Felipinas. Chapter III.


Each day saw an increase of the complaints made to the king and his
council by the Chinese who suffered at the hands of Limahon. For this
reason, the king once more ordered the viceroy of that province in
which the pirate was committing his depredations, to hasten to have
this man intercepted. Within a short time, the viceroy prepared one
hundred and thirty large vessels, manned by forty thousand men, all
under command of a gentleman named Omoncon. This man was ordered to
seek and pursue the pirate, being expressly commanded to capture or
kill him, even if he should endanger his ships and men while doing
it. Limahon was at once informed of all this, through certain secret
friends. As he saw that the plan to pursue him was being pushed forward
in all earnestness, and that he was inferior to his enemy in point of
ships and men, he determined not to await the latter, but to withdraw
from that coast. In his flight he betook himself to a remote island,
Tonzuacaotican by name, forty leagues from the mainland, and lying
in the pathway to the Felipinas. Limahon remained in this retired
island with his fleet for some days, without daring to return to the
mainland, for he knew that the king's fleet was guarding the coast;
and although he despatched a few vessels on marauding expeditions,
they did nothing of importance--returning, on the contrary, pursued
by the king's powerful fleet. He made some sallies with part of his
vessels from this island, robbing all the vessels that he encountered,
which, with their cargoes of merchandise and other articles, were
sailing between the different islands, or between the islands and the
mainland. Among them he happened to meet two Chinese merchant vessels
plying from Manila to China. Immediately he had the holds of these
vessels searched, finding the rich cargoes that they carried, which