Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 02).djvu/17

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1521–1569]
PREFACE
13

Alvarado, extending to his heirs. Provision is made for land-grants, hospitals, religious instruction and worship, and the respective rights of the conquerors and the king. The instructions given to Villalobos and other officials are minute and careful. At Navidad Villalobos and all his officers and men take solemn oaths (October 22, 1542) to carry out the pledges that they have made, and to fulfil their respective duties. In 1543 complaint is made that Villalobos is infringing the Portuguese demarcation line, and plundering the natives, which he denies. An account of his expedition (summarized, like the other documents), written by Fray Jerónimo de Santistéban to the viceroy Mendoza, relates the sufferings of the Spaniards from hardships, famine, and disease. Of the three hundred and seventy men who had left New Spain, only one hundred and forty-seven survive to reach the Portuguese settlements in India. The writer justifies the acts of Villalobos, and asks the viceroy to provide for his orphaned children. Another account of this unfortunate enterprise was left by García Descalante Alvarado, an officer of Villalobos; it also is written to the viceroy of New Spain and is dated at Lisbon, August 1, 1548. Like Santisteban's, this too is a record of famine and other privations, the treachery of the natives, and the hostility of the Portuguese. Finally, a truce is made between the Castilians and the Portuguese, and part of the former embark (February 18, 1546) for the island of Amboina, where many of them perish.

Nearly twenty years elapse before any further attempt of importance is made to secure possession of the Philippine Archipelago. In 1564 this is begun by the departure from New Spain of an expedition