or who sees the gun-boats approaching, can no longer consider his property safe; and in the very vicinity of Manila, soldiers ramble about with their loaded muskets, and pilfer all they lay hands upon at mid-day![1]
Does the Indian, in spite of all this, escape, and by patient industry make a little way in the world? he is vexed with offices; he is chosen Alguazil, Lieutenant, and Captain of his town; to these offices no pay is attached, they always occasion expenses and create him enemies; he is pinched or cheated by the Mestizos, a forestalling, avaricious, and tyrannical race. Does he suffer in silence? it is a signal for new oppressions: does he complain? a law suit. The Mestizos are all connected, they are rich, and the Indian is poor.
The imperfect mode of trial, both in civil and criminal cases (by written declarations and the decisions of judges alone), lays them open to a thousand frauds; for if the magistrate be supposed incorruptible, his notaries or writers (escribanos and escribientes) are not so; and from their knavery, declarations are often falsified, or one paper is exchanged for another whilst in the act of or before signing them.
To such a degree does this exist, that few Indians, even of those who can read Spanish tolerably, will sign a declaration made before a magistrate without threats, or without having some one on whom they
- ↑ The writer was once obliged to arm all his servants against 16 soldiers with their muskets from a neighboring military post. The two parties remained some minutes with their arms levelled at each other, when a parley was begun, which ended the affair without bloodshed. The origin of the quarrel was a dispute at cockfighting between his servants and the soldiers.
