[The entrance of these persons causes trouble among the people of the
islands: the Indians are easily influenced by white men, especially
those who teach them to live in more freedom and insubordination to
authority; foreigners of this sort are almost always of lax morals
and dangerous political opinions, which are even more dangerous to
"the Spaniards of the country, who, although more enlightened than the
Indians, are more susceptible to such corruption." The foreigner thus
residing in the islands, "usually from the dregs of other nations,"
makes light of all the institutions there, and tries to set the people
against the mother country; and three times recently has occurred]
the scandal, unheard-of in that colony, of foreigners who, abusing
the innocence of the country, have, being already married in their
own country, again married Philippine Spanish girls, leaving them
abandoned and dishonored. Others, who feigned to be learned physicians
and agriculturists, have deceived and defrauded proprietors in the
islands. Others have clandestinely introduced impious, revolutionary,
and obscene books printed in the Spanish language, but pirated in
France, with which they have caused atrocious injury in the morals of
families there. In fine, the settlement of foreigners in the islands
would not be expedient, even for the sake of the advantages which
their industry and arts would produce there; for works carried on
always with foreign capital, on the account of foreigners, and by
the agency of foreigners, would leave to the country very little
benefit as compared to that from labor employed there by Spanish
capital, and on the account and for the benefit of Spaniards. If we
desire to preserve intact in Filipinas the religious ideas and the
pure morals of our ancestors, and due submission to the government
of his Majesty, it is necessary to keep the people away from every
point of contact with foreigners. In China, Japan, and other nations,
the revolutionary spirit has not been able to penetrate, because the
laws of those kingdoms keep the gates closed to all strangers. In
a colony still in its infancy in customs and enlightenment--which,
like a school of education, needs to have for models men of sound
morals--it has been very absurd to allow to remain and become citizens
therein men who have served a term of exile, and polisones [145]
or vagabonds, sometimes followed by officers of justice from the
Peninsula; and that the Indian people should see (as so many times I
have seen) that this sort of men succeeded in obtaining positions as
corporals, revenue officials, and even militia captains, solely from
the circumstance of their being white men. It is necessary always
to remove from the colonies this sort of people, who on account of
their principles and their inclinations must be enemies of order and
of government, permitting therein the settlement only of respectable
Spanish artisans and merchants, whose upright conduct may serve as
an example to that neophyte people, while at the same time they make
fortunes for themselves. But even this point needs careful study,
and in regard to it I will present the following reflections.