were unsuccessful. By 1601, after three months of heavy fighting, the Spanish troops retreated. In 1628, a larger raiding force of about 200 Spanish army officers and 1,600 soldiers was organised to attack Jolo to defeat the Moslem slave raiders and traders, but the Spanish again failed to take Jolo. Again on 17 March 1630, a large Spanish force of 2,500 soldiers attacked Jolo but to no avail. When its commander Lorenzo de Olazo was wounded, the Spaniards retreated. On 4 January 1638, Governor Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera led a naval and military expedition of about 80 ships and 2,000 troops to attack Jolo, but Sultan Wasit put up stiff resistance. However, Sultan Wasit's kuta army suffered a serious epidemic of tropical disease and he and his chieftains sought refuge in the Dungun area of Tawi-Tawi. The Spanish Army easily occupied Jolo, and a small garrison was left there to control the area. The garrison was withered away by frequent raids launched by Sultan Wasit, and by 1645, this garrison had been wasted away. This was the first time that Jolo had been occupied by the Spaniards for an appreciable length of time. From 1663 to 1718, an interregnum of peace occurred because the Spanish troops were ordered to abandon the Zamboanga Peninsula, and forts south of thatand regroup in Manila to prepare for the impending attack of Koxingawhich never happened. Hostilities resumed in the 18th century, triggered by the 1718 decision by governor Gen Juan Antonio dela Torre Bustamante to reconstruct the fort Real Fuerza de San José in Bagumbayan, Zamboanga. The fort was completed in 1719, renamed Real Fuerza del Pilar de Zaragosa (Fort Pilar is its popular name today), and inaugurated on 16 April. Three years later in 1722, the Spaniards launched another expedition against Jolo led by Andrés García; this expedition failed. In 1731, General Ignacio Iriberri lead a force of 1000 to Jolo and captured it after a lengthy siege, but the Spaniards again left after a few days. In 1755, a force of 1,900 Spanish soldiers led by the captains Simeón Valdez and Pedro Gastambide was sent to Jolo in revenge for the raids by Sultan Muiz ud-Din, but the Spaniards were defeated. In 1775, after a Moro raid on Zamboanga, Captain Vargas led a punitive expedition against Jolo, but his force was repulsed. In the second half of the 18th century, Great Britain