hem was an Irishman, who
having entered the Spanish service when a lad, had reached the rank
of Colonel; his father was a general officer and K.C.B. of our own
army, who, I believe, had married a Spanish lady, and after his death,
his family had become resident in Spain.

The bad accommodation of a crowded ship, together with the want
of change of clothes, which he was not allowed to procure from
his friends, and the general filthiness of the people with whom he
was obliged to be cooped up during the long voyage, acted on him so
severely that it caused his death a very short time after his arrival
at Manilla. Thus the poor fellow fell a sacrifice to this abominable
stretch of arbitrary power, and dying destitute, was buried there,
after having been maintained decently in a hotel during the remainder
of his existence, at the expense of his countrymen then at Manilla.

When acts so atrocious as these can be done with impunity in any
European country by a powerful minister of the crown, we may form some
idea of its advance in the arts of self-government and the security
of its people.

This young man was very far from being the only person who fell a
victim to these acts, as many died from causes similar to those which
deprived him of life; and his case is only mentioned to give some
idea of the lengths men will proceed to when no checks are placed
on the Government machine, to prevent its bursting, and damaging
thousands. These abuses are so shameful, that they are scarcely
credible in Britain; but they are easily capable of corroboration
by inquiry and a little knowledge of Spain, where very frequently
caprice is the only law in existence, or at least is the only one acted
upon. I might multiply instances, but this is doubtless sufficient.

The orders of the Court at Madrid are not always laws in their
colonies, for every now and then the most imperative commands come
out from Spain which are refused obedience to at Manilla, where it
is openly asserted that the home government gives orders in favour
of importunate suitors, without the least expectation that they will
be acted upon by those to whom they are addressed; granting them,
in fact, merely to get rid of troublesome people who might annoy them
at home if their demands were refused.

CHAPTER VII.

People are generally seen to most advantage in their own houses;
and nowhere, I think, does any one appear to play the host better
than an average specime