them with great caution.  It is evident that all the district magistrates and curates do not possess the same degree of care and minuteness in a research so important, and the omission or connivance of their respective delegates, more or less general, renders it probable that the number of tributes, not included in the annual returns, is very considerable.  If to this we add the leged exemptions from tribute, justly granted to various individuals for a certain number of years, or during the performance of special service, we shall easily be convinced of the imperfection of results, derived from such insecure principles. * * * I have carefully formed my estimates corresponding to the year 1810, and by confronting them with such data as I possess relating to the population of 1791, I have deduced the consoling assurance that, under a parity of circumstances, the population of these Islands, far from having diminished, has, in the interval, greatly increased.

[Ratio to tributes.] From the collective returns recently made out by the district magistrates, it would appear that the total number of tributes amounts to 386,654, which multiplied by six and one-half produces the sum of 2,515,406, at which I estimate the total population, including old men, women and children.  I ought here to observe, that I have chosen this medium of six and one-half between the five persons estimated in Spain and eight in the Indies, as constituting each family, or entire tribute; for although the prodigious fecundity of the women in the latter hemisphere, and the facility of maintaining their numerous offspring, both the effects of the benignity of the climate and their sober way of living, sufficiently warrant the conclusion, that a greater number of persons enter into the composition of each family, I have, in this case, been induced to pay deference to the observations of religious persons, intrusted with the care of souls, who have assured me that, whether it be owing to the great mortality prevailing among children, or the influence of other local causes, in many districts each family, or entire tribute, does not exceed four and one-half persons.

[Foreigners and wild tribes.] To the above amount it is necessary to add 7,000 Sangleys (Chinese), who have been enumerated and subjected to tribute, for, although in the returns preserved in the public offices, they are not rated at more than 4,700, there are ample reasons for concluding, that many who are wandering about, or hidden in the provinces, have eluded the general census.  The European Spaniards, and Spanish creoles and mestizos, do not exceed 4,000 persons, of both sexes and all ages, and the distinct castes or modifications known in America under the name of mulattos, quadroons, etc., although found in the Philippine Islands, are generally confounded in the three classes of pure natives, Chinese mestizos, and Chinese.  Besides the above distinctions, various infidel and independent nations or tribes