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Updated: May 11, 2025
Without the slightest change of expression, the captain repeated: "The Ladrones." Then, folding the chart, he took out a small silver whistle and, blowing a signal, ordered the mate to summon the crew to investigate the occurrences of the preceding night.
An acquaintance with the Sandwich Islands would have been equally favorable to our Buccaneers, who used sometimes to pass from the coast of America to the Ladrones, with a stock of food and water scarcely sufficient to preserve life.
"We will set off the loss of your boat against that; and I am only too happy to have saved your lives, and to have rendered any service in my power to British officers in distress, for I tell you it is my belief that you would all have starved before you got to Guam, or any other island at which you could have landed in the Ladrones."
"We must fit our boat as well as we can for sea, and try and make our way, either back to Japan, or to the Ladrones, to which we were bound; but, as I said before, it won't do to put to sea until the hurricane season is over. Even in fine weather it will be a pretty long trip in an open boat; but people have gone as far, or much farther, and what others have done we can do."
She appeared to be a vessel of about thirty tons; her hold was filled with straw and wood, and there were a few small boxes of combustibles on her deck, which exploded alongside of us without doing any damage. The Ladrones, however, towed them all on shore, extinguished the fire, and broke them up for firewood.
They should in time reach the most northern of the Ladrones, where they might venture on shore without fear of being killed and eaten, as would certainly be their lot on any of the islands further to the south-west.
Here we remained five or six days, during which time about an hundred of the women were ransomed; the remainder were offered for sale amongst the Ladrones, for forty dollars each. The woman is considered the lawful wife of the purchaser, who would be put to death if he discarded her. Several of them leaped overboard and drowned themselves, rather than submit to such infamous degradation.
Manila, which had been under the American guns since May, was also forced to surrender. A protocol signed in August led to the negotiation of peace in December. According to its terms, not only was Cuba to be evacuated, but Porto Rico, the Philippines, and the Ladrones were to become American possessions.
But, though this correction awed them a little for the present, it did not mend their thievish disposition; for which reason they resolved to seek out some other place, where they might enjoy some repose in safety. No order or form of government was observed to subsist among these natives of the Ladrones, but every one seemed to live according to his own humour or inclination.
"There are certainly no Frenchmen anywhere about," said the little man with a return to his indifferent manner. "Or robbers ladrones?" "Ladrones en grande no! Assuredly not," was the answer in a cold philosophical tone. "What is there left for them to do after the French? And nobody travels in these times. But who can say! Opportunity makes the robber.
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