All these longitudes are determined according to our chronometers, which were tried immediately after our arrival in Manilla. They differ from those on Horsbourg's new chart by three minutes and a half, ours being so much more westerly. With a favourable wind we now sailed southwards, in sight of the western coast of Lucon, till we reached the promontory of Bajador, where we were detained some days by calms, therefore did not come in sight of Manilla bay till the 7th of November. Here the wind was violent and contrary; but as it blew from the land, could not materially swell the waves: we were therefore enabled, by tacking, to advance considerably forward; and at length contrived to run into the bay, by the southern entrance, between its shores and the island of Corregidor. A Spanish brig, which was tacking at the same time, lost both her top-masts in a sudden gust. On the morning of the 8th of November we anchored before the town of Manilla. I immediately waited on Don Mariano Ricofort, the Governor of the Philippines. He gave me a friendly reception, and granted the permission I requested, to sail to Cavite, a hamlet lying on the bay, within a few miles of the town, and possessing the advantage of a convenient dock. Our ship being greatly in want of repair, we removed thither on the following day, and immediately commenced our labours. We spent our time very pleasantly in this lovely tropical country. How richly has Nature endowed it, and how little is her bounty appreciated by the Spaniards! The whole world does not offer a more advantageous station for commerce than the town of Manilla, situated as it is in the neighbourhood of the richest countries of Asia, and almost midway between Europe and America. Spanish jealousy had formerly closed her port; but since the revolt of the American colonies, it has been opened to all nations, and the Philippines are consequently rising rapidly to importance. As yet, their export trade has been chiefly confined to sugar and indigo for Europe, and the costly Indian bird's-nest, and _Trepangs_, for China. The latter is a kind of sea-snail without a shell, which not only here, but on the Ladrones, Carolinas, and Pelew Islands, even as far as New Holland, is as eagerly sought after as the sea-otter on the north-west coast of America. The luxurious Chinese consider them a powerful restorative of strength, and purchase them as such at an exorbitant price. But what an inexhaustible store of commercial articles might not these islands export! Coffee of the best quality, cocoa, and two sorts of cotton, the one remarkably fine, the produce of a shrub, the other of a tree, all grow wild here, and with very little cultivation might be made to yield a prodigious increase of wealth. These productions of Nature are, however, so much neglected, that at present no regular trade is carried on in them. A great abundance of the finest sago trees, and whole woods of cinnamon, grow wild and unnoticed in Lucon.