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

I The King
By order of the king, our sovereign:
Don Fernando Ruiz De Contreras

Inadvisability of a Spanish Post on the Island of Formosa

I would consider it a very important fact that the Spaniards of Filipinas have seized and fortified a site on the island of Hermosa, if that would be the efficacious means of driving out the Dutch from their fort and from that island by force of arms, but otherwise not.

In order to discuss this proposition reasonably, it will be necessary first to investigate the objects that the Dutch may have had in order to have fortified, as they have done for the last three or four years, the island of Hermosa.

Some have thought that the purpose of the Dutch must be to destroy commerce between China and Filipinas, by plundering more at their ease the Chinese ships, because they are there near China, and in a place where the fleets from Manila which have sometimes defeated them, cannot attack them. But in my judgment, this is not their purpose, although it is a fact that they are very near the coasts of China in the island of Hermosa. For that reason, even the Chinese, before they set sail, ascertain by means of oared craft whether Dutch vessels are waiting in that place. Consequently, they either do not leave their ports, or if they leave, accomplish their voyage, since they can do so easily by sailing so as not to go within sight of the island. But it is impossible to escape the Dutch ships when they await the Chinese on the coasts of Filipinas, as they have done since the year 609, when they began that practice, until that of 625. During that time scarcely any ship escaped them; for the Dutch generally go to the coasts of Filipinas when there is no time to advise the Chinese not to leave their country. The latter, having sailed, necessarily fall into the hands of the Dutch. However, it is true that when the Dutch await the Chinese on the coasts of Manila, they need a larger fleet; and that they risk its loss by fighting with that of Manila. Here the capture of the Chinese is assured, while for the above reasons (of which the Dutch are not ignorant) that is almost impossible in the island of Hermosa.

In my opinion, then, the purpose of the Dutch is to establish a factory in the island of Hermosa, in order to trade with the Chinese by buying silks from them, and to sail with these to Japon (although taking some of them to Europa also, as well as other goods), just as the Portuguese of Macan do. I am persuaded of this, for, while I was sailing from Filipinas to Nueva España as captain and master of the ship “San Francisco,” which was wrecked in Japon in the year 609—the first time when the Dutch went to that kingdom—the Dutch petitioned for a factory from him whom we style emperor of Japon, offering to take him silks from China. Thereupon it was given to them, notwithstanding that the emperor was informed by the Spaniards, and by one Guillermo Adan[1]—an Englishman who had been living married in Japon for many years, to whom the emperor turned for information—that the Dutch were rebel vassals [of the Spaniards] and pirates; and that they could not get the silks if they did not plunder them from the Chinese. Thus did they establish their factory in the port of Firando, where they have maintained themselves to this very day, taking the silks that they have pillaged from the Chinese, and certain cloth stuffs from Europa, and buying food and supplies for their forces in the Malucas and other islands of those regions. Governor Don Juan de Silva, having conquered on the coasts of Filipinas the fleet of the Dutch who were robbing the Chinese in the year 610, it was learned from the instructions of Count Mauricio that they were forbidden to plunder the Chinese and other nations, and that they were only permitted to trade with them. Thus, although they robbed the Chinese, it was on their own responsibility, and incited by greed; and even that they palliated by making a price on the silks, by weighing them, and settling the account for that amount. Paying for the goods partly in reals—although only a small part—they gave to the Chinese due-bills on the factory of La Sunda. I saw those papers in their own flagship, as I was captured by the Dutch in the said year 610, when I was returning from the wreck at Japon to the Filipinas. Nor does it contradict this that since then they have continued to plunder the Chinese, since they have given out that they do it because the silks were bought for silver which the Spaniards of Manila are sending to China; and because even supposing that the silks be some belonging to the Chinese, they do not wish the latter to trade with the Spaniards, their enemies. Consequently, although the Dutch have pillaged them, it has been by affecting this pretext, and giving them to understand that the Dutch were not their enemies.

But what most persuades me to believe that this is the object of the Dutch is because they are not ignorant of the great advantage to them of buying silks from the Chinese and taking their investments to Japon; for it is evident to them from the high profits made by the Portuguese of Macan. That profit will be greater for them because of the greater ease of making the investment, and their nearer and easier navigation. Whenever any other nation wishes to trade with the Chinese, that trading must be done entirely with silver; and as the Dutch can take so little silver from Europa, and have no opportunity to get it from Japon unless in exchange for Chinese merchandise, it is certain that, both because of the high profits of this trade and in order to maintain themselves in their factory at Japon—whence they furnish the forts of the Malucas, Ambueno, and other places with supplies and some food—they will procure the trade with the Chinese by all possible means, by maintaining a factory in the island of Hermosa. Thus, becoming wealthy, they will utterly destroy Macan and deprive the Filipinas of the trade of Chinese silks which they had in Japon, which was formerly of so great profit that the investment generally yielded one hundred per cent in eight or nine months.

It is to be noted that this trade of Macan and Filipinas with Japon is the principal thing that should be aided by España, for it does not involve the danger of having the silver of the Indias wasted in China, if voyages are made to Macan from Lisboa by way of India, because it comes from China to Portugal, and from Nueva España to the Filipinas in return for what is taken to Nueva España. As for the investments made in Macan and Filipinas for Japon, the return for these is silver from the mines of Japon itself.

Now, then, it seems very advisable, for the above reasons, immediately to drive out the Dutch from the island of Hermosa, if there is any possibility and power therefor, uniting the forces of Filipinas, if necessary, with those of Macan—to whom the question is so vital, both because of the said reason of the commerce (which is of prime importance), and because the island of Hermosa lies in the path of the voyage from Macan to Japon; and also, I do not deny, because it is possible that the Dutch have taken a port in the island of Hermosa in order to conquer Macan therefrom, to which they are very near, as they attempted to do in the year 622. Therefore, it will be more expedient and convenient to drive out the Dutch from this island of Hermosa as soon as it is attempted; and that will be very gratifying to the Chinese, who are much offended at the Dutch because of the many robberies of their ships in the Filipinas trade that the Dutch have committed for the last seventeen years, and are bitterly hostile to them. But although it seems that that hostility will be sufficient, for the present, for the Chinese not to make any beginning in commerce in the island of Hermosa with the Dutch, that disinclination will disappear in a short time—both because of the kind reception that the Chinese will experience from the Dutch, and because the Chinese are so notably covetous that, although they are prohibited under penalty of losing life and property from trading with Japon, some ships laden with silks have gone to that kingdom during the last few years, pretending in Chinese ports that they are going to the Filipinas.