The expenses of administration are as follows. The civil and ecclesiastical officers of government, 250,000 dollars. The military, including all classes, about 600,000; and the marine, about 550,000.
The excess of revenue over the expenditure is stated by Comyn to have been in 1809 about 450,000 dollars, but in this is included 250,000 received from Mexico.
In 1817, by an account published by order of the Ayuntamiento of Manila, the amount of the revenue was—
Receipts
| Dollars | |
| Poll Tax | 638,976 |
| Rentas (monopolies, farms, &c.) | 810,784 |
| Total | 1,449,760[52] |
of which a surplus would remain when all the expenses were liquidated. In preceding years, some surplus has been remitted to Spain.
The military establishment consists of three regiments of infantry, one of dragoons, a squadron of hussars, and a battalion of artillery, in all about 4500 regulars. The militia are numerous, but only one regiment is under arms: the total of men may be estimated at 5000, but on an emergency, large bodies of irregulars can be called into activity. In 1804, the governor, Don J. M. de Anguilar, [i.e., Aguilar] is said to have had upwards of 20,000 men under arms, being in expectation of an attack from the English.
These troops (which are all natives) are in general badly disciplined and officered, mostly by country-born officers, without the advantage of an European education, ignorant of their military duties to the last degree, many of them (more especially in the Mestizo regiments) connected with the soldiers by relationship, or at least by the tie of mutual indulgence, the soldier performing every menial office for the officer, who in return winks at the excesses of the soldier. This is carried to such an extent, that, not to mention such trifles as a garden wall or gate, a bathing house, or a stable, or at times a little smuggling; there are instances on record, where the commanding officer of a regiment has built himself a country house! the whole of the masonry and carpentry being performed by soldiers of his regiment! Another is of a captain collecting his debts by means of a piquet of infantry; taking possession of his debtor’s house until payment was made!
It will be easily conceived, that where these things are permitted, the soldiers are made subservient to other purposes; accordingly they have been employed to punish the paramours of their officers’ wives—to eject a troublesome tenant—or at times to take vengeance for affronts, in cases where it might not be safe for the injured person to do so.[53]
These remarks apply more particularly to the Mestizo officers. The Spaniards, and some of the creoles, who are but very few in number, form a respectable class of military men, of whom some few may be cited as models of spirit and discipline: but they are not sufficiently numerous for their example to influence the despicable beings with whom they are unavoidably associated; and the wealth and influence being generally on the side of the native-born officers, these abuses are permitted, and the complaints of others disregarded.