Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/518

 47^ SPANISH HISTORY nistration, in relation to the Asiatic population of the islands, I shall narrate shortly the most promi- nent facts which attended this celebrated expedi- tion. It was planned and executed by the well- known Sir William Draper, who obtained a loose knowledge of the Philippines, enough for his pur- pose, in a visit which he made to Canton, as a va- letudinarian. When the history of the enterprise is fairlv considered, it will not be too much to as- sert that the 'plunder of Manila was hu X^^^^mg object, and probably that of most who were conr cerned in it. The East India Company, at least, are fully implicated in this charge, for they stipu- lated before-hand for one4hird of the booty. The British public absurdly imagined that Ma- nila, an ill-governed settlement, and oppressed by all the devices of Spanish colonial* restrictions, must be a place of great wealth. They were seduced into a belief in this mischievous phantasy, — by the dazzling and popular spectacle of the millions of dollars sent annually from America ; — by the daz- ling captures of Cavendish and Anson ; — and by the imposing circumstance of seeing annually embarked, in a single speculation, the commercial adventures of a whole settlement, in itself one of the most ob- vious sources of a poverty, which it would have been more reasonable to have predicted. In the month of September I762, an expedition, fitted out at Madras, and consisting of a land force.