SIX GOVERNORS-GENERAL.
Moriones--Primo de Rivera--Jovellar--Terreros--Weyler--Despujols.
Moriones.
During my residence in the Islands--from 1877 to 1892--there were
six Governors-General, and they differed very widely in character
and ideas.
The first was Don Domingo Moriones y Murillo, Marquis of Oroquieto,
an austere soldier, and a stern disciplinarian. He showed himself to
be a man of undaunted courage, and of absolutely incorruptible honesty.
When he landed in Manila he found that, owing to the weakness of
Admiral Malcampo, his predecessor, the Peninsular Regiment of Artillery
had been in open mutiny, and that the matter had been hushed up. After
taking the oath of office, and attending a Te Deum at the Cathedral,
he mounted his horse, and, attended by his aides-de-camp, rode to the
barracks, and ordered the regiment to parade under arms. He rode down
the ranks, and recognised many soldiers who had served under him in
the Carlist wars.
He then stationed himself in front of the regiment, and delivered a
remarkable and most stirring oration. He said that it grieved him to
the heart to think that Spanish soldiers, sent to the Philippines to
maintain the authority of their king and country, many of whom had
with him faced the awful fusillade of Somorrostro, and had bravely
done their duty, could fall so low as to become callous mutineers,
deaf to the calls of duty, and by their bad conduct tarnish the
glory of the Spanish Army in the eyes of all the world. Such as
they deserved no mercy; their lives were all forfeited. Still he
was willing to believe that they were not entirely vicious, that
repentance and reform were still possible to the great majority. He
would, therefore, spare the lives of most of them in the hope that
they might once more become worthy soldiers of Spain. But he would
decimate them; every tenth man must die.
He then directed the lieutenant-colonel in command to number off the
regiment by tens from the right.
Let the reader ponder upon the situation. Here was a mutinous
veteran regiment that for months had been the terror of the city,
and had frightened the Governor-General and all the authorities into
condoning its crimes.
In front of it sat upon his horse one withered old man. But that
man's record was such that he seemed to those reckless mutineers to
be transfigured into some awful avenging angel. His modest stature
grew to a gigantic size in their eyes; the whole regiment seemed
hypnotized. They commenced numbering. It was an impressive scene--the
word ten meant death. The men on the extreme right felt happy; they
were sure to escape. Confidently rang out their voices: one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine--then a stop. The doomed
wretch standing next would not say the fatal word. Moriones turned
his glance upon the captain of the right company, and that officer
perceived that the crisis of his life had arrived, and that the next
few seconds would make or mar him; one instant's hesitation would cost
him his commission. Drawing and cocking his revolver, he held it in
front of the forehead of the tenth man, and ordered him to call out
ten. Placed thus between the alternative of instant death or obedience,
the unhappy gunner complied, and the numbering of the whole line was
accomplished. The number tens were ordered to step out of the ranks,
were disarmed, placed under arrest, and notified that they would
be shot next morning. As regards the others, all leave was stopped,
and extra drills ordered. Great interest was exerted with Moriones to
pardon the condemned men, and he did commute the death sentence on
most of them, but the ring-leaders were shot the following morning,
others imprisoned, and fifty were sent back to Spain in the same
vessel as Admiral Malcampo, whose pampering of them had ruined their
discipline. So much for the courage of Moriones. It was a wonderful
example of the prestige of lawful authority, but of course the risk
was great.
To him was due the construction of the Manila Waterworks. A sum of
money had been left a century before by Don Francisco Carriedo, who
had been general of a galleon, to accumulate until it was sufficient
to pay for the waterworks, which ought to have been begun years
before. However, the parties who held these funds, like certain
Commissioners we know of at home, had little desire to part with the
capital, and it was only the determination of General Moriones that
triumphed over their reluctance.
Manila ought to be ever grateful to Moriones for this. He also
tried to get some work out of the Obras Publicas Department, and,
in fact, he did frighten them into exerting themselves for a time,
by threatening to ship the Inspector-General of Public Works back to
Spain, unless the Ayala bridges were completed on a certain day.
