Volume 18 — Philippine Ships and Shipbuilding

Sire:

The sheathing and planking hewn from the above-named trees for the sheathing of the ships is one palmo thick and three or four wide, and the shortest is twelve brazas long. These planks last a long time under water, as the ship-worms do not hole them; but above water they warp and rot, so that they do not last more than two years—and especially on the decks, if they are not calked during the winter. The greatest danger is that, on account of the haste used in their construction, time is not allowed to cut the wood at the conjunction [of the moon], and to leave it during a year to season, as is required; for if that is done, it lasts much longer. For of all the vessels built during the term of Don Juan de Silva, Page 163the galley which was longest in building did not take six months; and all the timber for them was hewn and put in place when green, for the vessels were being built while the wood was cutting.

The shipyards of the galleons built during Don Juan de Silva’s term were thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, and eighty leguas from the city of Manila, in different places: namely, on the island of Marinduque, where the galleon “San Juan Bautista” was built, which is forty leguas from Manila; in the province of Camarines at Dalupaes were built “Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe,” and the “Angel de la Guardia” [i.e., “Guardian Angel”], fifty leguas from Manila; in the province of Ybalon at Bagatan Page 165were built “San Felipe” and “Santiago,” eighty leguas from Manila; in Mindoro was built the galleon “San Juan Bautista,” fifty leguas from Manila; in Marinduque was built the almiranta “San Marcos,” forty leguas from Manila; in Masbate was built the royal flagship “Salbador,” seventy leguas from Manila; in Cavite were built the “Espiritu Santo” and the “San Miguel,” two leguas from Manila, in the port where the fleets anchor; in the port of Cabite, six galleys; in the city of Manila, two.

Those who cut these woods and build these ships and galleys are Indian natives of the said islands. They are carpenters, who are called cagallanes or pandais in their language. Those Indians who are no more than woodcutters, and serve only as hewers and planers of wood, are paid each seven or eight reals a month, and are given daily rations of one-half celemin of rice. Those of better trades than the latter generally earn ten or twelve reals a month. Those who are masters—the ones who lay out, prepare, round; and make the masts, yards, and topmasts are each paid three or four pesos of eight reals a month, and double rations.

The nails and iron shipped to the said islands from Nueva España cost your Majesty, delivered in the city of Manila, more than twenty reals of eight per quintal, while there they are made, as above stated. But notwithstanding the above, I assert that it is necessary to ship annually from Nueva España to the said islands two hundred quintals of rough and sheet and rod iron for some necessary articles, such as borers for the artillery cast in Manila, and rudder-pintles and rudder-gudgeons for the ships and galleys; for the iron of Bizcaya is more ductile than that of those regions [i.e., China and Japon] because it is as strong as steel. The other iron things above mentioned that are sent from Nueva España to the said islands are unnecessary, for their cost per quintal, when delivered in Manila, will buy four quintals in the said islands. The said two hundred quintals could be shipped on your Majesty’s account from Sevilla where it costs three or four ducados per quintal, and be carried by the flagships and almirantas; thus it would not be necessary to buy it in Bera Cruz, at nineteen ducados per quintal.

It would be of the highest importance to cover the ships with lead at Manila, which would obviate careening them every year. Don Juan de Silva neglected to do that, because he was always in haste to resist and attack the enemy.

Lead is also shipped from Nueva España to the Page 168said islands. More [than that amount] is shipped [however], because it is brought from China and Japon at cheaper rates. It can be worked in Cabite in order to lead the ships, and in that way your Majesty will save many ducados every year.

The total cost per quintal of this native rigging is about fifty reals. That shipped from Nueva España, which is bought in Beta Cruz and delivered in the Page 169port of Acapulco, costs your Majesty two hundred reals per quintal. It generally reaches the said Filipinas Islands rotten, and is of no use. If your Majesty will order the ships to sail from Manila furnished [with rigging] for the return voyage, that would, in the first year, put a stop to shipping any [rigging to Manila].

The canvas [lienço] from which the sails are made in the said islands is excellent, and much better than what is shipped from España, because it is made from cotton. They are certain cloths [lienços] which are called mantas [i.e., literally blankets or strips of cotton cloth] from the province of Ylocos, for the natives of that province manufacture nothing else, and pay your Majesty their tribute in them. They are one tercia [i.e., one-third of a vara] wide, and as thick as canvas [angeo]. They are doubled, and quilted with thread of the same cotton. They last much longer than those of España. One vara of this cloth [lienço] costs less than one-half real. The thread of the same cotton with which they are sewed costs twenty reals per arroba. The cloth brought from Nueva España costs your Majesty, when set down in the city of Manila, six reals per vara. Also the thread shipped from Nueva España to sew the sails costs, set down there, six reals per libra. The thread made of hemp when used with cotton canvas [lienço] is of no use, and does not well endure transportation. The ships sailing from Manila to Nueva España carry sails for the return voyage and nevertheless have to make others in the port of Acapulco.

