OF THE ARCHIPELAGO. 457 islands constituted a portion of their empire, and that they colonized them.* Scarce were the Spaniards established at Manila, before they experienced the consequences of their vicinity to China. A powerful rebel of the empire, named by the Spaniards Limahon, had long infest- ed the coasts of China, and now with a force of - . . — <
- The ignoriince and feebleness of the Chinese empire,
down to the most recent period of its history, before Eu- ropeans came into their neighbourhood, are unequivocally con- firmed by the state in which the hitter found the island of Formosa and the Philippines, the first not 20 leagues from their coast, and the latter not above 150. By the Chinese ac- counts, Formosa was not discovered until 1430, and then only by pure accident. It lay after this wholly unnoticed for one hundred and thirty-four years. In fact, it was not peopled by the Chinese until after l66l, when Europeans had made it worth occupying, and showed] them the way to it. The Philippines were, probably, a little better and earlier known, because more in the direct course of the monsoons, and be- cause they afforded some of those commodities of their peculiar luxury, in quest of which they had been making still more dis- tant voyages into the more abundant and richer islands of the west. That the Philippines formed no integral portion of the Chinese empire, any more than Formosa, is proved beyond the reach of doubt, by the absence of a Chinese population, or very decided admixture of it ; by the absence of any relics of the Chinese language, arts, or institutions. Scarce was the road pointed out by Europeans, and the jealousy of the Chi- nese excited, than they were anxious to possesss, what their supineness had neglected in ail j^revious ages of their history. •^Duhaldes Description of ChinUf Vol. I.
