[15] A letter from the king to Governor Tavora, dated November 21, 1625, refers to the latter the question of further attempts to work the Igorrote gold-mines.  Reference is made therein to the report of Alonso Martin Quirante on these mines; and the cost or his expedition thither is stated as forty thousand pesos.

[16] Ley xxix, lib. viii, tit. xxi, of Recopilacion de leyes, relating to the sale of offices in the Philippines, is as follows: 

“We order that all offices be sold in the Filipinas Islands, which are regulated and ordained in accordance with the laws of this titulo, as in the other parts of the Indias, observing the laws in regard to sales, and the condition of securing a confirmation—­provided that, if any persons shall hold any of those offices comprehended in those islands, as a concession which shall have been made to them for life by us, or by the governors of those islands in our name, these must be sold, and shall be sold, as if they were rendered vacant by the death [of the incumbents].  They cannot resign them, for it is our will that they shall not enjoy that privilege, as they could have done had they bought those offices.” [Felipe III, Madrid, November 29, 1616; December 19, 1618.]

[17] The same instruction is given after nearly all the following statistics, namely “idem,” i.e., that they be entered in the book.  Consequently, we omit all following instances.

[18] This Dutch fort was on the southwestern coast of the island of Formosa.  See Valentyn’s descriptive and historical account (with map) of Tayouan (or Formosa), in his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, at end of part iv.  Boulger says (China, p. 132):  The Dutch “had acquired their place in Formosa by the retirement of the Japanese from Taiwan in 1624, when the Dutch, driven away by the Portuguese from Macao, sought a fresh site for their proposed settlement in the Pescadore group, and eventually established themselves at Fort Zealand.”

[19] Interesting accounts of Formosa and its inhabitants are given by George Candidius (a Dutch Protestant minister who began a mission among the natives in 1626), in Churchill’s collection of Voyages (London, 1704), i, pp. 526-533; and J.B.  Steere, who traveled through the western part of the island, in Journal of American Geographical Society, 1874, pp. 303-334.  The latter states that the chief city of Formosa, Taiwanfu, is built on the site of the old Dutch colony near Fort Zelandia; and furnishes several vocabularies of native languages.

[20] La Concepcion describes the Spanish expedition to Formosa (Historia de Philipinas, v, pp. 114-122) and the labors of Dominican missionaries there; he says that the Spanish fort was erected on an islet which they named San Salvador, near which was an excellent harbor called Santissima Trinidad.  Apparently these localities were on the northeastern coast of the island.