It is also the custom to ship pikes with their iron heads from Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands. Delivered in the city of Manila, they cost Page 170your Majesty more than thirty-two reals apiece; but, with thirty-two reals, they can make forty pikes in the city of Manila. It is a weapon that is worthless in those islands, and it is not used in them. And even if they were used, there are shafts in the forests of those islands, and the native Indian smiths can make the heads.

A number of old pipe-staves and iron hoops are also shipped from Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands. Delivered in the city of Manila they cost your Majesty a considerable sum of ducados. That expense can be avoided; for, when those staves arrive there, they are full of holes and rotten, and quite useless. The hoops alone serve in Manila to make nails and bolts from them, which thus come to cost fifty ducados per quintal. They can be made there for thirty-three reals. It is sufficient to carry those pipes that hold the water and wine in the ships.

For the ships’ supply of water, they generally make vats when the ships leave there [i.e., Manila], each of which carries thirty pipes of water. Further, there are many earthen jars, which are brought from China and Japon. Consequently, one can make the above articles there, and more cheaply, for much less money than what is paid there.

Flour is also shipped in pipes from Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands, which they say is for making hosts. That is unnecessary, for the said islands have an abundance of flour, which is shipped from Japon and China so cheaply, that it costs sixteen reals per quintal in the city of Manila. That shipped from Nueva España costs your Majesty, delivered in the said city of Manila, more than eighty reals per quintal. Page 171

As above stated, it will be necessary for Governor Don Alonso Fajardo to devise immediate means for building galleons and to repair the six at Manila. I regard the present building of ships in that country as impossible. For with the former ships and fleets, and with the depredations and deaths caused by the enemy in those districts the natives are quite exhausted; for, as I said above, in the former year of six hundred and seventeen the Mindanao enemy captured four hundred native carpenters and killed more than two hundred others. The year before that, six hundred and sixteen, in the expedition made by Don Juan de Silva to the strait of Cincapura, where he died, it was found from lists that more than seven hundred Indians, of those taken as common seamen (of whom more than two hundred were carpenters), died on that expedition. Before that, in the year six hundred and fourteen, the said Mindanao enemy captured in the islands of Pintados nine hundred odd Indians, of whom but few have been ransomed. In the shipbuilding and in the hauling of wood many have died. Consequently, on account of all combined, there is a lack of natives for the above works. Therefore your Majesty must order the said Don Alonso Fajardo, governor and captain-general of the said islands, that in case galleons are to be built, it Page 174should not be in the islands—on the one hand, on account of the short time that those woods last, and on the other because of the lack in that land of natives (occurring through the above-mentioned causes, and because those natives in the islands are serving in the fleets as common seamen and carpenters).

In order that, those islands might have and keep ships that last thirty years and cost the same as in Manila, or less, your Majesty must order the governor to order them built in Yndia in Cochim; for they can be built there very strong, and at less cost if the said governor sends men for it from Manila—both masters and other persons, who know the art of having them built. When built, they can bring a cargo of military supplies, lumber, and slaves from Cochin to Manila for the galleys of Manila, for the said slaves are valued at very little in Cochin. As common seamen the men used in navigating in those regions will serve, namely, the Lascars; and a ship of six hundred toneladas does not carry sixteen Spanish sailors, but negroes and Lascars (who are a Mahometan race), with whom navigation is performed throughout those islands and kingdoms.

Those islands have so few natives, that if your Majesty does not expressly order no vessels to be constructed in them, not any of their people will be left, for as a result the events that have happened in those islands for the last eight years, both murders and captivities, many of those who have been left, who are constantly coming to Nueva España, every year as common seamen in the vessels that regularly sail, remain in Nueva España. In the galleon “Espiritu Santo” which came last year, six hundred and eighteen, were seventy-five native Indians as common Page 175seamen, but not more than five of the entire number returned in the said galley. If your Majesty does not have that corrected, the same thing will occur every year, and should your Majesty not correct it, the following things will occur. The first is the great offense committed against our Lord, for many (indeed most) of those native Indians of the Filipinas Islands who come as common seamen are married in those said islands; and, inasmuch as they are unknown in Nueva España, they remarry here. Another wrong follows which is very much to the disservice of your Majesty and your royal treasury, which is caused by the said Indian natives of the Filipinas Islands who come as common seamen and remain in Nueva España; and if it is not checked in time, it will cause considerable injury to these kingdoms. This consists in the fact that there are in Nueva España so many of those Indians who come from the Filipinas Islands who have engaged in making palm wine along the other seacoast, that of the South Sea, and which they make with stills, as in Filipinas, that it will in time become a part reason for the natives of Nueva España, who now use the wine that comes from Castilla, to drink none except what the Filipinos make. For since the natives of Nueva España are a race inclined to drink and intoxication, and the wine made by the Filipinos is distilled and as strong as brandy, they crave it rather than the wine from España. Consequently, it will happen that the trading fleets [from Spain] will bring less wine every year, and what is brought will be more valuable every year. So great is the traffic in this [palm wine] at present on the coast at Navidad, among the Apusabalcos, and throughout Colima, that they load Page 176beasts of burden with this wine in the same way as in España. By postponing the speedy remedy that this demands, the same thing might also happen to the vineyards of Piru. It can be averted, provided all the Indian natives of the said Filipinas Islands are shipped and returned to them, that the palm groves and vessels with which that wine is made be burnt, the palm-trees felled, and severe penalties imposed on whomever remains or returns to make that wine.

