[1] An encomendero was a Spanish soldier who as a reward for faithful
service was set over a district with power to collect tribute and
the duty of providing the people with legal protection and religious
instruction. This arrangement is memorable in early Philippine annals
chiefly for the flagrant abuses that appear to have characterized it.
[2] No official was allowed to leave the Islands at the expiration
of his term of office until his successor or a council appointed by
the sovereign inquired into all the acts of his administration and
approved them. (This residencia was a fertile source of recrimination
and retaliation, so the author quite aptly refers to it a little
further on as "the ancient show of justice."
[3] The penal code was promulgated in the Islands by Royal Order of
September 4, 1884.
[4] Cervantes' "Don Quijote," Part II, chapter 47.