ge, passed the Straits in less time than Magellan, and was the
first commander in his own ship to put a belt around the earth. These
facts were known in the Philippines, and from them the Filipinos drew
comparisons unfavorable to the boastful Spaniards.

When the rich Philippine galleon Santa Ana was captured off the
California coast by Thomas Candish, "three boys born in Manila"
were taken on board the English ships. Afterwards Candish sailed into
the straits south of "Lucon" and made friends with the people of the
country. There the Filipinos promised "both themselves, and all the
islands thereabouts, to aid him whensoever he should come again to
overcome the Spaniards."

Dampier, another English sea captain, passed through the Archipelago
but little later, and one of his men, John Fitzgerald by name, remained
in the Islands, marrying here. He pretended to be a physician, and
practiced as a doctor in Manila. There was no doubt room for him,
because when Spain expelled the Moors she reduced medicine in her
country to a very low state, for the Moors had been her most skilled
physicians. Many of these Moors who were Christians, though not
orthodox according to the Spanish standard, settled in London, and
the English thus profited by the persecution, just as she profited
when the cutlery industry was in like manner transplanted from Toledo
to Sheffield.

The great Armada against England in Queen Elizabeth's time was an
attempt to stop once for all the depredations of her subjects on
Spain's commerce in the Orient. As the early Spanish historian, Morga,
wrote of it: "Then only the English nation disturbed the Spanish
dominion in that Orient. Consequently King Philip desired not only
to forbid it with arms near at hand, but also to furnish an example,
by their punishment, to all the northern nations, so that they should
not undertake the invasions that we see. A beginning was made in this
work in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight."

This ingeniously worded statement omits to tell how ignominiously
the pretentious expedition ended, but the fact of failure remained
and did not help the prestige of Spain, especially among her subjects
in the Far East. After all the boastings of what was going to happen,
and all the claims of what had been accomplished, the enemies of Spain
not only were unchecked but appeared to be bolder than ever. Some of
the more thoughtful Filipinos then began to lose confidence in Sp