No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2009
58. Decree of the governor of the Philippines ordering General Blanco to give the silver and treasure of the Philipino to the British, 6 October 1762. A.P.T., I, fo. 32.
Atento el rendimiento de esta ciudad y capitulaciones convenidas con los señores excelentísimos gefes británicos sobre la contribución de quarto millones para redimir esta ciudad, e islas de este sucesso; sin embargo de qualesquiera ordenes en que vuestras mercedes se hallen, se lo doy efectivo y estrecho, de que si al recibo de esta carta, que va con la seguridad del pasaporte dado por dichos excelentísimos señores no está apresado ese navío con sus caudales por los baxeles británicos, que fueron a este destino, conduzgan vuestras mercedes en el expresado navío Philipino, si está capaz de navegar, todos los caudales, que trajo de Nueva España para hazer entrega de ellos a los nominados excelentísimos señores para el cumplimiento de los expresados quatro millones sobre las cantidades, que aquí se rejuntan: y de no estar capaz dicho navío para conducirlos, harán formal entrega de los enunciados caudales a los oficiales del navío inglés, que para conducirlos a este puerto se presentare.
page 131 note 1 After deliberation, Rojo and his advisory council agreed to the terms of surrender. To raise the four million pesos demanded by the British they agreed to use whatever funds were available in Manila and the silver from the Philipino. The rest, they said, would be paid by Madrid.
page 132 note 1 The situado was the yearly subsidy sent from Mexico to pay expenses incurred by the government in running the colony. The permiso de las islas was the quota of Mexican silver permitted to merchants engaged in buying Chinese goods in Manila for resale in Acapulco. The quota varied over the years but at this time it was 500,000 pesos.
page 135 note 1 Notice the slip into the Spanish prisioneros. Also it is to be noted that surrender had been made of the city, not the entire archipelago.
page 136 note 1 Apparently this letter is in answer to one of Draper, the gist of which can be assumed from the reply.
page 139 note 1 Draper left Manila on November 11.
page 141 note 1 It is apparent from this remark that Rojo and the Spanish officials understood that the occupation of Manila and the British possession of the Philippines was to be temporary.
page 142 note 2 Apparently the reference is to Anda who was sent by Rojo on the night of 3 October to maintain the Filipinos of the provinces faithful to Charles III and the Spanish. Rojo thought he overstepped his commission by organizing a guerilla army and by maintaining a state of war against the British, in spite of Rojo's surrender.
page 144 note 1 Dawsonne Drake was the representative of the East India Company who was assigned the task of governing Manila once it had been captured. He became governor when Draper departed.
page 149 note 1 See Document 80 for a description of the capture of the galleon Santisima Trinidad.
page 156 note 1 Cornish confuses the names of the two galleons. He refers here to the Philipino which was en route from Acapulco. The Santísima Trinidad had been forced to return to the Philippines by a storm. Compare this account with Document 80.
page 157 note 2 The Embocadero of San Bernardino where the galleons entered and left the archipelago.
page 157 note 3 The Santísima Trinidad was a giant of a vessel. It was never returned to the Spaniards and on 9 June 1763 it entered Plymouth Road. The Scots Magazine announced that it was one of the largest ships ever seen in Britain, upwards of 2,000 tons burthen and drawing twenty-eight feet of water. Schurz, William L., The Manila Galleon (New York), 1959, p. 341.Google Scholar
page 161 note 1 The complaint that the capture of the Santísima Trinidad took place afterthe capitulation was signed was heard in the Admiralty Court. The report of James Marriott, Advocate General, to the Earl of Halifax, stated rather surprisingly that only the Philipino fell in this category, and if it was taken after, then ‘it may be a consideration that may effect the demand of the British Commanders for bills drawn for the surplus of the ransom on the King of Spain’. Calendar of Home Office Papers, no. 1486. The Philipino, of course, was never even captured. Cornish sent someone after it but there was neither crew nor cargo to be found. To prevent its further use, it was put to the torch. See Rojo's Narrative, B.R., 49: 251.
page 164 note 1 The former governor, Pedro Manuel de Arandía, left these for Charles III.
page 164 note 2 The canes were made of bamboo with delicately carved handles on which were depicted the royal arms. They were destined for both Charles III and the prince. ‘Rojo's Narrative’, B.R. 49: 247–8.
page 165 note 1 They were never returned. Ibid., 248.
page 170 note 1 This bill of payment was never honoured by the Spanish treasury. Madrid argued that Rojo was not authorized to draw such a sum, nor could he cede the Philippines to the British. The British government insisted on being paid, but the Marqués de Grimaldi, the Spanish chief minister, thought it was insane, ‘una locura’, to imagine that such a bill was valid. Marqués de Grimaldi to don Julián de Arriaga, San Ildefonso, 13 September 1765, A.G.I., Filipinas, 718. For the English requests see Calendar of Home Office Papers, nos. 1026, 1116 and 1179. As late as 1767 there was talk of exchanging the English occupation of the Falkland Islands for payment of the Manila ransom. Third Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (London, 1872), 135Google Scholar. The legal aspects of the case are reviewed in Sibley, N. W., ‘The Story of the Manila Ransom, 1768, and Britain's Debt to the United States’, Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law (3rd series), Vol. VII (1925), 17–32Google Scholar, who concluded that Britain would have a strong case if she ever decided to claim the two million pesos from the United States. Now that the Philippines is an independent country, one wonders who would be liable to pay, should Britain ever insist on payment.
page 176 note 1 For Parañaque and Bacolor.
page 177 note 2 Draper and Cornish freed both Chinese and Filipinos from tribute and from forced labour service.
page 178 note 3 The King of Jolo was Sultan Alimud Din who was a baptized Christian. He was reinstated in Sulu by the British in 1763, and in giatitude ceded to them part of North Borneo and Balambangan Island. See Saleeby, Najeeb M., The History of Sulu (Manila, 1908), pp. 186–7.Google Scholar
page 178 note 4 For Anda.
page 179 note 5 For Corregidor Island, at the mouth of Manila Bay.
page 184 note 1 The event referred to might have taken place the night that Pedro José de Busto, a guerilla leader under Anda, attempted to take the bells of Quiapo church in order to melt them into artillery pieces. The English with Chinese allies were waiting for Busto's force, but could not prevent him getting away with the bells. See José Montero y Vidal, Historia General de Filipinas, II, 60.Google Scholar
page 184 note 2 The English continued to fight Anda on the outskirts of Manlia, in Pasig and Malinta, and as far north as Bulacan. Here Anda's force had taken cover in a church and convent which was nevertheless attacked by Capt. Thomas Backhouse's troops. They pursued Anda so far north thinking the Spaniard had with him the treasure from the Philipino ‘Rojo's Narrative’, B.R., 49: 230.
page 187 note 1 For Fell. See Document 110.
page 187 note 2 Probably for Colonel George Monson.
page 188 note 1 For the text of the definitive treaty of peace signed by France, Great Britain and Spain, see Corbett, , England in the Seven Years' War, II, 377–90.Google Scholar
page 189 note 1 Although the announcement of the cessation of arms arrived in Manila in July 1763, the definitive treaty of peace and orders to evacuate Manila did not arrive until 8 March 1764. On 18 March the new Governor, Francisco de la Torre, demanded of Capt. Backhouse, who had assumed command of the British troops, the immediate evacuation of the city. Backhouse replied that he needed no spur to get out of Manila. See Backhouse's letter in Calendar of Home Office Papers, no. 1865. See also Document 112 for the problems facing Backhouse at this time.