Note 20 — PART I

But for 300 years they have been ground to the earth with oppression. They have been crushed by tyranny; their spirit has been tortured by abuse and contempt, and brutalized by ignorance; in a word, there is no injustice that has not been inflicted on them, short of depriving them of their liberty; and in a work published at Madrid in 1819 (Estado de las Yslas Filipinas, par [sic; for por] Don Tomas Comyn), whose author was a factor of the Phillippine company, a whole chapter (the 4th) is devoted to the mild and humane project “of establishing Spanish agriculturists throughout the islands,” who are, “to require a certain number of Indians from the governors of towns and provinces, who are to be driven to the plantations, where they are to be obliged to work a certain time, the price of their labour being fixed, and then to be relieved by a fresh drove!”20