A royal order of November 16, 1838, had prohibited the holding of provincial chapter-sessions in Filipinas; the Recollect procurator at Madrid remonstrated with the government against this, and the matter was referred to the governor and archbishop of Manila. Lardizábal decided that the chapters should meet, and that the senior auditor of the Audiencia should attend those sessions, as the representative of the vice-regal patron. By a decree of August 31, the governor regulated the status of the Chinese in the islands. They were “classified as transients, those spending the winter [in the islands], and permanent residents. They were allowed to choose the occupation which best suited them, without any restriction. The resident Chinese who should be arrested [as being] without official permit [cédula] or passport were condemned to labor on the public works; and deportation to Zamboanga, Misamis, Paragua, and Calamianes was decreed for all those who were serving a prison term for failure to pay their capitation-tax, in both Manila and Cavite, with the object of securing by this means a larger population for those places.” On July 6, 1839, a weekly publication was begun in Manila entitled, Precios corrientes de Manila [i.e., “Prices current at Manila”],[32] in the Spanish and English languages. A royal decree of October 4, 1839, provided for the introduction and circulation of books in the islands; the fiscal must designate those that merited examination, and then they must be passed upon by two censors, appointed by the governor and the archbishop respectively, whose opinion must be submitted to the fiscal; and if “there shall appear sufficient ground for prohibiting the circulation of any work, because it may contain principles, opinions, or doctrines opposed to the rights of the legitimate government or to the religion of the State, it shall be not only seized but reshipped.”[33] On July 15, 1840, was opened the School of Commerce, established at the request of the Board [Junta] of Commerce. “On November 11 Lardizábal repeated Ricafort’s edict of 1828, prohibiting foreigners from selling merchandise at retail and entering the provinces to trade.” At the end of this year important changes were made in the administration of financial affairs, all the revenues arising from government monopolies being united under one bureau; and another bureau was likewise created for the general administration of the tributes and some other branches of revenue, as those from cockpits, tithes, etc.; while in all the general offices of supervision was introduced the system of bookkeeping by double entry, which had been established in the royal accountancy of the exchequer in 1839. The governor also issued instructions for more careful and accurate accounting being made of municipal property and local imposts, in order to prevent abuses and waste of funds. Lardizábal was soon weary of his command, although faithful to his duties while governor, and so earnestly entreated the home government to allow him to return to Spain that finally he gained this permission; and he departed on that voyage (February, 1841), only to die a few days after leaving Manila; he was buried on an islet near Java. He was succeeded by Marcelino de Oráa Lecumberri.
[1] “Originally, when the port of the capital of Filipinas was visited only by vessels from the Asiatic nations and a few Spanish ships, the exaction of duties was in the hands of the royal officials, according to the laws of the Indias. In 1779 Basco y Vargas ordained that those functionaries should attend only to collecting duties from the ships which navigated to the coasts of Coromandel, Malabar, Bengala, Java, Cantón, Acapulco, and Cádiz; and that the duties proper to the entrance or outgo of products and commodities in the inter-island commerce should be in charge of the director of alcabala. From this originated the foundation of the custom-house, it being completed by royal decrees of 1786 and 1788, from which time it was provided with the necessary force of men for collecting the import and export duties.” (Note by Montero y Vidal.) [↑]
[2] Cf. Forrest, Voyage to New Guinea, p. 368: “They believe the deity pleased with human victims. An Idaan or Maroot i.e., Caraga], a little way west of Pandagitan, which emits at times smoke, fire, and brimstone.” This evidently alludes to Mt. Butulan, a volcano (now apparently extinct), in the extreme southern point of Davao province, Mindanao. [↑]
[3] See account of this at end of “Events in Filipinas,” the first document in VOL. L. [↑]
[4] See post, near the end of this volume, the document on the representation of Filipinas in the Spanish Cortes. [↑]
[5] “A fanatic, who, styling himself a new Christ, appeared to the fishermen and announced to them their true redemption—freedom from monopolies and tributes, and whatever could allure the unwary. This fanatic and more than seventy of his following, called ‘apostles,’ were seized, with their gowns, litters, flags, and other articles with which ‘the new god,’ as was reported, must make himself manifest.” (Official despatch, cited by Montero y Vidal.) [↑]
[6] It may be noted that in 1809 Folgueras had, “in order to quiet the public anxiety” to know what was going on, published on two occasions a sort of gazette (called Aviso al público) of news regarding his encounter and correspondence with the French in that summer. (Montero y Vidal, ii, pp. 390, 391.) [↑]
[7] See Retana’s Periodismo filipino (Madrid, 1895), appendix i (pp. 533–559), in which a detailed account of this gazette, with lists of the articles in most of the numbers, is given by J. T. Medina. He concludes that it had fifteen numbers, irregularly issued, the last of which was dated February 7, 1812. [↑]
[8] According to Jagor (Reisen, pp. 108, 109), “the receipts from the sale of the bulls of the Crusade in 1819 were $15,930, in 1839, $36,390, and in 1860, $58,954. In the two years 1844–45 they rose to $292,115, because the families and the heads of barangay were forcibly obliged to accept the certificates of indulgences, ‘with the assistance and supervision of the curas and subordinate officials’ (who for this received 8 and 5 per cent respectively), and thus they were distributed in the houses—certainly one of the most shameless applications of the repartimiento system.” [↑]