[18] In 1823 the pirates captured the provincial of the Recollects, with one of his friars; and that order had to furnish 10,000 pesos for their ransom. (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de Filipinas, ii, p. 482.) [↑]
[19] General Ricafort published a relation of this enterprise, dated at Manila, December 30, 1829; he describes the island, presents an historical sketch of the insurrection in Bohol since 1744 and the efforts to quell it, and at the end furnishes a tabulated statement of the expeditions sent by his orders, with number of men, expenditures, etc., and of their results—a statement signed by Captain Manuel Sanz, the leader of the expedition, and dated at Talibon, August 31, 1829; to this is added the signed statement by the parish curas of Bohol that the numbers of insurgents who have been conquered or have submitted to the Spanish rule agree with their respective registers. According to this account, the number of insurgents reduced or submitted was 19,420; to this must be added 98 “banished for their rebellious dispositions,” and 395 “obstinate persons who died at the hands of the troops,” and an unknown (“for lack of information”) number of those killed in the year 1827 and on March 28 of 1828, and more than 3,000 souls who have fled to other provinces. Some of the troops were Spaniards from Manila, but the main part of the force was composed of Indians from Bohol and Cebú, to the number of 5,970 and 54 respectively; 294 of the former and 32 of the latter deserted the ranks, and 4,977 Boholans and 22 Cebuans were at the end disbanded, as being on the sick list; and very few were either killed or wounded in the campaign. The reduced insurgents were formed into the following new villages: Catigbian, with 1,967 souls; Batuanan, with 6,266 souls; Cabulao, with 790; Balilijan, with 2,100; and Vilar, with 930. In other villages were distributed the remaining insurgents. [↑]
[20] “The Chinese refused to accept their reduction into villages; more than eight hundred elected to return to their own country; four hundred odd were assigned to labor on the public works, as being insolvent; and about a thousand fled to the mountains in order to elude payment and punishment. The intendant, in view of the difficulty in collecting [their] taxes, explained to the government the expediency of modifying the enactment; and this was done in 1834.” (Note by Montero y Vidal.) [↑]
[21] These funds were chiefly the obras pías which had been administered by the Jesuit order in Filipinas up to their expulsion from the islands; at that time, nearly half of these foundations were extinguished by the authorities, and such moneys as remained in them were covered into the royal treasury. Forty-five of the Jesuit obras pías were thus left, which were administered by the government in the following manner: The capital was divided (as had long been the custom of all the orders in Filipinas in administering obras pías) into three parts; one of these was invested in the commerce of Acapulco, another in that of the Coromandel Coast and China, and the other third remained on deposit as a reserve to make good any losses in the amounts invested. Much light is thrown on the management of these funds by the Jesuits, in the official report made (June 23, 1797), in pursuit of a command from the Spanish government, by Angel de la Fuente, the chief of the Bureau of Secular Revenues [Contaduría de Temporalidades] at Manila; the original MS. of this is in the possession of Edward K. Ayer, Chicago. Fuente examined the account-books which the Jesuits had kept of these funds, and found them full of confusion, discrepancies, and omissions; but after comparing and verifying them so far as he could, he made a list of them, with statement of their origin, amount, and application. He found that in seventeen of these funds there was no evidence that the money had been applied as directed by the donors, and only partial indications of this in fifteen others. He reported that many of these obras pías had been contributed for the advantage and benefit of the Jesuits themselves, and therefore, since that order had been suppressed, the funds might now justly be applied to any desirable pious purpose. To this end, he recommended that nineteen of the funds be placed in charge of the diocesan authorities, and twelve others used by the government for specified purposes, and that the rest be covered into the royal treasury. [↑]
[22] “In order to give aid to the widow of Torres, and pay the expenses of her voyage to España, a subscription was raised which produced 12,000 pesos; but we note that the promoter of this married the widow, and they returned to the Peninsula together.” (Note by Montero y Vidal.) [↑]
[23] The “pillar dollar” was so called from the pillars on the reverse of the coin, which represent the pillars of Hercules, or the Straits of Gibraltar; this device was characteristic of the Spanish-American coinage. This dollar was the peso duro (or “hard dollar”), of eight reals; and its half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and thirty-second parts were represented by smaller coins. The greater part of the supply of pillar dollars were made in Mexico; but this coinage ceased in 1822. In the Peninsula, the coins were the dollar—formerly of ten reals, but now of twenty reals vellón—the half, the peseta or pistareen (which is one-fifth of the dollar, or four reals vellón), and the half and the quarter pistareen. After the Peninsular revolution of 1821, pillar dollars were struck for a short time at Madrid, but these are easily distinguishable from the true pillar dollar. In 1810–16, silver coins were used in Brazil, which were only the Spanish dollar, softened by annealing, and then restamped; the pillars may be distinguished underneath this surface, by close inspection. See Eckfeldt and DuBois, Manual of Gold and Silver Coins (Philadelphia, 1842), pp. 33, 77, 119, 122, See also chapter on Spanish coinage, especially that called “vellón,” in Lea’s Inquisition in Spain (New York, 1906–07), i, pp. 560 et seq.; this latter, although debased, was the standard of value until 1871, when it was replaced by the decimal system. [↑]
[24] “According to a memorial published by Don Francisco Enríquez on leaving his office, there were at that time in the funds [of his department] a surplus of 1,000,000 pesos, and in the storehouses over 275,000 bales of tobacco, the value of which exceeded 4,000,000 hard dollars.” (Note by Montero y Vidal.) [↑]
[25] Hangers-on of the palace at Manila tried to throw on Galvey the blame for this failure; but Montero y Vidal cites Galvey’s diary, to show that he had to contend with overwhelming difficulties, inadequate supplies and lack of proper facilities, and the insalubrity of the country. He stated therein that he had made “forty-five expeditions into the hill-country, and had received therein four wounds, two of which were mortal.” He died in 1839. [↑]
[26] Royal decrees of 1835 and 1836 suppressed the Jesuit order throughout the Spanish empire; all the religious communities and colleges of men (excepting the colleges of missionaries for Asia, the clergy of the Escuelas Pías and the hospital convents of St. John of God), and the houses of the military orders; and all the beaterios whose inmates were not devoted to educational or hospital labors. [↑]
[27] “In Filipinas the peseta is worth only 32 cuartos.” (Vidal y Soler, Viajes por Jagor, p. 227; published in 1874.) [↑]