It is, however, only within these few years that these facilities have been given to those engaged in the trade, as formerly the colonial ships were forbidden, under a heavy penalty, to touch at any place in the Philippines after clearing out for Sooloo from Manilla. In spite of this law, however, few of those engaged in the trade had virtue sufficient to obey it, and pass these places by, when it was so very much to their interest to complete their cargoes there, which they could not do elsewhere nearly so advantageously. And the only consequence of this absurd old prohibition against their doing so, was to involve many of them in long-pending and expensive lawsuits, which have often ruined prosperous men.
Besides those wise regulations, there existed some other forms equally sensible. For instance, the traders of Bisayao province, who send several small craft to Sooloo, which they are close to, were compelled to make a tedious voyage to Manilla against the monsoon, in order that they might report their cargo for Sooloo and get out passes, after which they had to return all the way back again, and at length were at liberty to steer for Sooloo.
However, these foolish restrictions were at length put a stop to, and the trade encouraged, by the Government establishing a custom-house at Zamboanga, where there is at all times a considerable military force.
The Sultan appears to be the most powerful nobleman in the country, rather than the sovereign monarch of it. For although the chiefs of the islands, or Datos, usually acquiesce in appearance to his will, they do so more from fear of his power at the moment than with any idea of his legitimate authority, and in effect they very seldom comply with his decrees.
The entire people are slaves owned by the Sultan and these Datos, who exercise over the unfortunate wretches the worst species of tyrannical power; for as these nobles or reguli are subject to no law but there own caprice, if any slave displeases his master, he can, without the slightest fear of having to give any account of the circumstance to a living soul, draw his kris, and murder the slave. Of course by so doing, however, he impoverishes himself, as he loses the market price of the day for a slave; or should he murder a slave belonging to some one else, a Dato is only expected to pay the amount he was considered worth by his master, or to give another one of his own in exchange for him.
But, notwithstanding all the insecurity of life and property, the Chinese annually resort to Sooloo in pursuit of gain, and occasionally as many as eight small vessels are seen there at a time, during the busy seasons, for trade, just after the changes of the monsoon.
Some of these Chinamen marry and remain in the country, although every now and then some of them are obliged to flee from it to the Philippines, where the Spanish flag protects them against their tyrannical and barbarous pillagers; for as there is no law to appeal to as a protection against the chiefs, they are quite at their mercy. The Datos themselves decide their quarrels and disputes with each other, by arming and assembling all their slaves and those of their friends who are willing to help them, and fight it out; but should their disputes run very high, or the feud last for any length of time, some powerful Dato, or the Sultan himself, interferes, and decides it finally by obliging both parties to keep the peace.
The footing on which the trade is carried on with Sooloo is rather a strange one; although regulations have at various times been arranged between the Spanish government and that court, by which, although the Sultan has formally promised to give his guarantee that all goods sold by the traders from the Philippines to the Datos shall be paid for, yet there are very few of the traders at Manilla who consider the pledge of his Highness as of much importance, as it is usually only redeemed when his own particular interest requires it. He is, in truth, generally absolutely unable to make the nobles fulfil their contracts, they being as a body very much more powerful than he is. There being little or no money in Sooloo, the trade carried on by the Chinese supercargos of the ships frequenting the port is principally transacted by barter, they giving their manufactures for the produce of their fishery, &c., and for edible birds’-nests, tortoise-shell, beche de mer, mother-of-pearl shell, wax, gold-dust, pearls, &c.
The profits of those engaged in this trade are very variable, for although their goods are all disposed of apparently at enormous prices, yet there are so many of them delivered to powerful chiefs, or to the Sultan, as presents, or sold to these dignitaries without the traders ever being able to get paid for them, that in reality the profit of the voyage may he scanty enough, although, were the guarantee of the prince to the Manilla government fulfilled, they might he very large if the prices at which they had been sold were actually paid to them.
If the debts of the Datos are not paid off at once they are allowed to stand over for another year, at which distance of time they are very seldom recoverable, good memories being very seldom met with there.