The Manila galleon

William Lytle Schurz

This unique book, the product of twenty-seven years of research, relates the romantic history of the great Spanish galleons, the most glamorous in the history of the seas. For two hundred and fifty years--from 1565 to 1815--they regularly made the five-to-eight month voyage across the Pacific between Manila and Acapulco. The largest and richest merchant ships of their age, the galleons carried to Mexico all the fabulous luxuries of the Orient and returned to the Philippines laden with silver ingots. Their capture was the ultimate ambition of every pirate and privateer. Many were lost as sea; one drifted down the Mexican coast without a living soul on board; the mutiny on the San Geronimo surpassed in drama that on the Bounty. But this is more than a story of ships, for the whole history of the Pacific Area involved around these lonely voyages. They supplied the central theme of Philippine history; they were the original motive for the exploration and settlement of California; they brought the Chinese and Japanese to the Philippines.