slands with pillaging and seizure
of captives. These are a barbarous, cruel, and cowardly people, and
they cannot have one of these traits without the others. They inhabit
a chain of small islands, which extend from Paragua to Borney; some
of them are Mahometans and others heathens. They have done much harm
to the islands of Bisayas, which they ravaged quite at their ease--so
much so that in the year 1672 they carried away the alcalde-mayor, Don
Jose de San Miguel, as we have mentioned elsewhere. They have a great
advantage in the extreme swiftness of their vessels, which enables them
to find their defense in flight. Their confidence and boldness went so
far that they ventured to infest the coasts of Manila. The provincial,
Fray Jose Duque, while going to visit the convents in the islands
of Pintados, came very near being captured with his companion, Fray
Alvaro de Benavente; for they were attacked by a squadron of these
pirates near the island of Marinduque, where they would have been
a prey to Moro cruelty, if they had not been favored by the divine
kindness. [This acted] through the agency of Captain Francisco Ponce,
a veteran soldier, who killed the captain and another of the pirates;
and also of a sudden wind, which gave wings to the champan for placing
itself in safety. With the building of these galleys the Camucones were
inspired with such terror that for many years they did not venture
to sally out for their usual raids, so much in safety as before. The
first time, Sargento-mayor Pedro Lozano went out to scour the seas
through which the Camucones might come to make their raids. In the
following year, Captain Don Jose de Novoa went out--a brave Galician,
the encomendero of Gapang--and as commander of the second galley
Captain Simon de Torres, an able soldier from Maluco; and they scoured
the coasts of Mindanao, committing some acts of hostility, their sole
object therein being to cause more terror than harm. And thus it was,
that with the fear which those piratical tribes had conceived of the
galleys neither Joloans, Mindanaos, nor Camucones dared, so long as
these lasted, to commit their former ravages. The same thing occurs
whenever there are galleys, even though they do not go out to sea and
are shut up in the port of Cavite. It is therefore very expedient to
keep vessels of this sort, in order to be free from the invasions of
those pirates. In view of this, Governor Don Domingo de Zabalburu built
two other ga