Note 40 — EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1764–1800

Marquina took much pains to have the obras pías honestly administered. He ordered that the nipa houses which still existed within the walls of Manila should be torn down, as being both a disfigurement and a danger to the city. During his term of office, a severe epidemic of smallpox was experienced in Filipinas; and he gave large sums to the parish priests to relieve the poverty caused by the pestilence. The islands were ravaged by the Moros year after year, the naval force of the Spaniards doing little more than to remain on the defensive; and in 1789 Marquina wrote to the king saying that the continual warfare of the Moros was “an evil without remedy.” Mahomet Sarpudin, the successor of Ali-Mudin II, was very crafty and deceitful, and, while professing to be a friend of the Spaniards, he sent out Illano pirates against the merchant vessels, some of which were captured by Mahomet’s own followers. Marquina met with much trouble in his government, from “class interests” and from the ingratitude of those whom he had helped; he resigned his office, “and returned to España poor and disheartened.”40 The king made him Viceroy of Mexico.