EARLY NAVIGATORS. 13 
and his death was avenged by the burning of villages, boats, and boat- 
houses, and by killing men, women, and children.“ They were branded 
by their discoverers with the name of /adrones (thieves) for stealing : 
boat and some bits of iron. The early navigators themselves did not 
hesitate to steal husbands from their wives and fathers from their 
children. 
DUTCH NAVIGATORS. 
Among the Dutch who visited the island was Oliver van Noort, who 
touched at Guam in 1600 on his way from the South American coast 
to Manila. About 200 canoes came off to meet him, bringing fish, 
fruit, rice, fowls, and fresh water to exchange for iron. He was 
followed in 1616 by the Dutch admiral, Joris Spilbergen, in command 
of a fleet fitted out by the Dutch Company, which was on its way to 
the Moluccas by the westward route; and in 1625 by the Nassau fleet, 
organized in Holland against Peru, and commanded by Jacob PHere- 
mite. One hundred and fifty canoes came off to meet them, to traftic 
with coconuts and yams. The fleet watered at the island, and in 
exchange for iron procured rice, fowls, coconuts, yams, and bananas. 
‘oconuts were observed in inexhaustible quantities; rice was culti- 
rated in many places, and the natives sold it by weight in bales of 
seventy to eighty pounds each. The Hollanders considered it unsafe 
for their men to ramble about the island singly or unarmed. 
SAILING ROUTES IN THE PACIFIC, 
Guam was reckoned seventy days from New Spain, as Mexico was 
then called. After the founding of Manila regular traffic was estab- 
lished between the coast of Mexico and the Philippines. ‘The first port 
selected as a place of departure on the Mexican coast was Navidad, but 
Acapulco was substituted later. The vessels would leave Mexico each 
year in February or March, shaping their course a little to the south- 
ward until they reached the latitude of Guam, when they would con- 
tinue due west until they reached that island. This season was chosen 
in order to avoid the westerly monsoon in the Philippines, which 
usually sets in about the middle of June. The vessels returned by 
a northerly route in order to avoid the trade winds and the adverse 
equatorial current. Both the Mariannes and the Philippines were 
made dependencies of New Spain and were ruled by the viceroy residing 
at the City of Mexico. 
JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 
On his way from New Spain to the Philippines in one of the regular 
vessels, Padre Diego Luis Sanvitores, a Jesuit priest, touched at Guam 
and was moved to pity at the sight of the natives living in spiritual 
@ See narrative of the expedition under Miguel Lopez Legazpi, which visited Guam 
In 1565, in Burney, Chron. Hist., vol. 1. 
