There, however, he found the enemy so well established on the island
of Amboyna that he returned home to prepare for a much greater effort
involving the co-operation of Goa. This offensive was launched early
in I6I6, but came to nothing. The Portuguese fleet was late in arriving
at the rendezvous, and while awaiting them at Malacca de Silva died
and his second-in-command thereupon took the armada back to Manila.
In the meantime the Dutch, convinced that while Manila could come
to the help of the Portuguese in the Moluccas their own trade would be
insecure, had undertaken a new effort to conquer the Philippines. Thus
while de Silva's expedition was in Indonesian waters, ]oris van Speilbergen
with a Dutch squadron, that had sailed via the Magellan Straits,
appeared before the entrance to Manila Bay at the end of February I6I6.
Had he attacked, the city must have fallen. But hearing of de Silva's
expedition he sailed away to Ternate, only to find that the great offensive
had misfired. In the following year, however, the Dutch returned to the
attack; a second battle was fought at Playa Honda and again they sustained
a severe defeat. They continued, however, to harass the Philippines.
In I 618 and I.6 I 9 their squadrons entered Manila Bay and
plundered shipping, and in I62o they made another abortive attack
upon the Manila-bound galleon from Acapulco. They could sail about
almost at will, for after the sea-fight in I6I7 the Spaniards could not
muster another fleet capable of challenging them; and in I6I9 the
Anglo-Dutch treaty was signed which placed English ships also at the
disposal of Jan Peterszoon Coen. In January I62I an Anglo-Dutch
fleet began the blockade of Manila, and kept it up until May of the
following year, preventing any ships from leaving or entering the Bay.
Again the Spaniards were unable to take effective action at sea. Their
opponents, on the other hand, made no attempt to test the defences of
Manila, but contented themselves with immobilizing the trade of the
port.
In I622 the Dutch planted a fort on the Pescadores Islands from
which to intercept the trade of 1\;lanila with China and Japan. In I624
they transferred to Formosa, and managed to divert to that island
much of the Chinese trade that normally went to Manila. But the
Spaniards could still s
DuRING the first half of the seventeenth century the Spanish hold upon
the Philippines was strenuously challenged by the Dutch. Although
they came into the island world of South-East Asia mainly in order to
wrest control over the spice trade from the Portuguese, the Dutch were
equally concerned to break the power of Spain. Quite apart from their
general hostility to Spain as the enemy of their independence, they were
impelled by two special considerations. In the first place the Spaniards
from their Philippine bases could give vital assistance to the Portuguese
in the Moluccas; in the second Manila's strategic position as an entrepot
for Far Eastern trade offered dazzling opportunities of which the Dutch
were only too well aware. Hence their onslaught upon the HispanoPortuguese
power in the Moluccas was accompanied by a grim naval
warfare waged year after year in Philippine waters. It began in I 6oo
with an attempt by Oliver van Noort to intercept the Acapulco galleon.
When he failed to do so, he cruised about Manila Bay plundering Chinese
and Filipino shipping. But at the battle of Mariveles the Spaniards
inflicted so severe a check on him that he had to limp away with the loss
of one of his ships.
The Spanish counter-attacks in the Moluccas, which culminated in
the downfall of Sultan Zaide of Ternate in I6o6, provoked a new Dutch
offensive under Cornelis Matalief which inflicted much damage upon
Spanish and Portuguese forts and sea patrols in Indonesian waters,
and Matalief, on returning home, advised the States General to make
an all-out attack upon the Philippines in alliance with the Moros. This
was made in I 60<), the year of the conclusion of the Twelve Years Truce
between Spain and Holland; for there was no let-up in their warfare
in the East. A powerful Dutch fleet under Admiral Wittert attacked
first the port of Iloilo on Panay, but finding the opposition tC'o determined
went on to Manila Bay, which it blockaded fot five months.
The Spaniards, however, decisively defeated his fleet on 26 April I6Io
in a stretch of water known as Playa Honda not far from Manila, and
Wittert himself was killed. The indefatigable Governor-General Juan
de Silva then followed up this success by an incursion into the Moluccas.
Explanation:
