The Bashee Islands. The Harbour of Pulo Condore. [Coastal profiles of; Pulo Conor and Island of Luconia.]

Scarce map of:

The Bashee Islands (Philippines)

Pulo Conor in the South China Sea. In 1702, the English East India Company founded a settlement on this island (the English called it ‘Pulo Condore’ after its Malay name) off the south coast of southern Vietnam

Island of Luconia in the South China Sea.

From Dampier’s, A New Voyage Round the World.

Dampier’s original description from his published voyage account;

A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE ISLE LUCONIA, AND THE CITY AND HARBOUR OF MANILA.  Luconia I have spoken of already but I shall now add this further account of it. It is a great island, taking up between 6 and 7 degrees of latitude in length, and its breadth near the middle is about 60 leagues, but the ends are narrow. The north end lies in about 19 degrees north latitude and the south end is about 12 degrees 30 minutes. This great island has abundance of small keys or islands lying about it; especially at the north end. The south side fronts towards the rest of the Philippine Islands: of these that are its nearest neighbours Mindoro lately mentioned is the chief, and gives name to the sea or strait that parts it and the other islands from Luconia: being called the Straits of Mindoro.

The body of the island Luconia is composed of many spacious plain savannahs and large mountains. The north end seems to be more plain and even, I mean freer from hills, than the south end: but the land is all along of a good height. It does not appear so flourishing and green as some of the other islands in this range; especially that of St. John, Mindanao, Bat Island, etc., yet in some places it is very woody. Some of the mountains of this island afford gold, and the savannahs are well stocked with herds of cattle, especially Buffaloes. These cattle are in great plenty all over the East Indies; and therefore it is very probable that there were many of these here even before the Spaniards came hither. But now there are also plenty of other cattle, as I have been told, as bullocks, horses, sheep, goats, hogs, etc., brought hither by the Spaniards.

It is pretty well inhabited with Indians, most of them if not all under the Spaniards, who now are masters of it. The native Indians do live together in towns; and they have priests among them to instruct them in the Spanish religion.

Manila, the chief or perhaps the only city, lies at the foot of a ridge of high hills, facing upon a spacious harbour near the south-west point of the island, in about the latitude of 14 degrees north. It is environed with a high strong wall and very well fortified with forts and breast-works. The houses are large, strongly built, and covered with pan-tile. The streets are large and pretty regular; with a parade in the midst, after the Spanish fashion. There are a great many fair buildings besides churches and other religious houses; of which there are not a few.

The harbour is so large that some hundreds of ships may ride here; and is never without many, both of their own and strangers. I have already given you an account of the two ships going and coming between this place and Acapulco. Besides them they have some small vessels of their own; and they do allow the Portuguese to trade here, but the Chinese are the chiefest merchants and they drive the greatest trade; for they have commonly twenty, thirty, or forty junks in the harbour at a time, and a great many merchants constantly residing in the city besides shopkeepers, and handicrafts-men in abundance. Small vessels run up near the town, but the Acapulco ships and others of greater burden lie a league short of it, where there is a strong fort also, and storehouses to put goods in.

I had the major part of this relation two or three years after this time from Mr. Coppinger our surgeon; for he made a voyage hither from Porto Nova, a town on the coast of Coromandel; in a Portuguese ship, as I think. Here he found ten or twelve of Captain Swan’s men; some of those that we left at Mindanao. For after we came from thence they bought a proa there, by the instigation of an Irishman who went by the name of John Fitz-Gerald, a person that spoke Spanish very well; and so in this their proa they came hither. They had been here but eighteen months when Mr. Coppinger arrived here, and Mr. Fitz-Gerald had in this time gotten a Spanish Mestiza woman to wife, and a good dowry with her. He then professed physic and surgery, and was highly esteemed among the Spaniards for his supposed knowledge in those arts; for, being always troubled with sore shins while he was with us, he kept some plasters and salves by him; and with these he set up upon his bare natural stock of knowledge and his experience in kibes. But then he had a very great stock of confidence withal to help out the other and, being an Irish Roman Catholic, and having the Spanish language, he had a great advantage of all his consorts; and he alone lived well there of them all. We were not within sight of this town but I was shown the hills that overlooked it, and drew a draft of them as we lay off at sea; which I have caused to be engraven among a few others that I took myself. 

THEY GO OFF PULO CONDORE TO LIE THERE.  The time of the year being now too far spent to do anything here it was concluded to sail from hence to Pulo Condore, a little parcel of islands on the coast of Cambodia, and carry this prize with us and there careen if we could find any convenient place for it, designing to return hither again by the latter end of May and wait for the Acapulco ship that comes about that time. By our charts (which we were guided by, being strangers to these parts) this seemed to us then to be a place out of the way where we might lie snug for a while, and wait the time of returning for our prey. For we avoided as much as we could the going to lie by at any great place of commerce lest we should become too much exposed, and perhaps be assaulted by a force greater than our own.  So, having set our prisoners ashore, we sailed from Luconia the 26th day of February, with the wind east-north-east and fair weather, and a brisk gale. We were in latitude 14 degrees north when we began to steer away for Pulo Condore, and we steered south by west.  

THE SHOALS OF PRACEL, ETC.  In our way thither we went pretty near the shoals of Pracel and other shoals which are very dangerous. We were very much afraid of them but escaped them without so much as seeing them, only at the very south end of the Pracel shoals we saw three little sandy islands or spots of sand standing just above water within a mile of us.  

PULO CONDORE.  It was the 13th day of March before we came in sight of Pulo Condore, or the island Condore, as Pulo signifies. The 14th day about noon we anchored on the north side of the island against a sandy bay two mile from the shore, in ten fathom clean hard sand, with both ship and prize. Pulo Condore is the principal of a heap of islands and the only inhabited one of them. They lie in latitude 8 degrees 40 minutes north, and about twenty leagues south and by east from the mouth of the river of Cambodia. These islands lie so near together that at a distance they appear to be but one island.