



Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the PG Distributed Proofreaders Team







                   The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898

   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,

                        Volume XVIII, 1617-1620



 Edited and annotated by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson
  with historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord
                                Bourne.








CONTENTS OF VOLUME XVIII


    Preface      9
    Documents of 1617-1618

            Letter to Felipe III. Andres de Alcaraz;
            Manila, August 10, 1617.      31
            Trade between Nueva Espana and the Far
            East. [Unsigned and undated; _ca._ 1617].
            57
            Events in the Filipinas Islands, 1617-18
            [Unsigned; Manila], June, 1618.       65
            Description of the Philippinas
            Islands. [Unsigned]; Manila, 1618.   93
            Dutch factories and posts in the Orient. [Pedro
            de Heredia]; [1618?].      107
            Memorial regarding Manila hospital. [Unsigned];
            Manila, 1618.      112
            Letter to Felipe III. Alonso Fajardo de Tenza;
            Cavite, August 10, 1618.      116
            Letters to Fajardo. Felipe III; Madrid,
            December 19, 1618.  150
            Filipinas menaced by Dutch. Joan de Ribera,
            S.J.; Manila, December 20, 1618.      161

    Documents of 1619-1620

            Philippine ships and shipbuilding. Sebastian
            de Pineda; [Mexico? 1619].   169
            Royal decree regarding religious expelled
            from their orders. Felipe III; Madrid,
            February 19, 1619.   189
            Proposal to destroy Macao. Diego Aduarte, O.P.;
            [Madrid? 1619].      194
            Relation of events in the Filipinas Islands,
            1618-19. [Unsigned]; Manila, July 12, 1619.
            204
            Letter to Felipe III. Pedro de Arce; Manila,
            July 30, 1619.      235
            Letter to Felipe III. Alonso Fajardo de Tenza;
            Manila, August 10, 1619.      247
            Grant to seminary of Santa Potenciana. Juan
            Onez, and others; Manila, 1617-19.  282
            Reforms needed in Filipinas (to be
            concluded). Hernando de los Rios Coronel;
            [Madrid?], 1619-20.  289

    Bibliographical Data.      345





ILLUSTRATIONS


    Plan of the city of Goa and its environs; photographic
    facsimile of engraving in Bellin's _Petit atlas maritime_
    ([Paris], 1764), no. 29, from copy in library of Wisconsin
    Historical Society.  199
    View of the city of Manila; photographic facsimile of
    engraving in Spilbergen and Le Maire's _Speculum orientalis
    occidentalisque Indiae navigationum_ (French edition, 1621),
    no. 18, facing p. 86, from copy in Library of Congress.
    225
    Autograph signature of Fernando de Los Rios; photographic
    facsimile from original MS. in Archivo general de Indias,
    Sevilla.      343




PREFACE


The scope of the present volume extends from 1617 to 1620. The islands
are still ravaged at intervals by the Moro pirates from the southern
part of the archipelago. Even worse are the losses to the commerce of
the islands inflicted by the Dutch; their ships infest the seas about
Luzon, and those of the Moluccas, in which region they are steadily and
even rapidly gaining foothold, and securing the best commerce of those
lands. Corruption in the management of the Spanish interests in the
Spice Islands renders them an expensive and embarrassing possession;
and the new governor, Fajardo, finds the same influence at work in
the Spanish colony itself, especially among the auditors and other
high officials. The colonial treasury is, as usual, short of funds,
and can do little to defend the islands from the Dutch; the Madrid
government is unwilling to spend much more on the Philippines, although
beset with importunities to save that colony, and Spanish commerce
generally, from the insolent Dutch. The usual building of ships in the
islands has so harrassed and exhausted the unfortunate natives that
it is necessary to have ships built for the Philippines in India and
other countries where timber and labor are more abundant. The trade of
the colony with China is the object of much discussion, and proposals
are again made to restrict it, as