Incited by their greed in that traffic, all the Indians who have charge of making that wine go to the port of Acapulco when the ships reach there from Manila, and lead away with them all the Indians who come as common seamen. For that reason, and the others above mentioned, scarcely any of them return to the said Filipinas Islands. From that it also results that your Majesty loses the royal revenues derived from those islands, inasmuch as all those Indians are tributarios there, and when absent pay nothing.

Among those Filipinas Islands is one called Mindanao which is more than one hundred leguas long. It is very densely populated by its natives, who are exceeding great pirates and hostile to all the other natives of all those islands subject to your Majesty. and chiefly to the Spaniards. They generally go in a certain kind of boat called caracoa on piratical expeditions, in which they commit signal depredations in all the ports and along all the coasts of those islands, killing and capturing the people of them, and burning and ruining the country. They have done that on many occasions, particularly in the former year six hundred and seventeen, when they allied themselves Page 177with the Dutch enemy, who came that said year with ten galleons to attack the city and port of Manila. The said Mindanao enemy came at the same time with ninety caracoas to the aid of the Dutch, and destroyed and burned many places along those coasts, and took many of their people captives. Among other things they arrived at the shipyard of Pantao with their fleet, where at your Majesty’s orders a galleon and two pataches were being built. These were more than half built, and the Mindanaos burned them and captured more than four hundred persons, besides killing more than two hundred others. After burning all the military stores, they proceeded on their voyage toward Manila, and went to within ten leguas of the port of Cavite, whence they returned upon learning that the Dutch fleet had gone on ahead.

Consequently, not only for the said reasons, but because of the lack of men among the natives in the said Filipinas Islands, it will be highly important for the conservation of the islands for your Majesty to order that no ships be built in them, since there are so many places, so well provided in everything, as have been proposed, to enable them to be built in Yndia.

On the route between Manila and the Malucas Islands is a port of the above-mentioned island [i.e., Mindanao], called La Caldera. There the boats put in to get water and wood. Formerly, before the alliance between the natives there and the Dutch enemy, the vessels, ships, and galleys put in there and went to get fresh supplies, both going and coming. Now not only are they not permitted to obtain the said supplies, but the vessel, galley, or patache, that puts Page 178in there to get water, is surrounded by their caracoas, and its crew killed and captured.

On the contrary, they give the Dutch enemy so friendly a reception that the latter always keep their ships there, lying there in wait until those of his Majesty, that carry the aid to the said Malucas, pass by.

In order to destroy that said island of Mindanao and its pirates, without the necessity of spending for it anything from your Majesty’s royal treasury, it needs only your Majesty’s orders to make slaves of the said Mindanao natives of that island—since they are infidels; and they have profaned the temples and committed many cruelties in your Majesty’s settlements along the coasts of those islands which they have captured—and your Majesty’s permission that all who desire may take up arms against them, both the natives of the said islands, and the Spaniards, at their own cost. Only with that will the said island be conquered and subdued, and the so many injuries resulting therefrom to all the said islands and to the. Malucas will be checked.

A report on the measurements of the galleons in the Filipinas Islands in the former year 1617 is as follows.

The royal flagship, called “Salvador” measures 60 codos along the keel, 12 in floor, 82 from stem to stern [i.e., length over all], depth of hold 19, extreme breadth 26, sternpost transom 12; lower deck 15 codos, upper deck 19, with the space between of 4 codos.

The galleon “Espiritu Santo” (the one in which Don Alonso Fajardo came last year 1618) measures Page 17950 codos along the keel, 10 in floor, 70 length over all, 17 depth of hold, 23 extreme breadth, 10 sternpost transom; lower deck 13 and one-half codos, and upper deck 17.

The galleon “San Felipe,” 50 codos along the keel, 10 in floor, 70 length over all, 15 depth of hold, 22 and one-half extreme breadth; lower deck 11 and one-half codos, upper deck 15, and sternpost transom 11 codos.

The galleon “Santiago” has the same measurements of keel, floor, over all, depth of hold, extreme breadth, and sternpost transom, and the same space between decks.

The galleon “San Juan Bautista” has the same measurements as “San Felipe” and “Santiago.”

The galleon “San Miguel,” 49 codos keel, 10 in floor, 68 over all, 18 depth of hold, 23 extreme breadth, 11 sternpost transom; the lower deck 14 codos, upper deck 18.

“Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe,” 46 codos keel, 9 in floor, 64 over all, 13 depth of hold, 21 extreme breadth; lower deck 9 and one-half codos, upper deck 13, sternpost transom 10 codos.

The ship [nao] “San Laurencio,” which was built in Yndia 23 years ago, measures keel 46 codos, over all 60, 12 codos depth of hold, 19 extreme breadth; and it has three decks, quarter-deck, and forecastle [castillo].

[Endorsed: “Captain Sebastian de Pineda. To Don Alonso Fajardo, a duplicate, of the same remaining here. The council, May 26, 619.”] Page 180