The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 22 of 55 / 1625-29 / 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

Fray Miguel, archbishop of Manila.

[Endorsed: “Manila. To his Majesty; 1626. The archbishop of Manila, [MS. holed] of July. Seen and decreed within, July 30, 627.”]

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[1] The same instruction is given after nearly all the following statistics, namely “idem,” i.e., that they be entered in the book. Consequently, we omit all following instances.

Letter from Fernando de Silva to Felipe IV

Sire:

Last year I advised your Majesty of the state in which I found these islands; and now I could tell you that they have not been in better condition for thirty years past. I kiss your Majesty’s hand for the great favor which you do me in sending as my successor Don Juan Niño de Tabora, a person who, I am confident, will carry out whatever is ordered there for the service of your Majesty; for my part I shall aid him as much as I can, without heeding trifles.

As the despatch of last year was made early, the ships arrived at Nueva España in less than six months, and returned to this city on the twenty-eighth of June, the day on which the governor took possession of these offices.

The commander of the Terrenate relief expedition arrived, and we learn from those forts that all the aid reached them, as it was sent early—which could not have been accomplished if it had been eight days later. They are in peace and well provisioned, since the people of Terrenate and Tidore are friendly. They likewise inform us that the fort of Calomata, which the enemy dismantled, which is half a legua from Malayo, has been fortified, because it was understood that the Dutch were about to come back again; and that the natives killed two hundred men of the enemy, who had arrived to punish them with fifteen ships, which seem few for those seas.