British Occupation of Manila (1762-1764): Seven Years War in Asia

The British occupation of Manila was an episode of the Seven Years’ War in which a British expedition from India captured the capital of the Spanish Philippines in October 1762 and held it until April 1764. The attackers took the walled city quickly, but they never controlled the wider islands, where Spanish officials and Filipino forces kept up resistance. The occupation shook Spanish authority, encouraged local revolts and ended with Manila’s return under the peace of 1763.

Background: Spain enters the war

The Seven Years’ War began in 1756 as a struggle between Britain and France, with Prussia, Austria and Russia also deeply involved. Spain stayed neutral until it signed a new family compact with France in 1761. Britain declared war on Spain on 4 January 1762.

London quickly planned attacks on Spain’s colonies. One force sailed for Havana, which fell in August 1762. Another was to strike Manila, the base of the Manila galleon trade that carried Chinese goods to Acapulco in exchange for American silver. The plan was proposed by Colonel William Draper and carried out jointly by the Royal Navy and the East India Company in Madras.

The siege and storm of Manila

The expedition left Madras in August 1762 under Draper, promoted to brigadier-general, and Rear-Admiral Samuel Cornish. It numbered roughly 6,800 soldiers, sailors and marines, including regular troops, Company soldiers and Indian sepoys. The fleet reached Manila Bay on 22–23 September and began landing troops on 24 September.

Manila had been founded as a Spanish city in 1571 (see Founding of Spanish Manila) and was protected by stone walls, but its garrison was small: a few hundred regular soldiers, supported by Filipino militia. The acting governor was the Archbishop of Manila, Manuel Rojo del Río y Vieyra, who had little military experience. The colony had not yet been officially told that Spain was at war.

British batteries opened fire on the walls, and attempts by Filipino militia to drive off the attackers failed. On 6 October 1762 British troops stormed a breach in the walls and took the city. Manila was then plundered for more than a day before order was restored. Rojo signed a capitulation surrendering Manila and the port of Cavite and promising a ransom of four million Spanish dollars.

At sea, British warships captured the eastbound galleon Santísima Trinidad, laden with a rich cargo, in late October 1762. Another galleon, the Filipinas, arriving from Acapulco with silver, reached the eastern Philippines safely, and its treasure was kept out of British hands.

British rule in Manila

Under the agreement between the Crown and the East India Company, the conquered city was handed to the Company. Dawsonne Drake, a Company official from Madras, became its governor, with a small council. His administration quickly became unpopular, and he quarrelled bitterly with the army and navy officers over authority, supplies and the division of the spoils. The Company later criticised his conduct.

The British held Manila, Cavite and a few nearby posts, but their forces shrank steadily. Draper and Cornish left with much of the fleet and army soon after the capture, and many of the remaining soldiers fell sick or deserted. Raids into the surrounding provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga did not break Spanish and Filipino resistance, and supplies of food from the countryside were often cut off.

Collecting the promised ransom proved equally difficult. Church and private silver and the goods seized in the city made up only part of the sum, and bills drawn on the treasury in Madrid were later refused. The plunder and the ransom created long disputes among the British commanders, the Company and the Crown over who was entitled to what.

Resistance beyond the walls

Before the city fell, Simón de Anda y Salazar, a judge of the Royal Audiencia, slipped out with official documents and funds. He set up a rival government at Bacolor in Pampanga, declared himself governor and captain-general, and rejected the capitulation. With Spanish soldiers, friars and Filipino volunteers, he harassed British outposts and kept most of Luzon outside British control.

The occupation also triggered revolts against Spanish rule. In the Ilocos region, Diego Silang rose in December 1762 and sought British support. He was assassinated on 28 May 1763 by men paid by Spanish officials and clergy. His widow, Gabriela Silang, continued the struggle until she was captured and executed in September 1763. Revolts also broke out in Pangasinan and elsewhere.

Many Chinese residents of Manila’s Parián district sided with the British. Anda ordered harsh reprisals against Chinese suspected of collaboration, and many were killed.

Key people

• William Draper (1721–1787): British army officer who proposed and commanded the land forces of the expedition.
• Samuel Cornish (c. 1715–1770): Royal Navy rear-admiral commanding the fleet.
• Manuel Rojo del Río y Vieyra (1708–1764): Archbishop of Manila and acting governor, who surrendered the city and died in Manila in January 1764.
• Simón de Anda y Salazar (1709–1776): leader of Spanish resistance, later governor-general of the Philippines.
• Diego Silang (1730–1763) and Gabriela Silang (1731–1763): leaders of the Ilocano revolt against Spanish rule.

Return to Spain

The Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 February 1763, ended the war. Britain received Florida from Spain in exchange for returning Havana, and Manila, whose capture was not yet known in Europe when peace terms were agreed, was to be handed back without compensation. News travelled slowly and disputes between British officials delayed the handover, but a new Spanish governor arrived in 1764 and the last British troops left Manila in April 1764.

The ransom was never fully paid. British officers and the East India Company pressed claims for years, but Spain refused to honour the rest of the capitulation.

Legacy

The occupation exposed how weakly Spain defended its Asian colony and inspired military and economic reforms in the Philippines in the following decades. Simón de Anda returned as governor-general from 1770 to 1776 and pressed for stronger defences, and later governors such as José Basco y Vargas introduced a state tobacco monopoly and promoted export crops to make the colony less dependent on the galleon trade. In Britain, the expedition was remembered as a bold stroke of sea power, but also as a source of quarrels over prize money and the unpaid ransom. It is also remembered for the resistance it provoked, with Diego and Gabriela Silang honoured today as Filipino national heroes. A local tradition holds that some sepoys who deserted the British settled in Cainta, east of Manila, where their descendants are said to live.

Timeline

• 1762, 4 January: Britain declares war on Spain.
• 1762, August: The expedition sails from Madras.
• 1762, 24 September: British troops land near Manila.
• 1762, 6 October: Manila is taken by storm; Archbishop Rojo signs a capitulation.
• 1762, late October: The galleon Santísima Trinidad is captured.
• 1762, December: Diego Silang’s revolt begins in Ilocos.
• 1763, 10 February: The Treaty of Paris is signed.
• 1763, 28 May: Diego Silang is assassinated.
• 1764, April: The last British forces leave Manila.

Why it matters

The fall of Manila was one of the most far-reaching operations of the Seven Years’ War, linking a European conflict to Asia and the Pacific. Its short-lived success showed the reach of British sea power, while the uprisings it encouraged foreshadowed later Filipino challenges to Spanish rule.