EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1801-1840
[At the beginning of volume l may be found a brief summary of events during the latter third of the eighteenth century, a record which is here continued as above. As before, we epitomize from Montero y Vidal's Hist, de Filipinas (tomo ii, pp. 360-573; iii, pp. 6-32), using his own language wherever practicable, usually distinguished by quotation marks.]
Under Governor Aguilar the "Ordinances of good government," as revised by Governor Raon in 1768 (for which see vol. l, pp. 191-264), were reprinted in the year 1801. "On September 8, 1804, Don Fray Juan Antonio Zulaibar, a Dominican, and formerly a professor in the university of Alcalá, took possession of the archbishopric of Manila." In November following, the governor sent despatches to the king explaining his action in appointing to certain curacies regular instead of secular priests, saying that the latter were seldom qualified for those charges. He said, in regard to this: "No one is ignorant how different are the appearance and the degree of prosperity of all the churches and settlements administered by religious from those in the villages which are in charge of Indian clerics. Of the latter, some are doubtless men of virtue and pious intentions; but