But the greatest thing that Moriones did for the Philippines was when
he prevented the sale of the Government tobacco-culture monopoly to
some Paris Jews. Whilst he was staying at the Convent of Guadalupe
he received a letter from Canovas, at the time Prime Minister of
Spain. It informed him that a project was entertained of selling the
Crown monopoly of the cultivation and manufacture of tobacco in the
Philippines to a Franco-Spanish syndicate, and added, "The palace is
very interested," meaning that the King and the Infantas were in the
affair. It announced that a Commission was about to be sent by the
capitalists to enquire into the business, and wound up by requesting
Moriones to report favourably on the affair, for which service he
might ask any reward he liked. The carrying out of this project meant
selling the inhabitants of Cagayan into slavery.
I had this information from a gentleman of unblemished truth and
honour, who was present at the receipt of the letter, and it was
confirmed by two friars of the Augustinian Order under circumstances
that left no doubt upon my mind as to their accuracy.
Although Canovas was at the time in the height of his power, and
although the King was interested in the matter going through, Moriones
indignantly refused to back up the proposal. He wrote or cabled to
Canovas not to send out the Commission, for if it came he would send
it back by the same vessel. He reported dead against the concession,
and told the Prime Minister that he was quite prepared to resign,
and return to Spain, to explain his reasons from his seat in the
Senate. What a contrast this brave soldier made to the general run
of men; how few in any country would have behaved as he did!
This was not the only benefit Moriones conferred upon the tobacco
cultivators of Cagayan, for he did what he could to pay off the debt
owing to them by the Treasury.
Primo de Rivera.
The next Governor-General was Don Fernando Primo de Rivera, Marquis
of Estella, and he was the only one with whom I was not personally
acquainted. During the cholera epidemic of 1882, when 30,000 persons
died in the city and province of Manila, he showed ability and firmness
in the arrangements he made, and he deserves great credit for this. But
corruption and embezzlement was rampant during his time. Gambling was
tolerated in Manila and it was currently reported that twenty-five
gambling houses were licensed and that each paid $50 per day, which
was supposed to go to the Governor-General. Emissaries from these
houses were stationed near the banks and mercantile offices, and
whenever a collector was seen entering or leaving carrying a bag of
dollars, an endeavour was made to entice him to the gambling table,
and owing to the curious inability of the native to resist temptation,
these overtures were too frequently successful.
The whole city became demoralised, servants and dependants stole from
their employers and sold the articles to receivers for a tenth of
their value in order to try their luck at the gaming table. A sum of
$1250 per day was derived from the gambling-houses and was collected
every evening.
Notwithstanding all these abuses, Primo de Rivera maintained good
relations with the natives; he was not unpopular, and no disturbances
occurred during his first government. He owed his appointment to King
Alfonso XII., being granted three years' pillage of the Philippine
Islands as a reward for having made the pronunciamento in favour
of that monarch, which greatly contributed to putting him upon the
throne. He and his friends must have amassed an enormous sum of
money, for scarcely a cent was expended on roads or bridges during
his government, the provincial governors simply pocketed every dollar.
Jovellar.
He was succeeded by Field-Marshal Don Joaquim Jovellar, during
whose time the tribute was abolished and the Cedulas Personales tax
instituted. Jovellar appeared to me to be a strictly honourable man,
he refused the customary presents from the Chinese, and bore himself
with much dignity. His entourage was, however, deplorable, and he
placed too much confidence in Ruiz Martinez, the Director of Civil
Administration. The result was that things soon became as bad as in
the previous governor's time. Jovellar was well advanced in years,
being nearly seventy. He had many family troubles, and the climate
did not agree with him.
I remember one stifling night, when I was present at Malacanan at
a ball and water fete, given to Prince Oscar, a son of the King of
Sweden. The Governor-General had hardly recovered from an illness,
and had that day received most distressing news about two of his sons,
and his daughter Dona Rosita, who was married to Colonel Arsenio
Linares, was laid up and in danger of losing her sight.
Yet in that oppressive heat, and buttoned up in the full dress uniform
of a field-marshal, Jovellar went round the rooms and found a kind
word or compliment for every lady present. I ventured to remark how
fatigued he must be, to which he replied, "Yes, but make no mistake,
a public man is like a public woman, and must smile on everybody."
