The King of Spain, however, chose to ignore this fact and tacitly assumed the right to conquer the Philippines.  It was, however, thirteen years before another attempt was made in this direction.  By this time the conquest and development of the kingdom of New Spain made one of its ports on the Pacific the natural starting point.  This expedition commanded by Rui Lopez de Villalobos was despatched in 1542 and ended disastrously.  The Portuguese Captain-general in the Moluccas made several vigorous protests against the intrusion, asserting that Mindanao fell within the Portuguese Demarcation and that they had made some progress in introducing Christianity. [20]

Villalobos left no permanent mark upon the islands beyond giving the name “Felipinas” to some of them, in honor of “our fortunate Prince.” [21]

Nearly twenty years elapsed before another expedition was undertaken, but this was more carefully organized than any of its predecessors, and four or five years were absorbed in the preparations.  King Philip II, while respecting the contract with Portugal in regard to the Moluccas, proposed to ignore its provisions in regard to other islands included within the Demarcation Line of 1529.  In his first despatch relative to this expedition in 1559 he enjoins that it shall not enter the Moluccas but go “to other islands that are in the same region as are the Philippines and others that were outside the said contract, but within our demarcation, that are said to produce spices.” [22]

Friar Andres de Urdaneta, who had gone to the Moluccas with Loaisa in 1525, while a layman and a sailor, explained to the king that as la isla Filipina was farther west than the Moluccas the treaty of Zaragoza was just as binding in the case of these islands as in that of the Moluccas, and that to avoid trouble some “legitimate or pious reason for the expedition should be assigned such as the rescue of sailors who had been lost on the islands in previous expeditions or the determination of the longitude of the Demarcation Line” [23]

It is clear from the sequel that King Philip intended, as has been said, to shut his eyes to the application of the Treaty of Zaragoza to the Philippines.  As they did not produce spices the Portuguese had not occupied them and they now made no effectual resistance to the Spanish conquest of the islands. [24] The union of Portugal to the crown of Spain in 1580 subsequently removed every obstacle, and when the Portuguese crown resumed its independence in 1640 the Portuguese had been driven from the Spice Islands by the Dutch.

This is not the place to narrate in detail the history of the great expedition of Legaspi.  It established the power of Spain in the Philippines and laid the foundations of their permanent organization.  In a sense it was an American enterprise.  The ships were built in America and for the most part equipped here.  It was commanded and guided by men who lived in the New World.  The work of Legaspi