22. See ante, note 20. The arrival and departure of the annual galleon
were times of activity, but otherwise Manila was a dull town, with
little industry. The Chinese usurped all the petty trade.
23 It is to the credit, of the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del Pais de
Filipinas, founded by the energetic governor Basco y Vargas in 1781,
that it extended its many-sided interests to the destruction of the
devastating hordes of locusts that visit the Philippines so frequently.
24 The Spanish policy remained to the end one of exclusion, and
the privileges granted were almost all because of coercion, and the
penetrating force of modern ideas.
25. A loose use of the word "monk", which is properly used of a
cloistered ecclesiastic who does not leave his convent. "Friar" would
be a more exact term. The Benedictines are monks; the Augustinians,
Dominicans, Franciscans, and Recollects, are friars.
26. This was the Filipino chemist Anacleto del Rosario, whom Rizal
rightly praises.
27. This refers doubtless to Rizal himself, who competed in an open
contest for Spaniards and Indians, of the Liceo Artistico-Literario
de Manila, and of whom such an occurrence is related. He was awarded
first prose prize for a production entitled "El Consejo de los Dioses",
which see in the "Revista del Liceo Artistico-Literario de Manila,
No. 4, 1880, pd. 45. This production, which bears neither signature
nor sign of authorship, is dated April 13, 1880.