A CENTURY OF OBSCURITY AND DECLINE. 1663-1762. Political Decline of the Philippines.--For the hundred years succeeding the abandonment of the Moluccas, the Philippines lost all political significance as a colony. From almost every standpoint they were profitless to Spain. There were continued deficits, which had to be made good from the Mexican treasury. The part of Spain in the conquest of the East was over, and the Philippines became little more than a great missionary establishment, presided over by the religious orders. Death of Governor Salcedo by the Inquisition.--In 1663, Lara was succeeded by Don Diego de Salcedo. On his arrival, Manila had high hopes of him, which were speedily disappointed. He loaded the Acapulco galleon with his own private merchandise, and then dispatched it earlier than was usual, before the cargoes of the merchants were ready. He engaged in a wearisome strife with the archbishop, and seems to have worried the ecclesiastic, who was aged and feeble, into his grave. At the end of a few years he was hated by every one, and a conspiracy against him was formed which embraced the religious, the army, the civil officials, and the merchants. Beyond the reach of the power of ordinary plotters, he fell a victim to the commissioner of the Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition, which wrought such cruelty and misery in the Peninsula, was carried also to the Spanish colonies. As we have seen, it was primarily the function of the Dominican order to administer the institution. The powers exercised by an inquisitor can scarcely be understood at the present day. His methods were secret, the charges were not made public, the whole proceedings were closeted, and yet so great were the powers of this court that none could resist its authority, or inquire into its actions. Spain forbade any heretics, Jews, or Moors going to the colonies, and did the utmost to prevent heresy abroad. She also established in America the Inquisition itself. Fortunately, it never attained the importance in the Philippines that it had in Spain. In the Philippines there was no "Tribunal," the institution being represented solely by a commissioner. Death of the Governor.--In 1667, when the unpopularity of Governor Salcedo was at its height, this commissioner professed to discover in him grounds of heresy from the fact that he had been born in Flanders, and decided to avenge the Church by encompassing his ruin. By secret arrangement, the master of the camp withdrew the guard from the palace, and the commissioner, with several confederates, gained admission. The door of the governor's room was opened by an old woman, who had been terrified into complicity, and the governor was seized sleeping, with his arms lying at the head of his bed.