A History of the Philippines

by David P. Barrows

The Great Wars in America and Europe.—The English reoccupied Balanbangan in 1803, but held the island for only three years, when it was definitely abandoned. For some years, however, the coasts of the Philippines were threatened by English vessels, and there was reflected here in the Far East the tremendous conflicts which were convulsing Europe at this time. The wars which changed Europe at the close of the eighteenth century, following the French Revolution, form one of the most important and interesting periods of European history, but it is also one of the most difficult periods to judge and describe. We will say of it here only so much as will be sufficient to show the effect upon Spain and so upon the Philippines.

The Revolution of the English Colonies in America.—In 1776 the thirteen English colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America declared their independence of Great Britain. In the unfair treatment of the British king and Parliament they had, they believed, just grounds for revolution. For nearly eight years a war continued by which England strove to reduce them again to obedience. But at the end of that time England, having successively lost two armies of invasion by defeat and capture, made peace with the American colonists and recognized their independence. In 1789 the Americans framed their present constitution and established the United States of America.

The French Revolution.—Condition of the People in France.—In their struggle for independence the Americans had been aided by France, who hoped through this opportunity to cripple her great colonial rival, England. Between America and France there was close sympathy of political ideas and theories, although in their actual social conditions the two countries were as widely separated as could be. In America the society and government were democratic. All classes were experienced in politics and government. They had behind them the priceless heritage of England’s long struggle for free and representative government. There was an abundance of the necessaries of life and nearly complete freedom of opportunity.

France, like nearly every other country of continental Europe, was suffering from the obsolete burden of feudalism. The ownership of the land was divided between the aristocracy and the church. The great bulk of the population were serfs bound to the estates, miserably oppressed, and suffering from lack of food, and despoiled of almost every blessing which can brighten and dignify human life. The life of the court and of the nobility grew more luxurious, extravagant, and selfish as the economic conditions in France became worse. The king was nearly an absolute monarch. His will was law and the earlier representative institutions, which in England had developed into the splendid system of parliamentary government, had in France fallen into decay.

In the other countries of Europe—the German States, Austria, Italy, and Spain—the condition of the people was quite as bad, probably in some places even worse than it was in France. But it was in France that the revolt broke forth, and it was France which led Europe in a movement for a better and more democratic order. Frenchmen had fought in the armies of America; they had experienced the benefits of a freer society, and it is significant that in the same year (1789) that saw the founding of the American state the Revolution in France began. It started in a sincere and conservative attempt to remedy the evils under which France was suffering, but the accumulation of injustice and misery was too great to be settled by slow and hesitating measures. The masses, ignorant, and bitter with their wrongs, broke from the control of statesman and reformer, threw themselves upon the established state and church, both equally detestable to them, and tore them to pieces. Both king and queen died by beheading. The nobility were either murdered or expelled. The revolutionary government, if such it could be called, fell into the hands of wicked and terrible leaders, who maintained themselves by murder and terrorism.

Effects of the Revolution.—These are the outward and terrible expressions of the Revolution which were Seized upon by European statesmen and which have been most dwelt upon by historical writers. But, apart from the bloody acts of the years from 1793 to 1795, the Revolution modernized France and brought incalculable gains to the French people. By the seizure of the great estates and their division among the peasantry, the agricultural products of the country were doubled in a single year, and that terrible condition of semi-starvation which had prevailed for centuries was ended.

The other monarchies of Europe regarded the events in France with horror and alarm. Monarchs felt their own thrones threatened, and a coalition of European monarchies was formed to destroy the republic and to restore the French monarchy and old régime. France found herself invaded by armies upon every frontier. It was then that the remarkable effects produced by the Revolution upon the people of France appeared.

With a passionate enthusiasm which was irresistible, the people responded to the call for war; great armies were enlisted, which by an almost uninterrupted series of victories threw back the forces of the allies. Men rose from obscurity to the command of armies, and there was developed that famous group of commanders, the marshals of France. Out of this terrible period of warfare there arose, too, another, who was perhaps, if we except the Macedonian king, Alexander, the greatest man ever permitted to lead armies and to rule men—Bonaparte, later the emperor, Napoleon the First.

The New Republic under Napoleon the First.—From 1795, when Bonaparte was given command of the invasion of Italy, until 1815, when he was finally defeated at Waterloo in Belgium, Europe experienced almost continuous war. The genius of Napoleon reduced to the position of vassal states Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. In all these countries the ancient thrones were humbled, feudalism was swept away, and the power of a corrupt church and aristocracy was broken. In spite of the humiliation of national pride, these great benefits to Europe of Napoleon’s conquests can not be overestimated. Wherever Napoleon’s power extended there followed the results of the Revolution—a better system of law, the introduction of the liberal “Code Napoleon,” the liberation of the people from the crushing toils of mediævalism, and the founding of a better society. These are the debts which Europe owes to the French Revolution.

The Decline of Spain.—Lack of Progress.—In this advance and progress Spain did not share. The empire of Napoleon was never established in the Peninsula. In 1811 the Spaniards, with, the assistance of the English under the great general, Wellington, repulsed the armies of the French. This victory, so gratifying to national pride, was perhaps a real loss to Spain, for the reforms which prevailed in other parts of Europe were never carried out in Spain, and she remains even yet unliberated from aristocratic and clerical power.