Note 9 — THE FRIAR VIEWPOINT

That illustrious statistician believed that the knowledge of Castilian and the unity of the language could not be in any time a favorable base for the insurrection, which was one of the contrary arguments which he was opposing, for, he was asserting in general that “neither the population through its number, nor the native race through its nature and special conditions, are here capable of independence at any time. This country is not a continent, but an archipelago. Its diverse provinces are for the greater part, distinct islands; ... and so long as there is a Spanish military marine in these waters, supposing that any serious insurrection should arise (which seems to me highly improbable) there is nothing easier than to circumscribe it to the locality in which it should be born, and consequently to stifle it in its cradle.” A few lines afterwards he says: “The Indians here, I repeat, can never become independent. They feel that also for the present, although perhaps they do not understand it; and furthermore by instinct they prefer at all times Spaniards to foreigners, on whom they look moreover with unfavorable caution.” What an illusion, and what an enormous disillusion! How great would be the deception of Señor Escosura if he would come to life in his grave! Without troubling us with the argument of the Castilian, or taking into account the circumstances that he lays down in regard to the multiplicity of islands which are extremely unfavorable for their defense, according to his way of thinking, what would he say now if he lifted his head and observed that the knowledge of Castilian has been considerably extended—perhaps four times as much as when he went as royal commissary to Filipinas, in order to write that Memoria; that, if not the lawyers, the men of most letters and knowledge of Castilian, the intelligent, and those of the most cultured native society, in which figures a numerous pleiad composed of advocates, physicians, pharmacists, painters, engravers, normal and elementary teachers, municipal captains, past-captains, cuadrilleros,9 and hundreds more of those who understand one another and are in the way of identifying themselves with the Castila, as Señor Escosura would say, are the leaders, are those who captain and direct the enormous native multitudes who are related to them in thought and action, and stimulate and spread that bloody rebellion which is spreading through all the islands like an immense spot of oil, in spite of the fact that they are so numerous and are defended by a respectable squadron; of that insurrection, which scarcely born and without arms, presents itself powerful, and armed in the greater part of Luzón and certain other provinces, and latent or masked in all the remaining provinces; of that insurrection which without any preamble of liberties, and of little more than two years of limited exercise of municipal autonomy, is beginning to proclaim and demand independence, and passing to active life is establishing a government and is exercising perfect dominion for more than one-half year in an entire province a few leguas from Manila, at the very foot of a strong fort and under the fire of its arsenal, in spite of the numerous squadron which touches its coasts. What would the author of that Memoria, abounding in liberties and so ample in his criticism, say? He would say much of that which he then censured in his opponents. He would ingenuously and solemnly assert in the face of the bloody panorama of so enormous hetacombs that he had been deceived, and he would even add that it is at least rash to sow the winds, which become, as a logical sequel, fatal whirlwinds to finish us; that the implanting of a certain class of reforms and liberties is a rash work; and would adduce the reason which he gave in the above-cited prologue when treating in regard to the difficulty of implanting with result in those islands “certain literary and scientific professions;” namely, “that given the physical and intellectual qualifications of their race, it would be rash to expect that they would ever compare with Europeans. The Indian learns much more readily than we do; but he forgets with the same readiness, and retrogrades to his primitive condition.” It seems impossible how a man of so clear judgment and so exact concepts in regard to persons could stumble so transcendently as is found throughout in his Memoria. How powerful is the strength of consistency. The political ideal, like the sectarian, annuls the deepest and most righteous convictions.