Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 02).djvu/149

 who went to Panay, and it was thought, purposely, believing that the Spaniards would be driven from the island by hunger. So great was the famine that cats and rats were eaten by some of the soldiers. Goyti was sent with a number of small boats and a detachment of one hundred men to the villages hostile to those of Cebú, with orders to buy food and try to procure peace and friendship with the natives. He sent back several boat-loads of food, and on his own coming announced peace with five villages. Finally the natives who had gone to Panay returned, after three months' absence, bringing many excuses and but little food. Meanwhile news came from Baybay, where many of the former inhabitants of Matan and Gavi had sought refuge, of hostile excursions against the town of Mandam, an ally and friend of the Spaniards. These people from Baybay carried their insolence so far as to say they would burn the Spanish settlement. Legazpi sent two chiefs to Baybay to demand the release of the prisoners taken at Mandam. The messengers were scoffed at, and the marauders returned to Mandam in greater force, where they committed many depredations and made many prisoners. Legazpi determined to teach these arrogant natives a lesson, and ordered the master-of-camp to go thither; but granted a few days' delay at the petition of the Cebú natives, who said that many of their men were at Baybay, as well as those despatched thither to secure food. During this delay the master-of-camp and Martin de Goyti were sent to the islands where the latter had been shortly before, and where he had made peace with certain villages. This peace was confirmed and the inhabitants of fifteen or sixteen other villages "offered themselves as vassals of his majesty,