Note 73 — PART II

This case actually occurred to one of the most respectable military officers in the Spanish service, now a captain in the Queen’s Regiment, whose name is Don M—— de O——. This gentleman, a man of high spirit, and one of the few Spaniards in Manila who are an ornament to their profession, bearing the king’s commission, and in pursuit of the robbers, suddenly fell in with a noted chief of them, when accompanied only by a piquet of infantry. The robber knew him, and with a gallantry worthy of a better cause, defied him to single combat! With true chivalric spirit, the challenge was instantly accepted; and orders given to the piquet not to interfere on pain of their lives. A desperate conflict ensued, in which the gallant Spaniard was at length victorious, and the robber’s head was sent through the country in triumph. Shall the sequel be told? When he returned to Manila, with the blessing of every honest native for having cleared that part of the country of robbers, a subject of prosecution was found in this service by those numerous enemies which every honest man has in a country like this, and on some frivolous pretext of having (unavoidably) fired into a cottage, and killed or wounded some innocent persons. He could not stoop to flatter or bribe; and it was with the utmost difficulty, and rather by the exertions of his friends than by his own, that after suffering a long series of vexations, he was saved from ruin! ↑