Note 17 — Chapter XXXII

See account of this controversy, the wretched condition in which the royal ships and galleys were found to be, and the loss of the “Pilar,” in Concepción’s Historia, xii, pp. 183–211; cf. Montero y Vidal, Hist. de piratería, i, p. 291, note. The vessel known by the names of “Rosarito” and “Philipino,” which “had cost the royal treasury 60,666 pesos, had remained more than four years abandoned to the sun and rain, without any care;” and it was now valued at 18,000 pesos, a sum which, after more thorough examination of the rotting timbers, was reduced to 7,500. The Spanish government had ordered that six ships be at once constructed to proceed against the Moro pirates; and it was therefore necessary to hasten this work, without waiting for “red tape,” hence Nebra’s informal appointment. The “Pilar” was not a fragata, but a large ship; it sailed in June or July, 1750; its repairing and cleaning was so hastily done that the vessel began to leak before it left the Luzón coast. The commander, Ignacio Martinez de Faura, was notified of this, and that it was unsafe for the vessel to proceed into the open sea; he answered, “To Purgatory, or to Acapulco!” In the following October, pieces of wreckage were picked up on the eastern coasts of Luzón, which were identified as belonging to the “Pilar.” ↑