4. Many have looked upon a thing lent as a thing found, and have given trouble to them that helped them.
5. Till they receive, they kiss the hands of the lender, and in promise they humble their voice.
6. But when they should repay, they will ask time, and will return tedious and murmuring words, and will complain of the time:
7. And if he be able to pay, he will stand off, he will scarce pay one-half, and will count it as if he had found it:
8. But if not, he will defraud him of his money, and he shall get him for an enemy without cause:
9. And he will pay him with reproaches and curses, and instead of honour and good turn will repay him injuries.
[40] i.e., “Scarce does he return the half.”
[41] In the Douay version: “The sinner shall borrow and not pay again;” being only one-half the verse. M. omits the reference, but gives the passage.
[42] Delgado (Historia, p. 306) commenting on this passage says: “I find noted many actions of the Indian boys who serve in the houses and convents; and all are ridiculous things which we ourselves did in our own country when we were boys like them.” He objects to San Agustin’s quotation from Scripture on the ground that it is too general, and that those words were not written merely for them. “If twenty cases have been experienced where the Indian borrower has failed to return what he borrowed, it cannot be said that the entire Tagálog nation are sinners, let alone other nations, which may not have been seen. Such a supposition is illogical.”
[43] The paragraph structure of M. and D. differs from our text in the above two paragraphs, and in other places throughout this letter; and the paragraphs are also unnumbered in both of these versions. The copy owned by Eduardo Navarro, O.S.A., Valladolid, agrees with the Ayer MS. in having numbered paragraphs, but the numbering is not in all cases the same.