During his time, owing to symptoms of unrest amongst the natives,
the garrison of Manila and Cavite was reinforced by two battalions
of marines.
Terrero.
He was succeeded by Don Emilio Terrero y Perinat, a thorough soldier
and a great martinet. I found him a kind and courteous gentleman,
and deeply regretted the unfortunate and tragic end that befell him
after his return to Spain. I saw a good deal of Field-Marshal Jovellar
and of General Terrero, having been Acting British Consul at the end
of Jovellar's and the beginning of Terrero's Government. I kept up my
acquaintance with General Terrero all the time he was in the islands,
and was favoured with frequent invitations to his table, where I met
all the principal officials.
Things went on quietly in his time and there was little to record
except successful expeditions to Jolo and Mindanao, causing an
extension of Spanish influence in both places.
Weyler.
Terrero was succeeded by Don Valeriano Weyler, Marquis of Tenerife,
the son of a German doctor, born in Majorca, who brought with him
a reputation for cruelties practised on the Cuban insurgents during
the first war.
Weyler was said to have purchased the appointment from the wife of a
great minister too honest to accept bribes himself, and the price was
commonly reported to have been $30,000 paid down and an undertaking
to pay the lady an equal sum every year of his term of office.
Weyler is a small man who does not look like a soldier. He is clever,
but it is more the cleverness of a sharp attorney than of a general
or statesman.
Curiously enough the Segundo Cabo at this time was an absolute
contrast. Don Manuel Giron y Aragon, Marquis of Ahumada, is descended
from the Kings of Aragon, and to that illustrious lineage he unites
a noble presence and a charm of manner that render him instantly
popular with all who have the good fortune to meet him. No more
dignified representative of his country could be found, and I send
him my cordial salutation wherever he is serving.
During Weyler's term another expedition to Mindanao was made and
some advantages secured. Some disturbances occurred which will be
mentioned in another chapter, and secret societies were instituted
amongst the natives. Otherwise the usual bribery and corruption
continued unchecked.
There was a great increase in the smuggling of Mexican dollars from
Hong Kong into Manila, where they were worth 10 per cent. more. The
freight and charges amounted to 2 per cent., leaving 8 per
cent. profit, and according to rumour 4 per cent. was paid to
the authorities to insure against seizure, as the importation was
prohibited under heavy penalties.
At this time I was Government Surveyor of Shipping, and one day
received an order from the captain of the port to proceed on board
the steamer Espana with the colonel of carbineers and point out to him
all hollow places in the ship's construction where anything could be
concealed. This I did, but remembering Talleyrand's injunction, and
not liking the duty, showed no zeal, but contented myself with obeying
orders. The carbineers having searched every part of the ship below,
we came on deck where the captain's cabin was. A corporal entered
the cabin and pulled open one of the large drawers. I only took one
glimpse at it and looked away. It was chock full of small canvas bags,
and no doubt the other drawers and lockers were also full. Yet it did
not seem to occur to any of the searchers that there might be dollars
in the bags, and it was no business of mine. Nothing contraband had
been found in the ship, and a report to that effect was sent in. I
sent the colonel an account for my fee, which was duly paid from the
funds of the corps.
Weyler returned to Spain with a large sum of money, a far larger sum
than the whole of his emoluments. He had remitted large sums in bills,
and having fallen out with one of his confederates who had handled some
of the money, this man exhibited the seconds of exchange to certain
parties inimical to Weyler, with the result that the latter was openly
denounced as a thief in capital letters in a leading article of the
Correspondencia Militar of Madrid. Weyler's attorneys threatened to
prosecute for libel, but the editor defied them and declared that he
held the documents and was prepared to prove his statement. The matter
was allowed to drop. Weyler was thought to have received large sums
of money from the Augustinians and Dominicans for his armed support
against their tenants. It was said that the Chinese furnished him with
a first-rate cook, and provided food for his whole household gratis,
besides making presents of diamonds to his wife. And for holding back
certain laws which would have pressed very hardly upon them, it was
asserted that the Celestials paid him no less than $80,000. This is
the man who afterwards carried out the reconcentrado policy in Cuba
at the cost of thousands of lives, and subsequently returning with
a colossal fortune to Spain, posed as a patriot and as chief of the
military party.
