On November 14, they attacked the Dutch, whose crews were greatly reduced to only eighty men on both ships. The vessel commanded by Morga ran down the flagship of Van Noort, and for hours the ships lay side by side while a hand-to-hand fight raged on the deck and in the hold. The ships taking fire, Morga disengaged his ship, which was so badly shattered that it sank, with great loss of life; but Morga and some others reached the little island of Fortuna. Van Noort was able to extinguish the fire on his vessel, and escape from the Islands. He eventually reached Holland. His smaller vessel was captured with its crew of twenty-five men, who were all hung at Cavite. [33]
Other Troubles of the Spanish.--In the year 1600, two ships sailed for Acapulco, but one went down off the Catanduanes and the other was shipwrecked on the Ladrones. "On top of all other misfortunes, Manila suffered, in the last months of this government, a terrible earthquake, which destroyed many houses and the church of the Jesuits." [34]
The Moros, the Dutch, anxieties and losses by sea, the visitations of God,--how much of the history of the seventeenth century in the Philippines is filled with these four things!
Condition of the Archipelago at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century.--The Spanish Rule Completely Established.--At the close of the sixteenth century the Spaniards had been in possession of the Philippines for a generation. In these thirty-five years the most striking of all the results of the long period of Spanish occupation were accomplished. The work of these first soldiers and missionaries established the limits and character of Spanish rule as it was to remain for 250 years. Into this first third of a century the Spaniard crowded all his heroic feats of arms, exploration, and conversion. Thereafter, down to 1850, new fields were explored, and only a few new tribes Christianized.
The survey of the archipelago given by Morga soon after 1600 reads like a narrative of approximately modern conditions. It reveals to us how great had been the activities of the early Spaniard and how small the achievements of his countrymen after the seventeenth century began. All of the large islands, except Paragua and the Moro country, were, in that day, under encomiendas, their inhabitants paying tributes and for the most part professing the Catholic faith.