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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 52, 1841-1898

Note 22 — INTERNAL POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1842

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[Foreigners are useful because of their knowledge and capital, and create much wealth for the islands through their continued traffic with their own countries. But their presence does not promote the conservation of the colony.] Formerly the feeling against this class of persons was very pronounced, owing in great measure to the religious, who always spoke of the English, Dutch, etc., as heretics, drunkards, and barbarians. The antipathy thus engendered was highly important, in case of an outside attack. [The natives are now friendly to foreigners, who pay more liberally than Spaniards, and even Spaniards at Manila are aping the English and are friendly to them. Undesirable books have and will surely be introduced through the foreigners; and consequently, the laws forbidding them to go to the provinces must be enforced, and entrance to Manila must not be easy. La Place, the Frenchman, although he wrote many inaccurate things of the islands,22 recognized the danger from foreigners, when speaking of the slaughter of the foreigners in 1819 during the cholera.]

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