[Philippine history unimportant and unsatisfactory.] The subsequent history of the Philippines is, in all its particulars, quite as unsatisfactory and uninteresting as that of all the other Spanish-American possessions.  Ineffectual expeditions against pirates, and continual disputes between the clerical and secular authorities, form the principal incidents. [263]

[Undesirable emigrants from Spain.] After the first excitement of religious belief and military renown had subsided, the minds of those who went later to these outlying possessions, consisting generally as they did of the very dregs of the nation, were seized with an intense feeling of selfishness; and frauds and speculations were the natural sequence.  The Spanish writers are full of descriptions of the wretched state of society then existing, which it is unnecessary to repeat here.

[English occupation.] The colony had scarcely been molested by external enemies, with the exception of pirates.  In the earliest time the Dutch had engaged occasionally in attacks on the Bisayas.  But in 1762 (during the war of the Bourbon succession) an English fleet suddenly appeared before Manila, and took the surprised town without any difficulty.  The Chinese allied themselves with the English.  A great insurrection broke out among the Filipinos, and the colony, under the provisional government of a feeble archbishop, was for a time in great danger.  It was reserved for other dignitaries of the Church and Anda, an energetic patriot, to inflame the natives against the foreigners; and the opposition incited by the zealousness of the priests grew to such an extent that the English, who were confined in the town, were actually glad to be able to retreat.  In the following year the news arrived from Europe of the conclusion of peace; but in the interval this insurrection, brought about by the invasion, had rapidly and considerably extended; and it was not suppressed until 1765, when the work was accomplished by creating enmity among the different tribes. [264] But this was not done without a loss to the province of Ilocos of two hundred sixty-nine thousand two hundred and seventy persons—­half of the population, as represented by Zuniga.

[Many minor uprisings from local grievances.] Severity and want of tact on the part of the Government and their instruments, as well as bigoted dissensions have caused many revolts of the natives; yet none, it is true, of any great danger to the Spanish rule.  The discontent has always been confined to a single district, as the natives do not form a united nation; neither the bond of a common speech nor a general interest binding the different tribes together.  The state communications and laws among them scarcely reach beyond the borders of the villages and their dependencies.