Bajo de San Nicolás

the Bay of St. Nicholas is what is now called Cavite Bay, at the south end of Manila Bay, sheltered by
Sangley Point and well known to generations of U.S. Navy seamen. The 1879 light list includes a light at a
focal plane of 29 ft "on Sangley Point" and gives 1864 as the construction date. This light is missing from
the 1895 list, but the 1904 list has a light at 34 ft, built or altered in 1898, described as "iron frame on
Sangley Point." The 1920 list has the same description but lists the height as 43 ft and the date as 1915;
perhaps the light was raised in that year. Possibly this was an octagonal screwpile lighthouse located off
the point: there was formerly a wonderful drawing of such a lighthouse, dated 1876, available on the
Internet. There is no evidence the lighthouse survives; the modern light at Sangley Point is on an
aviation tower.

By the late 1560s, Miguel López de Legazpi who had left Mexico with a retinue of Spanish and Mexican
soldiers, was already searching for a more suitable place to establish the Spanish colonial capital, having
found first Cebu and then Iloilo undesirable because of insufficient food supplies and attacks by
Portuguese pirates. He was in Cebu when he first heard about a well-supplied, fortified settlement to
the north, and sent messages of friendship to its ruler, Rajah Matanda, whom he addressed as "King of
Luzon."[1] In 1570, Legazpi put Martin de Goiti in command of an expedition north to Manila and tasked
him with negotiating the establishment of a Spanish fort there.