Refounding of Zamboanga.--In 1718 he refounded and rebuilt the presidio of Zamboanga. Not a year had passed, since its abandonment years before, that the pirates from Borneo and Mindanao had failed to ravage the Bisayas. The Jesuits had petitioned regularly for its reëstablishment, and in 1712 the king had decreed its reoccupation. The citadel was rebuilt on an elaborate plan under the direction of the engineer, Don Juan Sicarra. Besides the usual barracks, storehouses, and arsenals, there were, within the walls, a church, hospital, and cuartel for the Pampangan soldiers. Sixty-one cannon were mounted upon the defenses. Upon the petition of the Recollects, Bustamante also established a presidio at Labo, at the southern point of the island of Paragua, whose coasts were attacked by the Moros from Sulu and Borneo. Treaty with Siam.--In the same year he sent an embassy to Siam, with the idea of stimulating the commerce which had flourished a century before. The reception of this embassy was most flattering; a treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce was made, and on ground ceded to the Spaniards was begun the erection of a factory. Improvements in the City of Manila.--How far this brave and determined man might have revived the colony it is impossible to say. The population of Manila, both ecclesiastical and civil, was at this time so sunk in corruption and so degenerate as to make almost impossible any recuperation except under the rule of a man equally determined as Bustamante, but ruling for a long period of time. He had not hesitated to order investigations into the finances of the Islands, which disclosed defalcations amounting to seven hundred thousand pesos. He fearlessly arrested the defaulters, no matter what their station. The whole city was concerned in these peculations, consequently the utmost fear and apprehension existed on all sides; and Bustamante, hated as well as dreaded, was compelled to enforce his reforms single-handed. His Murder.--He was opposed by the friars and defied by the archbishop, but, notwithstanding ecclesiastical condemnation, he went to the point of ordering the arrest of the prelate. The city rose in sedition, and a mob, headed by friars, proceeded to the palace of the governor, broke in upon him, and, as he faced them alone and without support, killed him in cold blood (October 11, 1719). The archbishop proclaimed himself governor and president of the Audiencia. The oidores and officials who had been placed under arrest by Bustamante were released, and his work overthrown. The new government had neither the courage nor the inclination to continue Bustamante's policy, and in 1720 the archbishop called a council of war, which decreed the abandonment of the fort at Labo.