The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 19 of 55 / 1620-1621 / Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.

by Unknown

Item: Your Majesty should command that the garrisons of that kingdom be made open, on account of the fact that experience has shown that more men would go, if this were the case. Those in Maluco should be exchanged with those in the Filipinas every three years, for otherwise so many refuse to go to Maluco, and the forts there are in such ill-repute, that those who are taken there are discontented, as if they were being sent to the galleys; but if they are exchanged, as I have said, they will go willingly. Beside, they would become experts, and the soldiers from Maluco are worth more than those who have not been there, on account of their constant exercise in war and labor.

Item: Your Majesty should command that the city of Manila be made an open garrison, like San Juan de Ulua and Habana; for in this way the men will go to the Filipinas willingly. As Don Juan de Silva has done otherwise for years past, this country has become depopulated, and they have fled to various parts from time to time, no one daring to go there on this account.

Item: Concerning the treatment of the Indians, and what it is well to inform your Majesty in this regard, as well in what concerns your royal conscience as the good of the country, a separate memorial is required.

Item: As to the manner of governing them and collecting their tributes, as has been seen by experience, the religious have done a great deal of harm by preventing the Indians from paying tributes on the fruits which they harvest; because the religious have not the inclination or sense to leave many things free—as will be seen in the account I shall give your Majesty in regard to this, all of which has been taught by experience.

Item: Finally, it is very necessary that your Majesty should consider that that country is very new, and that your Majesty should desire its growth; and because, likewise, it was not so much in need of your Majesty’s protection and favor in the beginning as it is now—when so few wish to go there on account of ill-treatment, many misfortunes, and the fear of enemies—your Majesty should protect it so that they may be encouraged to go there. For this your Majesty should command your ministers to give those who wish to go a comfortable passage. For if in early days the king our lord, the father of your Majesty, who so greatly favored and loved that land, not only furnished a passage, but likewise the necessaries for their journey, to those who wished to go, and even freed them from duties and imposts, that aid is much more necessary today; and at least they should be given some exemptions, and should not be treated with such harshness as they now are. This I can affirm as an eyewitness, that when we arrived at the port of Capulco, after having been on the voyage five months, and a great many of our people had died, and God had brought us through such boundless hardships and dangers to the place where we were to refresh ourselves, they treated us worse, indeed, than they did the Dutch; for to the latter they gave food there, and sent them away satisfied, and to us they acted as they should have done to the Dutch. Since a proper remedy for what happened at the port of Capulco, which I am bound to suggest to your Majesty, and for many other matters concerning your royal service, cannot be suggested in this place, I shall give it in other memorials.

Item: The encomiendas which your Majesty used to grant were formerly for three lives; and a short time ago your Majesty ordered by a royal decree that they should be, and it should be so understood, for two lives. This is a great difficulty in the preservation of that community, and especially so as your Majesty has granted the favor to Nueva España of giving them for four lives; and as the Filipinas have been, and continue to be thus far, the colony of Nueva España, and almost governed by the royal Audiencia thereof, it is a great hardship that they should enjoy no more than two lives. In the first place, because many are discouraged from serving your Majesty, and even from remaining in that country, when they learn that their sons and grandsons must be reduced to the greatest poverty, the said encomienda expiring with the holder’s first son or his wife, as at present happens; in the second place, because four lives are shorter in the Filipinas than two in Nueva España. The reason for this is the many occasions for war and naval expeditions, wherein men are easily killed or drowned, leaving their successors in the hospital—as is at present the case with many, which makes one’s heart ache with pity.

In answer to the tacit objection which might be brought up that it is better to have the encomiendas vacated quickly, so that others may be rewarded with them, and with this hope will go to serve there, I would say that the important matter is to make a compromise—namely that your Majesty should concede the said encomiendas not for four lives, as in Nueva España, nor for two as at present, but for three, as formerly, which is a very necessary measure for the relief of some, and the encouragement of others to the service of your Majesty.

Letter from Master-of-camp Lucas de Vergara, written to Don Francisco Gomez de Arellano, dean of Manila, which is the last that came from Maluco in the past year.

By the ship “San Antonio,” which I despatched to that city on the thirteenth of May last, I informed you, with other matters pertaining to me, of my health, and my arrival at these forts safely with the three ships in which I took the reënforcements; and of how well I was received by everyone, and everything which had occurred to me up to that time. What I have to say to you since that time is that, from the persons who have come to me from the forts of the enemy, both native and Dutch, and from other inquiries that I have made, I have learned that of the ten Dutch ships which were at the harbor-mouth of Marivelez only four have come back to these islands. One of them brought the wounded men from Oton; a second one, when our fleet went out to seek that of the enemy, was going out to sea, picking up Sangley ships. When it saw our fleet, without going back to theirs, it cast loose a very rich junk which it was towing astern, and took to flight. The captain of this vessel, they tell me, the Dutch put to death for having fled. Two other vessels arrived at the port of Malayo on the eighth of June. These had found occasion to fight with our fleet; and accordingly they arrived dismantled by cannon-shots, and with many wounded men. These brought the news that only six of their vessels had fought with eight of ours and three galleys; and that their commander’s ship and two others were lost, one going to the bottom and the other two being burned. Their commander escaped in a boat which they saw was being followed by two of our galleons and a galley—although they did not know the result, since neither this one, nor two others that are lacking from the ten, have appeared here thus far. Of six hundred men whom they took from the forts which they have on these islands to put in the ten boats, when they were at Manila, only a hundred came back alive. These two damaged ships are being put to rights, and in all they have five at present in these islands, with few men; so that if a part of our fleet had come, and followed up the victory, they might all have been captured. This loss has made both the Dutch and those of Terrenate very sad and cast down, for they were in hopes to come back rich and victorious. A few silks and other goods were brought in the ships which escaped and they sold them to us very dear, although not so dear as they cost them. What they are considering now, and urge for the consolation of those of Terrenate and the other nations friendly to them, is that they are going to collect a great fleet which they have in Ambueno, and in the Sunda; and with the whole fleet they are to attack the forts of his Majesty before our fleet arrives from Castilla and from the Filipinas. This you already know of. Beside this, they are putting their fortresses in the best state of fortification possible, together with the posts which they hold; for they see that the natives here are very lukewarm in their friendship, and they fear that when they see our fleet more powerful than theirs, the natives will drop their friendship and try to win ours. The king of Tidore and I consider it certain, judging from what we have heard from themselves, and particularly from those of the island of Maquien, that that alone is richer in cloves and native inhabitants than are all the others there. Their Sangaje, who went there to treat of this matter, was taken and killed in the fort at Malayo, which irritated the natives of that island very much.