According to Juan de la Concepcion, the Rajahs [24] Soliman and
Lacandola took advantage of these troubles to raise a rebellion
against the Spaniards. The natives, too, of Mindoro Island revolted
and maltreated the priests, but all these disturbances were speedily
quelled by a detachment of soldiers.

The Governor willingly accepted the offer of the commander of the
Chinese man-o'-war to convey ambassadors to his country to visit
the Viceroy and make a commercial treaty. Therefore two priests,
Martin Rada and Geronimo Martin, were commissioned to carry a letter
of greeting and presents to this personage, who received them with
great distinction, but objected to their residing in the country.

After the defeat of Li-ma-hong, Juan Salcedo again set out to the
Northern Provinces of Luzon Island, to continue his task of reducing
the natives to submission. On March 11, 1576, he died of fever near
Vigan (then called Villa Fernandina), capital of the Province of
Ilocos Sur. A year afterwards, what could be found of his bones were
placed in the ossuary of his illustrious grandfather, Legaspi, in the
Augustine Chapel of Saint Fausto, Manila. His skull, however, which had
been carried off by the natives of Ilocos, could not be recovered in
spite of all threats and promises. In Vigan there is a small monument
raised to commemorate the deeds of this famous warrior, and there is
also a street bearing his name in Vigan and another in Manila.

For several years following these events, the question of prestige
in the civil affairs of the Colony was acrimoniously contested by
the Gov.-General, the Supreme Court, and the ecclesiastics.

The Governor was censured by his opponents for alleged undue exercise
of arbitrary authority. The Supreme Court, established on the Mexican
model, was reproached with seeking to overstep the limits of its
functions. Every legal quibble was adjusted by a dilatory process,
impracticable in a colony yet in its infancy, where summary justice
was indispensable for the maintenance of order imperfectly understood
by the masses. But the fault lay less with the justices than with
the constitution of the Court itself. Nor was this state of affairs
improved by the growing discontent and immoderate ambition of the
clergy, who unremittingly urged their pretensions to immunity from
State control, affirming the supramundane condition of their office.

An excellent code of laws, called the _Leyes de Indias_, in