depend for subsistence, they grow desperate and careless of future exertion, which can but lead to the same results, and thus either drag on a miserable existence from day to day, or join with the robbers[1] to pursue the same mode of life, and to exonerate themselves from paying tributes and taxes, in return for which no protection is granted. In many provinces this has been carried to such an extent, that whole districts are rendered impassable by the robbers,[2] who even lay villages under contribution!
This is the state of the inland towns. On the coasts, and while a flotilla of gun-boats is maintained at an expense of upwards of half a million of dollars annually, there is no part safe from the attacks of the Malay pirates from Borneo, Sooloo, and Mindanao. These make regular cruises to procure slaves, and have even not unfrequently carried them off, not only from the bay of Manila,[3] but even from within gun-shot of its ramparts! The very soldiers and sailors sent for their protection plunder them. An Indian in whose neighbourhood troops are posted,
- ↑ See Descripcion Geografica y Topografica de la Ysla de Luzon, Por Don Yldefonso de Arragon, Parte IV. Prov. de la Pampanga, p. 3, 5, &c. The author is a colonel of engineers. [In 1818-20, he was chief of the topographical bureau at Manila.—Eds.]
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ "Estos (Pueblos) aunque immediatos a las orillas de la mar, estén libres de las invasiones de los Moros; la espesura de las Manglares occulta y hace dificil la entrada, &c." "These (towns), though close to the sea shore, are free from the invasions of the Moors (pirates); the thickness of the mangroves conceal and render the entrances difficult." The writer is speaking of towns, of which none are more than 20 miles from Manila!—Descripcion Geog. y Topograf.
