Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 51).djvu/32

26 to check the incursions of the Moros. The pirates attacked even the coasts of Luzón in 1793, and an expedition sent out against them in December of that year accomplished almost nothing, being too late and ineffective. In the following year the governor called a council of the leading military officers and other persons experienced in Moro wars and the affairs of the southern islands, where it was shown that the Moros made captive some 500 persons a year, whom they rendered slaves – excepting the old, who "were sold to the inhabitants of Sandakan, who sacrificed these captives to the shades of their deceased relatives or of prominent personages, preserving the skull of the victim as a proof that they had complied with so barbarous a usage." It was shown at this council that during the time from the establishment