Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 09).pdf/326

than twenty-four thousand persons were said to have come. Thirteen thousand were sent away from the country, and the number would have been greater if the ships from Castilla had arrived, thus supplying means for deporting more. These people come to these islands and settlements, and trade very freely with the natives, who are naturally weak and covetous; and, too, they remain constantly with us. Many of them live and sleep within the city and in the houses of the Spaniards, whose wives, children, men and women servants—and of these last, not a few—are there also. Even if there were no more evils and opportunity for wrong than for these women and children to be eyewitnesses of what happens in houses where there are people so vile, bold, vicious, and shameless—who are, although generous, covetous, cunning, and treacherous—these alone are sufficient evils and causes for Spaniards not to permit the Sangleys, or consent, as they do, to their staying in their houses. This they allow on account of the gain, rent, and payments given them, and for greater convenience and shortening of their own labors. Consequently, these people are not separated on account of their aforesaid customs, nor of the danger and opportunity offered them for connivance and knavery. They could burn the city in a night; and should they rise, they could before the blow was felt kill with their weapons many of the persons who keep and permit them to stay in their own houses, finding them asleep and unaware; and they know very well how to do it, to our cost and injury. But neither this injurious and painful experience, nor all the aforesaid dangers, are sufficient to check or remedy this grave evil. It is greed which is the road and means of perdition,