Our kings are ministers of the faith, and sons
of the Catholic church, and any war waged for the introduction of the
gospel is most important, and of the greatest profit, even though it
be to acquire or to gain desert provinces. Besides the Filipinas have
shown how docile are their natives, and how thoroughly they benefit by
the example and company of the Spaniards--the tokens of the affection
with which they have received the faith and aid the religious who are
extending the faith and carrying it to China, Japon, Camboxa, Mindanao,
the Malucas, and the other places where endures idolatry or friendship
with the demons (which the former owners of the country left to them
when they excluded those places from their dominion), or the fictions
of Mahomet, which those places afterward admitted. This is the chief
reason for conserving those provinces. (Book iv, pp. 161, 162.)
Conquest of the Malucas Islands
Book Fifth
After the Luzones or Manilas Islands--both these being ancient
names--had been discovered by Magallanes, Sebastian Cano returned
to Espana, after the former's death and the successive deaths of
his companions, in that venerable ship which--as if significant of
its voyage, which contains more of truth than of probability--they
called "Vitoria.
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