in these waters, it is true, are mostly provided with artillery, but it is generally placed in the hold of the ship, as no one on board knows how to use it.  If the cannon be upon deck, either the powder or the shot is wanting; and the captain promises to be better prepared next time. [156] The alcalde reported the outrages of the pirates by every post to Manila, as well as the great injury done to trade, and spoke of the duty of the [No protection from Government.] Government to protect its subjects, especially as the latter were not permitted to use fire-arms; [157] and from the Bisayan Islands came the same cry for help.  The Government, however, was powerless against the evil.  If the complaints were indeed very urgent, they would send a steamer into the waters most infested; but it hardly ever came in sight of pirates, although the latter were carrying on their depredations close in front and behind.

[Government steamer easily eluded.] At Samars, the principal town, I subsequently met with a Government steamer, which for fourteen days past had been nominally engaged in cruising against the pirates; but the latter, generally forewarned by their spies, perceive the smoke of the steamers sufficiently soon to slip away in their flat boats; and the officers knew beforehand that their cruise would have no other result than to show the distressed provinces that their outcry was not altogether unnoticed. [158]

[Steam gunboats more successful.] Twenty small steam gunboats of light draught had shortly before been ordered from England, and were nearly ready.  The first two indeed arrived soon after in Manila (they had to be transported in pieces round the Cape), and were to be followed by the rest; and they were at one time almost successful in delivering the archipelago from these burdensome pests; [159] at least, from the proscribed Moros who came every year from the Sulu Sea, mostly from the island of Tawitawi, arriving in May at the Bisayas, and continuing their depredations in the archipelago until the change of the monsoon in October or November compelled them to return. [160] [Renegades join pirates and bandits.] In the Philippines they gained new recruits among vagabonds, deserters, runaway criminals, and ruined spendthrifts; and from the same sources were made up the bands of highway robbers (tulisanes), which sometimes started up, and perpetuated acts of extraordinary daring.  Not long before my arrival they had made an inroad into a suburb of Manila, and engaged with the military in the highways.  Some of the latter are regularly employed in the service against the tulisanes.  The robbers are not, as a rule, cruel to their victims when no opposition is offered. [161]