We have only to keep the power we have in peace, and let it work as a wholesome medicine, and all the islands of the group of which Manila is the central point, will be ours without conflict.

It is surprising to find that Manila will be only forty-one miles nearer New York via Panama than it is via Suez, and the saving on a journey to Hong Kong will be no more than 245 miles.

At that time Manila was the headquarters for blockade-runners bound for Port Arthur, and Russian and Japanese spies, from coolies to bankers, were watching every ship and every stranger.

Manila was their chief market, and it also attracted a great portion of the external Indian trade, which the Portuguese had frightened away from Malacca by their excessive cruelty.

He plunges deep into his subject, saying: "The great point in which Manila has been a success, is the fact that the original inhabitants have not disappeared before the Europeans, and that they have been civilized, and brought into a closer union with the dominant race than is to be found elsewhere in similar circumstances.

Manila has always been a favorite place for Chinese immigrants; and neither the hostility of the people, nor oppressing and prohibitory decrees for a long time by the Government, not even the repeated massacres, have been able to prevent their coming.

La Pérouse said that Manila was perhaps the most fortunately situated city in the world.

There was no chance to explore the many islands of the group of which Manila is the Spanish Capital.

Manila was the great mart for the products of Eastern Asia, with which it loaded the galleons that, as early as 1565, sailed to and from New Spain (at first to Navidad, after 1602 to Acapulco), and brought back silver as their principal return freight.