hurricane
in the island of Luzon up toward the province of Ilocos in the part
where the Igolotes live. That hurricane was followed by the most
frightful earthquake, and the earth swallowed up three inaccessible
mountains with as many settlements which were located at the foot of
the mountains, and in the space left a large lake was formed. Such
was the noise at the dislocation of the huge mass of those mountains,
that it was heard not only in all the Philipinas Islands and in
Maluco but also in the kingdoms of Cochinchina, China, and Camboja,
throughout a circumference of more than nine hundred leguas. So great
was the persecution that it was believed to have been announced by
the so great heaping together of surprises and misfortunes. [17]

310. But the time when the Moros gave full rein to their barbaric fury,
was from the beginning of the year 1645, for then they were freed
from the terror that had been caused them by Corcuera who had just
been succeeded in the government of the islands by the master-of-camp
Don Diego Fajardo. The arrival also of two ships well manned with
Dutchmen at Jolo and which had been asked for by Prince Salicala, the
heir to the scepter, for the purpose of destroying the strongholds
which the Spaniards held in the said island, gave them at that time
a motive for employing greater power in their piracies. Although
the commandant of those strongholds, Don Estevan de Orella Hugalde,
caused the enemy to return to their factories badly the losers,
and without having obtained the end of their attempt, the Joloans
were able, through their protection, to launch three squadrons which
filled our villages with fear and confusion. It is no new thing in
that continent for the heretics to lend arms to the pagans and to
the Mahometans in order to put down the Christian name. A savage
end it is to pit themselves for the private ends of trade and in a
religious war, on the side of the koran and of idolatry, which they
themselves condemn, against the gospel, which they persecute with
fury. The three fleets went out then, for their campaign, and not
having anyone to oppose them, the enemy filled their boats with what
they called spoils, took about two hundred captives, persecuted our
religious as ever, with mortal hate, and destroyed fifteen villages,
almost all of them of our spiritual administration, and they filled
Calamianes especially with bitterness and grief.

311. The Dutch were not content with prot