[Endorsed: “+ In Madrid, January 30, 1647.” “The Council of State, in which Don Francisco de Melo and the Marquis de Valparayso concur in regard to the response of Don Alonso de Cardenas, respecting his orders as to declining the proposition that was made by English merchants of Eastern India for trade in the port of Manila and other ports in the Philipinas.”
“Let it be so.”—Evidently the instruction of the king, which is signed in paraph.]
[1] The East India Company of England (formed in 1600) encountered great opposition and hindrances in its early history; they had to compete with the long-established Portuguese and Dutch trade, and could obtain little aid from the English government. In 1619 they formed an alliance with the Dutch company of the same name, but this soon proved ineffective. They had obtained control of Surat in 1612, but were thus involved in continual quarrels with the Portuguese. This company did not secure recognition from the English parliament until 1657; this brought them much prosperity for a time, but they afterward lost much of what they had gained, and in 1680 were expelled by the Dutch from Bantam. See Raynal’s account of early English trade in the East Indies, in his History of European Settlements and Trade (Justamond’s translation), ii, pp. 1–40.
[2] An oversight of the writer; Bantam is in Java, not Sumatra.
AFFAIRS IN FILIPINAS, 1644–47
Relation of the events on sea and land in the Filipinas Islands during the recent years, until the earthquake and destruction on the feast of St. Andrews in 645; and the battles and naval victories over the Dutch in 646.
By the presentado[1] father Fray Joseph Fayol, of the Order of Mercy for the redemption of captives,[2] chief chaplain of the royal chapel of the Incarnation, and a tertiary [tercio] of Manila.