Despujols.
To Weyler succeeded a man very different in appearance and character,
Don Emilio Despujols, Conde de Caspe.
Belonging to an ancient and noble family of Catalonia, holding his
honour dear, endowed with a noble presence and possessed of an ample
fortune, he came out to uplift and uphold the great charge committed
to him, and rather to give lustre to his office by expending his own
means than to economise from his pay, as so many colonial governors
are accustomed to do. He established his household upon a splendid
scale, and seconded by his distinguished countess, whose goodness
and munificent charities will ever be remembered, he entertained on a
scale worthy of a viceroy and in a manner never before seen in Manila.
Despujols rendered justice to all. Several Spaniards whose lives
were an open scandal, were by his order put on board ship and sent
back to Spain. Amongst these was one who bore the title of count,
but who lived by gambling.
Another was a doctor who openly plundered the natives. Like a Mahometan
Sultan of the old times, Despujols was accessible to the poorest who
had a tale of injustice and oppression to relate.
The news that a native could obtain justice from a governor-general
flew with incredible rapidity. At last a new era seemed to
be opening. A trifling event aroused the enthusiasm of the
people. Despujols and his countess drove to the Manila races with
their postillions dressed in shirts of Jusi and wearing silver-mounted
salacots instead of their usual livery. I was present on this occasion
and was struck with the unwonted warmth of the governor-general's
reception from the usually phlegmatic natives. Despujols became
popular to an extent never before reached. He could do anything with
the natives. Whenever his splendid equipages appeared in public he
received an ovation. Quite a different spirit now seemed to possess
the natives. But not all the Spaniards viewed this with satisfaction;
many whose career of corruption had been checked, who found their
illicit gains decreased, and the victims of their extortion beginning
to resist them, bitterly criticised the new governor-general.
The religious orders finding Despujols incorruptible and indisposed
to place military forces at the disposal of the Augustinians
and Dominicans to coerce or evict refractory tenants, then took
action. Their procurators in Madrid made a combined attack on
Despujols, both in the reptile press and by representations to the
ministry. They succeeded, and Despujols was dismissed from office by
cable. Rumour has it that the Orders paid $100,000 for Despujols's
recall. For my own part I think this very likely, and few who know
Madrid will suppose that this decree could be obtained by any other
means.
He laboured under a disadvantage, for he did not pay for his
appointment as some others did. If he had been paying $30,000 a year
to the wife of a powerful minister, he would not have been easily
recalled. Or if, like another governor-general, he had been in debt
up to the eyes to influential creditors, these would have kept him
in power till he had amassed enough to pay them off.
I am of opinion that had Despujols been retained in Manila, and had
he been given time to reform and purify the administration, the chain
of events which has now torn the Philippines for ever from the grasp
of Spain would never have been welded. Whoever received the priests'
money, whoever they were who divided that Judas-bribe, they deserve
to be held in perpetual execration by their fellow-countrymen, and
to have their names handed down to everlasting infamy.
Despujols left Manila under a manifestation of respect and devotion
from the foreign residents, from the best Spaniards and from every
class of the natives of the Philippines, that might well go far to
console him for his unmerited dismissal. He must have bitterly felt
the injustice with which he was treated, but still he left carrying
with him a clear conscience and a harvest of love and admiration that
no previous governor-general had ever inspired.
For if Moriones manifested courage, energy and incorruptible honesty
under what would have been an irresistible temptation to many another
man, that rude soldier was far from possessing those personal gifts,
the fine presence and the sympathetic address of Despujols, and
inspired fear rather than affection.
Yet both were worthy representatives of their country; both were
men any land might be proud to send forth. Those two noble names are
sufficient to redeem the Spanish Government of the Philippines from
the accusation of being entirely corrupt, too frequently made against
it. They deserve an abler pen than mine to extol their merits and
to exalt them as they deserve above the swarm of pilferers, and sham
patriots, who preceded and succeeded them. To use an Eastern image,
they may be compared to two noble trees towering above the rank
vegetation of some poisonous swamp. For the honour of Spain and of
human nature in general, I have always felt grateful that I could say
that amongst the governors-general of the Philippines whom I had known
there were at least two entitled to the respect of every honest man.