting him, or without his order.
With this despatch Chiquiro returned to Japon in his ship….
[A storm however overtakes him near Formosa, and his ship is wrecked and he and his men drowned, the event being learned only long after. "Daifusama, being persuaded by Fray Geronymo, had granted leave for our religion to be preached in his kingdoms, to build our churches, and for all who wished to profess our religion with public authority." Accordingly the orders send various missionaries to different districts of Japan. "Many persuaded Don Pedro not to send away these religious, but, although those persuasions were well founded, and obstacles put in the way of their departure, it was determined to allow them to go…. These religious did not find in the provinces proof of the desires that had been told them. Very few Japanese were converted, and fewer were disposed toward it, for the king and tonos [chiefs] … did not love our religion." Don Pedro sends the promised ship to Japan laden with "dye-wood, deerskins, raw silk, and various other articles." Thus Japanese demands are met, and the emperor is satisfied with the diplomatic answer returned to him. Meanwhile "Don Pedro's thought bore on the recovery of the Malucas." Letters pass between him and the Portuguese commander Andrea Furtado de Mendoza in regard to the expedition, and aid from the Philippines, and the hostilities of the Dutch. (The Jesuit brother Gaspar Gomez had been sent by Acuña from Mexico to Spain, to show the necessity and advantages of the expedition; after various delays it was set on foot, and Furtado obtained many successes in Amboina, where he had some encounters with the Dutch. The king of Ternate asked help from Java and Mindanao.)]
The season and necessity compelled General Furtado to request urgently the help that was being prepared in Filipinas. Amboino is eighty leguas from those islands. Accordingly he sent Father Andres Pereyra, a Jesuit, and Captain Antonio Brito Fogaço, in May of the year one thousand six hundred and two. They reached Cebù July twenty-five. They sailed thence for Manila, August six, and entered that city September five. Don Pedro de Acuña rejoiced greatly over their arrival. He asked them—so great was his desire and interest, or rather, his noble rivalry—minutely concerning the expeditions of General Furtado. Since the latter had referred to them in his letters, they gave an extended relation of them, and executed his embassy, each one fulfilling the office that he professed. Don Pedro did not delay the sending [of reënforcements.] He assembled the council of war, where it was resolved to send Furtado the help that he requested, without delay, although they felt obliged to accommodate themselves to the necessities of the country. Following this decision the governor sent a message to the provinces of Pintados ordering captain Juan Xuarez Gallinato, chief of them, to provide all necessaries for the expedition, and himself to sail with his best disciplined infantry from Cebù to the city of Arevalo, the place assigned for assembling the fleet. Gallinato did this, and also sent a vessel to Otón to lade as much as possible of the supplies. It reached Otón October twenty-eight, and the same day Don Pedro left Manila for Pintados, in order, by his presence, to inspire greater haste in the despatch of the fleet, which was already almost ready in Otón. He arrived there November thirteen. So fiery was his spirit that he assembled the reënforcement and entrusted it to Juan Xuarez Gallinato—without allowing the expeditions from Xolo and Mindanao to embarrass him, even though he saw the natives of those islands, divided into different bodies among the Pintados, pillaging and murdering his Majesty's vassals—and appointed him general and commander of that expedition.
[Furtado, after asking the reënforcement from Acuña, goes to the Moluccas. Some of his men are defeated in a naval engagement with the natives, whereupon Furtado builds a fort at the friendly island of Machian.]
After the fleet, military stores and food had been collected, they were delivered to Gallinato by the auditors and fiscal of the Audiencia. The supplies consisted of one thousand fanegas of cleaned rice, three hundred head of cattle, two hundred jars of wine, eighty quintals of nails and bolts, forty quintals of powder, three hundred Ylocos blankets, seven hundred varas of Castilian wool, one hundred sail-needles, and thirty jugs of oil. The men amounted to two hundred soldiers—one hundred and sixty-five arquebusiers and thirty-five musketeers—twenty-two sailors, several pilots, one master, three artillerymen in the "Santa Potenciana," and twenty common seamen. The monthly expense of all that equipment amounted to twenty-two thousand two hundred and sixty pesos. This having been done on the part of the governor and Audiencia, they required Father Andres Pereyra and Captain Brito to go with the reënforcement—which Gallinato had ready, with its colors, and with Captains Christoval Villagrà and Juan Fernandez de Torres. The company of Captain Don Tomas Bravo, the governor's nephew, son of Don Garcia his brother, was left behind; but the captain went, and served bravely on the expedition. The infantry was taken on the ship "Sancta Potenciana," and on the fragatas "Santo Anton," "San Sebastian," "San Buenaventura," and "San Francisco." The fleet left the port of Yloilo January twenty, one thousand six hundred and three, and reached La Caldera in Mindanao the twenty-fifth. They remained there until the twenty-eighth, as they had some information concerning those enemies. Then they sailed toward Maluco, and sighted the island of Siao February seven, and at dawn of the next day that of Taolân, four leguas from Siao. There the fragata "Sant Anton" was wrecked on a shoal of the island, which gave greater anxiety to the fleet. Gallinato made efforts so that the men should not perish. He sent Captain Villagrà, who saved them, as well as the weapons and the pieces of artillery; the rest was left in the sea. They continued their voyage and sighted the island of Ternate February thirteen. On the fourteenth they entered that of Tydore, where they heard of Andres Furtado's arrival. There they rested but little, in order to join him sooner. Sailing thence with a good breeze they reached Ternate, and made harbor at Talangame, one legua from the fortress, on the sixteenth of the same month. The fleets saluted one another with tokens of friendly regard, and the generals did the same….