Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 01).djvu/64

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60
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
[Vol. 1

that the entire military force was not more than two thousand regular troops.[1] As has been intimated this condition lasted down until a comparatively recent period. As late as 1864 the total number of Spaniards amounted to but 4,050 of whom 3,280 were government officials, etc., 500 clergy, 200 landed proprietors, and 70 merchants; and in the provinces the same conditions prevailed that are described by Comyn.[2] In more than half of the twelve hundred villages in the islands "there was no other Spaniard, no other national authority, nor any other force to maintain public order save only the friars."[3]

Recurring for a moment to the higher ecclesiastical organization, the judicial functions of the church were represented by the archbishop's court and the commissioner of the Inquisition. The Episcopal court, which was made up of the archbishop, the vicar-general, and a notary, tried cases coming under the canon law, such as those relating to matrimony and all cases involving the clergy. Idolatry on the part of the Indians or Chinese might

  1. In 1637 the military force maintained in the islands consisted of one thousand seven hundred and two Spaniards and one hundred and forty Indians. Memorial de D. Juan Grau y Monfalcon, Procurador General de las Islas Filipinas, Docs. Inéditos del Archivo de Indias, vi, p. 425. In 1787 the garrison at Manila consisted of one regiment of Mexicans comprising one thousand three hundred men, two artillery companies of eighty men each, three cavalry companies of fifty men each. La Pérouse, ii, p. 368.
  2. Apuntes Interesantes sobre Las Islas Filipinas, etc., escritos por un Español de larga esperiencia en el pais y amante del progresso, Madrid, 1869, p. 13. This very interesting and valuable work was written in the main by Vicente Barrantes, who was a member of the Governor's council and his secretary. On the authorship see Retana's Archivo ii, Biblioteca Gen., p. 25, which corrects his conjecture published in his Zúñiga, ii, p. 135.
  3. Apuntes Interesantes, pp. 42–43.