Anda took up the reins of government, confident that he was just the man to rule these islands. In this, however, he was mistaken. He was headstrong and imprudent. He was unwilling to forgive his enemies or to be advised by his friends. Indeed, his hasty temper and his lack of good sense before long turned his friends from him. He quarreled with the officers of the State, of the army, and of the Church, and his rule was a stormy one. He soon wore himself out, and in 1776 he died in the hospital of San Juan de Dios, at Cavite.
MONUMENT TO SIMON DE ANDA ON THE MALACON, MANILA.
At this time new ideas of human rights and liberties were stirring the whole world. In Europe people were growing bolder and freer in their protests against tyranny. In America the colonies had begun the eight years’ war that was to free them from England’s unjust rule. In Mexico was growing the discontent that only ended when Mexico had thrown off the yoke of Spain. Everywhere the people were demanding freedom; but in the Philippine Islands a plan was forming to take from the natives still more of the little liberty they had.
In the year 1778 Don José Basco y Vargas (hō sā´ bäs´ cō ē vär´ gäs) became governor-general of the archipelago. He found business at a low ebb, and the country very poor. The treasury was nearly empty; the people had no money, and the industries of the country were almost at a standstill.
Vargas was in some ways a wise man. He saw that farming, and not trade, was the work that alone could bring prosperity to these islands. Farming, however, was neglected. The country could be very rich if the people would but give their attention to raising the crops that grow so readily here. Rice, cocoanuts, hemp, coffee, tea, sugar—all of which are things that the whole world uses—could be grown here, so that the islands under cultivation would rank with the rich countries of the earth.
All this Vargas understood. He saw that great sums of money could be made off the land, and he resolved that it should be done. But, like others who had been in office before him, his thought was for Spain, instead of for the people. He cared nothing that the Filipinos, too, should share in whatever good might come to the country.
There can, however, be no real prosperity in a country unless it is shared by all the people in it. One class cannot always go on getting good things while another goes without. This fact Vargas forgot. His plan for improving things concerned itself only with the good that should result to the royal treasury. He gave no thought to the effect the plan might have on the people.
Tobacco had been grown in the Visayas from the beginning of Spanish rule. The Spaniards brought the seed with them from Mexico, and the plant was taken into China from these islands. Up to the time when Vargas came, the crop had never been a large one here, but under the system which he started it soon became the most important industry in the country.
In 1781 the growing and selling of tobacco on the island of Luzon was made a government monopoly. This meant that no man might raise or sell a single leaf of tobacco without first having permission from the government.