[Danger from mestizos and creoles.] A consideration of far more importance to the distant metropolis than the condition of the constantly excited natives, who are politically divided among themselves, and really have no steady object in view, is the attitude of the mestizos and creoles, whose discontent increases in proportion to their numbers and prosperity.  The military revolt which broke out in 1823, the leaders of which were two creoles, might easily have terminated fatally for Spain.  The latest of all the risings of the mestizos seems to have been the most dangerous, not only to the Spanish power, but to all the European population. [265]

[Cavite 1872 mutiny.] On the 20th of January, 1872, between eight and nine in the evening, the artillery, marines, and the garrison of the arsenal revolted in Cavite, the naval base of the Philippines, and murdered their officers; and a lieutenant who endeavored to carry the intelligence to Manila fell into the hands of a crowd of natives.  The news therefore did not reach the capital until the next morning, when all the available troops were at once dispatched, and, after a heavy preliminary struggle, they succeeded the following day in storming the citadel.  A dreadful slaughter of the rebels ensued.  Not a soul escaped.  Among them was not a single European; but there were many mestizos, of whom several were priests and lawyers.  Though perhaps the first accounts, written under the influence of terror, may have exaggerated many particulars, yet both official and private letters agree in describing the conspiracy as being long contemplated, widely spread, and well planned.  The whole fleet and a large number of troops were absent at the time, engaged in the expedition against Sulu.  A portion of the garrison of Manila were to rise at the same time as the revolt in Cavite, and thousands of natives were to precipitate themselves on the caras blancas (pale faces), and murder them.  The failure of the conspiracy was, it appears, only attributable to a fortunate accident—­to the circumstance, namely, that a body of the rebels mistook some rocket fired upon the occasion of a Church festival for the agreed signal, and commenced the attack too soon. [266]

[Summing up.] Let me be permitted, in conclusion, to bring together a few observations which have been scattered through the text, touching the relations of the Philippines with foreign countries, and briefly speculate thereon.

[Credit due Spain.] Credit is certainly due to Spain for having bettered the condition of a people who, though comparatively speaking highly civilized, yet being continually distracted by petty wars, had sunk into a disordered and uncultivated state.  The inhabitants of these beautiful islands, upon the whole, may well be considered to have lived as comfortably during the last hundred years, protected from all external enemies and governed by mild laws, as those of any other tropical country under native or European sway,—­owing, in some measure, to the frequently discussed peculiar circumstances which protect the interests of the natives.