Opinion regarding the causes which antagonize the security and
progress of the Filipinas Islands
Most Excellent Sir:
The Filipinas Islands, on account of their great extent, their
advantageous location in the center of the commercial world of Asia,
their considerable population, and the fertility of their soil--which
is capable of yielding all the products which are grown between the two
tropics--require from his Majesty's paternal government a carefully
planned system of measures which shall strengthen their peace and
internal security, and at the same time advance their agriculture,
industry, and commerce to that high degree to which they have been
destined by Providence.
As I am charged by order of the king our sovereign to furnish
information regarding the measures which can contribute to objects
so important, it will be my plan to point out (but with that
circumspection which is so necessary in matters of colonial policy
and administration) the causes which today are antagonizing both the
internal and external security of those islands and their successful
administration--civil, economic, and commercial--proposing in regard
to each one of these the correctives which have been impressed upon me
by my experience as consulting attorney [asesor] and judge in all the
public affairs of justice, army and navy, the government, revenues,
and commerce; and my own observations under popular revolutions,
changes in the system of government, and other vicissitudes and
critical positions in which that colony has been seen during the long
period of my residence therein.
OF THE CAUSES WHICH ANTAGONIZE THE INTERNAL SECURITY OF THE FILIPINAS
ISLANDS, AND OF CORRECTIVES FOR THEM