During the interim between Magellan's discovery and the set tlement of Manila, the Portuguese actively contested Spanish right to the archipelago. Their hostility ceased only with the union of Spain and Portugal (158o-164o). In 1577 Sir Francis Drake started on the voyage which brought him to the Philippines at Mindanao. Again, in 1587, Thomas Cavendish sailed to the Moluccas and thence back to California to intercept the rich galleon "Santa Ana." He then went to the Philippines, where he tried in vain to capture the ship-yard at Iloilo.
The Dutch came next. Their primary object was trade rather than colonies. In 1596-97, Admiral Houtman opened trade with Holland, and during the years 1598-160o, the expedition under Neck and Waryck traded in the Moluccas. In 1600, Oliver van Noordt reached Philippine waters, where he committed various depredations. Dutch vessels now traded for spices and other oriental wares in the Moluccas, harried the coasts and waters of the Philippines and attacked Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese shipping. In 161o, Governor Juan de Silva defeated and killed the Dutch admiral, Francis de Wittert, at Playa Hondo, near Manila, and captured part of his fleet. In 164o, the Dutch captured Malacca and in 1662 they permanently occupied the Moluccas. Their attacks in the Philippines gradually ceased.
With Legazpi had come five Augustinians; in 1577 came the Franciscans; in 158o, the Jesuits; in 1587, the Dominicans; and 1605, the Augustinian Recollects. It was the intention of Spain to replace the friars by secular parish priests whenever any mis sion assumed the character of a parish. But the friars, desirous of retaining their holdings and power, fought secularization and it was never carried out in its entirety. The friars became the storm centre of the gradually increasing Filipino demand for change; the insurrection of 1896 was directed principally against them; during the later insurrection against the United States they suffered many indignities.
In 1762 a British expedition reached Manila on Sept. 22, found the Spanish but ill prepared, and on Oct. 5, captured the city. By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Manila was restored to Spain.
The last Manila galleon left the Philippines in 1811 and re turned in 1815. Thereupon the trade was taken over by private persons, exports to the value of 750,000 pesos were allowed and three other ports besides Acapulco were opened to it, namely San Blas, Guayaquil and Callao. In 1766, however, the crown had
allowed direct trade between Spain and Manila by one national vessel annually. In 1785, the Royal Company of the Philippines began to trade between Manila and Cadiz; the company ceased to exist in 183o.
In 1809, an English commercial house was permitted to estab lish itself in Manila, and in 1814 a like privilege was extended to all foreigners, but as a rule, Spaniards were still jealous of for eigners and reactionary decrees in 1828 and 1840 forbade them to sell goods at retail or to do any business in the provinces. The vacillating Spanish policy is seen again in the opening of seven ports to foreign trade in 183o and their closing the next year. In 1837, Manila was reopened to foreign trade, Iloilo and Cebu in 1855 and 1863. In 1842 there were 39 Spanish shipping and commercial concerns in Manila and about a dozen foreign houses. Various Governments maintained consuls, among them Great Britain and the United States.
During the first half of the 19th century, there were only 2,000 to 5,000 Spaniards in the archipelago. Spanish was spoken by some of the natives, principally in Manila and a few other im portant centres, but the friars had made comparatively little effort to inculcate a knowledge of Castilian. There was no homogeneity among the several native peoples, very largely because of the different languages. Partly because of these conditions, insular representation in the Spanish Cortes carried little meaning or a mistaken one to the mass of the population. After the building of the Suez canal, in 1869, ambitious Filipino youths went to Spain and other countries for study. The first daily newspaper was La Esperanza (1847). La Solidaridad was founded in 1888 in Barcelona, by Graciano Lopez Jaena in the interest of Fili pino propaganda, and throughout its course urged reforms both in religion and government. One of its foremost contributors was the precocious Chinese mestizo, Jose Rizal y Mercado. The Fili pinos had had ample grounds for complaint, especially since 1872. That year some 200 native soldiers at the Cavite arsenal re volted, killed their officers and shouted for independence. Plans for a similar demonstration in Manila failed. The insurrection was quickly suppressed, and led to wholesale arrests, life impris onment and the execution, among others, of three Filipino secu lar priests, whose connection with the uprising has never been satisfactorily explained.