he Bank for damages. The case was
open for several years, during which time the Bank coffers were once
sealed by judicial warrant, a sum of cash was actually transported from
the Bank premises, and the manager was nominally arrested, but really
a prisoner on parole in his house. Several sentences of the Court were
given in favour of each party. Years after this they were all quashed
on appeal to Madrid. Mr. Jurado went to Spain to fight his case,
and in 1891 I accidentally met him and his brother (a lawyer) in the
street in Madrid. The brother told me the claim against the Bank then
amounted to P935,000, and judgement for that sum would be given within
a fortnight. Still, years after that, when I was again in Manila, the
case was yet pending, and another onslaught was made on the Bank. The
Court called on the manager to deliver up the funds of the Bank, and
on his refusal to do so a mechanic was sent there to open the safes,
but he laboured in vain for a week. Then a syndicate of Philippine
capitalists was formed to fleece the Bank, one of its most energetic
members being a native private banker in Manila. Whilst the case was
in its first stages I happened to be discussing it at a shop in the
_Escolta_ when one of the partners, a Spaniard, asked me if I would
like to see with my own eyes the contending lawyers putting their
heads together over the matter. "If so," said he, "you have only to
go through my shop and up the winding back staircase, from the landing
of which you can see them any day you like at one o'clock." I accepted
his invitation, and there, indeed, were the rival advocates laughing,
gesticulating, and presumably cogitating how they could plunder the
litigant who had most money to spend. At one stage of the proceedings
the Bank specially retained a Spanish lawyer of great local repute,
who went to Madrid to push the case. Later on Mr. Francis, Q.C.,
was sent over to Manila from Hong-Kong to advise the Bank. The Prime
Minister was appealed to and the good offices of our Ambassador in
Madrid were solicited. For a long time the Bank was placed in a most
awkward legal dilemma. The other side contended that the Bank could
not be heard, or appear for itself or by proxy, on the ground that
under its own charter it had no right to be established in Manila;
that, in view of the terms of that charter, it had never been legally
registered as a Bank in Manila, and that it had no legal existence
in the Philippines. Thi