founded a monthly periodical entitled Registro Mercantil [17] ["The Mercantile Register"]. The ravages of the Moro pirates continuing, and becoming each year more menacing, [18] Martínez sent out an expedition against them (February 29, 1824), which laid waste the shores of Joló and southern Mindanao, and killing a considerable number of Moros, among whom were three of their fiercest and most treacherous dattos. Martínez advocated such operations as this, as the only means of stopping the piracies of the Moros. During the period of 1823-29, the Augustinian missionary Fray Bernardo Lago succeeded in reducing to village life and converting more than eight thousand Tinguianes and Igorrots in the province of Abra, forming the mission of Pidigan. In 1825 Martínez was replaced by Mariano Ricafort Palacín y Abarca, and departed for Spain; a few days after leaving Manila he died, and was buried in Cochinchina. Ricafort assumed office on October 14, 1825, and by royal orders also took possession of the intendancy of exchequer, although Urréjola was continued in its charge; but in the following January Ricafort concluded that "this dual command was impossible," and restricted the intendant to certain routine functions, at the same time asking the approval of the home government for this proceeding. He had brought with him a portrait of Fernando VII, presented by the king to his colony of Filipinas; the municipal council of Manila decided to pay this portrait the same honors as if the king himself had visited the islands, and during the week of December 19-25 festivities of every kind were conducted, with the utmost display and magnificence. (Five years later, orders from the Spanish government were received at Manila, censuring the extravagant expenditures on that occasion, said, to amount to some 16,000 pesos, as an unwarranted and blamable use of municipal funds, and regulating, for the future, expenditures of this sort.) A royal decree of June 8, 1826, ordained that the secularization of parish curacies should cease, and that those ministries should be restored to the religious orders, which was accordingly done. On September 15 of that year Fray Hilarión Diez, an Augustinian, took possession of the archbishopric of Manila, replacing Zulaibar, who had died on March 4, 1824. In June a circular letter was sent by Ricafort to the provincial governors, reminding them of the law (art. 26 of the "Ordinances of good government") which forbade them to hinder in any way the trade in the products of the provinces, whether by Spaniards, natives, or mestizos, and whether in kind or with money, ordering them to permit trade freely everywhere, without any delays or exactions against those doing business. In 1827 Ricafort sent an expedition against Joló, which was kept off by the valor of the Joloans; but the Spaniards burned and ravaged the settlements on the shores of Illana Bay, doing the Moros much damage. In that