ed, and from which so many advantages
can be derived for the State, as that (which is admired with reason)
which is firmly established in the ministries of these islands. And
by the same fatality it is very strange that since the true art of
governing a colony like Filipinas, which is different from all others,
consists in the wise use of so powerful an instrument as secrecy,
the superior government has been laboring under an hallucination for
some years past, to the point of pledging itself to the destruction
of a work that it is so advisable to maintain.

"In this as in other things, one may very plainly see how absurd
or how difficult it is to organize a system of government which is
equally well suited to the genius of all peoples, regardless of what
discordance may exist in their physical and moral make-up. Hence, when
one tries to assimilate _in toto_ the administrative regime of these
provinces to that of the Americas, he meets obstacles at every step
which evidently originate from this erroneous principle. The regime,
however much one may try to assert it, must either make itself obeyed
by fear and force, or respected by means of love and confidence. And
in order to convince one's self that the first is impracticable,
it is quite sufficient to take into consideration the following
circumstances and reflections.

"The number of the whites in proportion to that of the natives is so
small, that it can scarcely be set at the ratio of 15:25,000. These
provinces, infinitely more populous than those of America, are given
into the care of their alcaldes-mayor, who take there no other troops
than the title of military captains and the royal decree. Besides the
religious, no other whites than their alcalde-mayor generally live
in the whole province. He has the care of the royal possessions; he
attends to the punishment of evildoers; he pacifies riots; he raises
men for the regiments who garrison Manila and Cavite; he orders and
leads his subjects in case of an invasion from the outside; in short,
he alone must do everything, on the word of alcalde-mayor and in
the name of the king. In view, then, of the effective power that the
fulfilment of so great a variety of obligations exacts spontaneously,
and the fact that no one assists him with what is in his charge, who
could deny that it would be to risk the security of these dominions too
greatly to try to rule them by means so insufficient? If the villages
are in disorder