en the rate
assessed does not exceed ten reals per year, a sum so small, that
generally speaking, no family can be found unable to hoard it up, if
they have any inclination so to do. The prevailing error, however, in
this respect, I am confident arises out of a principle very different
from the one to which it is usually attributed. The tributary native
is, in fact, disposed to pay the quota assigned to him into the hands
of the chief of his clan, in money, in preference to kind; because,
independent of the small value at which the articles in kind are
rated in the tariff, he is then exposed to no expenses, as he now is
for the conveyance of his produce and effects; nor is he liable to so
many accidents. But as the chief of each clan has to deliver in his
forty or fifty tributes to the head magistrate, who is answerable for
those of the whole province, it is natural for him to endeavor to make
his corresponding payments in some equivalent affording him a profit;
at the same time the provincial magistrate, speculating on a larger
scale, on the produce arising out of his jurisdiction, seeks to obtain
from the government a profitable commutation in kind for that which
the original contributor would have preferred paying in money. In
order the better to attain his purpose, he asserts, as a pretext,
the impossibility of collecting in the tribute under another form,
alleging, moreover, the relief the native derives from this mode,
whereas, if only duly examined, such a pretence is founded on the
avarice, rather than the humanity of the magistrate.

Leaving to one side the defects attributable to the present mode
of collection, and considering the tribute as it is in itself, the
attentive observer must confess, that in no part of our Indies is
this more moderate; and, indeed, it is evident that the laws generally
relating to the natives of these Islands seem to distinguish them with
a decided predilection above those of the various sections of America.

[Items in tribute.] The tribute in its origin was only eight reals
per family; but the necessity of providing for the increased expenses
of the government gave rise to this rate being afterwards raised
to ten. The Sangley mestizos pay double tribute, and the Sangleys
contribute at the rate of $6 per head. Besides this, all pay a yearly
sum, applicable to the funds belonging to the community, and the above
two casts pay three reals more, as a church rate, and under the name
of