8o THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



disinterested treatment of the natives, of the excellent 

 service rendered to the Faith by the Inquisition, which finds 

 " no want of constant work on account of the entrance of so 

 many foreigners in those parts," of the prosperous trade of 

 Spanish merchants for most of the Spanish settlers 

 were merchants with Borneo and the other islands, with 

 Cambodia, with China and Japan, and of the heroic though 

 unsuccessful endeavours of Franciscan missionaries to win 

 the peoples of those lands to the Christian Faith. He 

 prints a letter written to him by a Franciscan " from the 

 road of execution," for the Friars, with their converts, were 

 crucified. The King of Spain draws no revenue from the 

 Philippines. All he gets from the colony is spent in the 

 service of the colony. He undertakes the work for the sake 

 of Christianity, and " in the hope of better results in other 

 kingdoms of Asia, when God so pleases." And the spirit of the 

 valiant Spanish soldier-governor catches fire as he tells once 

 more the great story of his countrymen ; how, having " by 

 the mercy of God preserved their realms in the purity of 

 the Christian Religion, deserving the title of Defenders of the 

 Faith, by the valour of their indomitable hearts they have 

 furrowed the seas, and discovered and conquered vast 

 kingdoms in the most remote and unknown parts of the 

 world, leading the inhabitants to knowledge of the true 

 God, and to the fold of the Christian Church, in which they 

 now live, governed in civil and political matters with peace 

 and justice, under the shelter and protection of the royal 

 arm. . . . From this cause the crown or sceptre of Spain 

 The Empire has come to extend itself over all that the sun looks on from 

 sun^never* 116 its rism g to its setting with the glory and splendour of its 

 sets. power and majesty ; but surpassing any of the other princes 



of the earth by having gained innumerable souls for heaven, 

 which has been the Spaniard's principal intention and 

 wealth. . . . Having won America, one quarter of the earth, 

 they sailed following the sun, and discovered in the Western 

 Ocean an archipelago : raising the standard of the Faith, 

 they snatched them from the yoke of the Devil, so that justly 

 may they raise in those isles the pillars and trophies of 

 non plus ultra." 



