Note 3 — INTERNAL POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1842

A note by Mas at this point discusses the other admissible plan, “namely, to cede the country to some foreign power.” But the religious, the majority of the military and civil employes, and the Filipino-Spaniards would prefer independence to transfer, and the simple announcement of such transfer would lead to almost universal insurrection. The fatal results that ensued from the former English policy of sending convicts to their colonies declares against making the Philippines a penal colony. Another plan, namely, to send out Spanish emigrants from the Peninsula, is also not feasible, for Spain has no surplus population, and in fact needs a greater population. On the matter of penal colonies, Forrest (Voyage, p. 198) says, “The Spaniards at Manila transport convicts to Samboangan, as England did to America.” In 1875–78, there was some discussion of the question as to whether Spain should establish penal colonies (like that of Botany Bay) in the Marianas Islands or in the Gulf of Guinea. ↑