Judicial offices of the province of Camarines[1]
With respect to royal jurisdiction, this province has these three offices:
The alcaldia-mayor of Caseres, which is ordinarily called the alcaldia-mayor of Camarines, because Caseres is the capital of the province, and has jurisdiction over the larger and better part of it; the corregimiento of Ybalon, which is at the mouth of the channel; and the corregimiento of the island of Catanduanes, which is also near the same channel mouth.
The province of Manilla
The second province [in the island of Luzon] and the principal one in importance and wealth, because of its extensive commerce and of the fact that it is in the center of the kingdom, is Manila. Within its jurisdiction are included other smaller provinces. These are the two lake provinces, Bonbon and Bay; and (the most important of all) Panpanga, which, at the outside, is not more than twelve leguas from Manila. This is an inundated valley, and yields a great amount of rice, owing to the richness and location of its lands, as well as to the wealth and superior character of its natives—among whom there are at present many who have aided and served as faithful subjects and friends, whenever opportunity has offered. In Panpanga your Majesty has as many as six thousand tributes in the four governmental districts and principal villages, among which are Betis, Lubao, Guagua, Mexico, and other smaller places. All the neighboring country, and particularly the royal magazines, secure their rice from this province [of Pampanga]. There must be in the province of Manila forty thousand tributes belonging to private individuals, and almost twenty thousand belonging to your Majesty. There must be in all more than five hundred thousand people, of whom one-fourth are Christians. In this, however, estimates vary. The adelantado, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, settled the important city of Manila in the year fifteen hundred and sixty-one,[2] after having lived for six years in the islands of Zubu and Panay, of which I shall speak more in detail in another place.
The judicial offices in the province of Manila.
The offices to which appointments are made in the province of Manila, not to mention the judicial officers of greater or less importance who are maintained by the city within its walls, are as follows:
The alcaldia-mayor of the Parian or alcayzeria of the Chinese; the alcaldia-mayor of the coast near this city, its capital being the town of Tondo; the alcaldia-mayor of the Lake of Manila, ordinarily called Laguna de Bay; the alcaldia-mayor of Bulacan and Calumpite, one of the two alcaldias of Panpanga; the alcaldia-mayor of Panpanga, which includes the rest of the province; the alcaldia-mayor of Balayan and Bonbon, twenty leguas from Manila; the corregimiento of Mindoro and Baco, twenty-five leguas from Manila—which, although it is itself an island, is a division of this province for judicial and religious administration; the alcaldia-mayor of Calilaya, forty leguas from Manila; the corregimiento of Masbate, an island fifty leguas, or a little more, from Manila, between this island [of Luzon] and the Pintados.
Pangassina
Next after Panpanga comes the district comprising all of Sambales and Pangasinan. This, although here considered as a separate province, is under the jurisdiction of Manila in judicial and religious matters. Its natives are chiefly those called Negrillos. They are mountain Indians and are either very tawny in color, or black. They are so restless, so warlike, and so averse to trade and communication with other people, that up to this time it has not been possible to subdue them effectively. Although on different occasions they have been severely chastised, there is still no security from them. They are in the habit of making sudden assaults upon their neighbors, continually, and cutting off many heads. In this consists the whole happiness of these barbarians. These Negrillos belong to the same race of people as those who live farthest in the interior and in the most rugged parts of these islands. It is a very well established and common belief that they are the real aborigines; and that the rest of the Indians are immigrants who conquered them, and compelled them to leave the shores and plains, and to retire to the most isolated and rugged parts of the islands, where they now are. They are still so brutal and so averse to civilization that they scarcely deserve more than the name of men; for they often cut off the heads of their own fathers and brothers as a pastime, for no other reason than their natural cruelty and brutality. Very few of them have fixed settlements, nor do they plant crops; but they live upon camotes (a kind of potato), other herbs and roots, and the game which they hunt. They hardly ever come to the plains or coasts except to make assaults and to cut off heads. The one who has cut off the greatest number of these is most feared and respected among them. The skulls they keep in their huts as trophies, or to serve as jugs and cups in their drinking-bouts. There is such abundance of wild game in the province of Pangasinan that within a space of only twenty leguas over sixty thousand, and sometimes as many as eighty thousand, deer are killed every year. The Indians pay these deerskins as tributes; while trade in them is a source of great profit for Japon, because the Japonese make of them good leather for various purposes.