Notes XVII. and XVIII.—Pages 106–7.
The circumstances stated on both these occasions, incontestably prove that the energy and exertions of the Portuguese in establishing their own exclusive dominion in the eastern Archipelago, even in defiance of the fiat of his Holiness, had led them to impart to the natives that knowledge which they themselves had been but lately possessed of; for the use of cannon, on board ships, did not come into practice till about the year 1539.
Note XIX.—Page 129.
Thus it is that the Spaniards appear even to have deceived themselves in subduing those islands. In the course of this work, the reader will be enabled to appreciate the nature of what the Spaniards called a conquest. The progress of a few men into the interior of a country under the protection of fire-arms, and the baptism of some individuals, to whose language the Spaniards were perfect strangers, and who of course could form no idea of the obligations imposed by the ceremony, seem to constitute their notion of conquest. Thus it is too that their authority extends over so small a portion of these delicious islands.
Note XX.—Page 197.
The inhuman custom of infanticide is not only practised with impunity in China, but seems even countenanced as the readiest means of limiting a population which would otherwise be superabundant, and in time exceed the productive powers of the country. By the narrative of Lord Macartney we learn, that in the tract of country through which the embassy passed, the population appeared excessive; at the same time that cultivation and industry seemed to be extended to their utmost limits. All the accounts we possess of that extraordinary empire concur in this representation. What effect the very pious application of the funds of the eleemosynary establishments at Manila may have in checking this savage custom is not noticed by the author; and we have reason to fear the practice is so general, that any attempt to check it by this means might rather tend to stimulate the avarice of the parents, and produce an opposite effect. The Chinese are as yet but in a half civilized state, and while they continue so we can entertain but slender hopes of any alteration more consistent with the feelings of humanity.
Note XXI.—Page 211.
The whole of this paragraph comprises a more virulent Philippic against the Spanish government than we could have expected from a Spaniard; but which the reader is by this time convinced is no less just than spirited. That the mild measures the author recommends would have the desired effect may be fairly doubted. He appears to write as a monk rather than as a statesman; but it cannot admit of a question, that if it were possible to combine with such measures a military establishment, under the control of wise laws, whose mild influence might be generally felt, and equally protect the native as the Spaniard, the unstable authority of that nation upon these islands would soon assume a different character, and reduce the quantum of human misery which their present system is calculated to perpetuate.
[1] This is an opinion very generally received, and naturalists, in copying one from another, have stamped a credit upon it. Houttyn himself, in his Natural History, vol. i. part v. page 607, gives a description of this bird, and of its manners, very different from the above.