The Sooloo Archipelago. 129
heighten this impression, but the expectation was doomed to disappointment.
For
many years a weary diplomatic correspondence has been going pn upon
the subject of the Sooloo Archipelago. Spain has expended much money,
and lost many of her sons in attempting to reduce the Sooloo Sultan to
a state of vassalage, and for years a desultory kind of warfare has
been prosecuted. This was originally occasioned by the necessity of
putting an end to the frequent piratical attacks of the Sooloo
slave-praus upon the comparatively defenceless natives of islands
under the Spanish rule. England, however, persistently refused to
recognise the Spanish claim of sovereignty over the group, and certain
high-handed measures on the part of the Spanish authorities against
various English and German merchant vessels brought about the Protocol
of 1877, by which Germany and England secured freedom of trade in
Sooloo ; and on this point Spain has more than fulfilled her
obligations. In 1878, Spain at length forced the Sultan to sign the
"Capitulation," constituting himself a subject of Spain. For this he
receives an annual pension of 2,400 dollars, and by virtue of this
treaty, Spain not only reiterated her claim of sovereignty over the
Sooloo Archipelago, but also
over the Sabah territory, ceded to the British North
1
