March 29, 1851, Mr. Consul Farren wrote:  “Without any governing power whatever, the greatest moral influence in these possessions is that which the priests possess, and divide among the monastic orders of Augustines, Recoletos, Dominicans, and Franciscans (who are all Spaniards), and the assistant native clergy.  A population exceeding 3,800,000 souls is ranged into 677 pueblos or parishes, without reckoning the unsubdued tribes.  In 577 of those pueblos there are churches, with convents or clerical residences attached, and about 500 of them are in the personal incumbency of those Spanish monks.  The whole ecclesiastical subdivisions being embraced in the archbishopric of Manila and three bishoprics.”

“The Philippines were converted to Christianity and maintained in it by the monastic orders, energetically protected by them (and at no very past period) against the oppressions of the provincial authorities, and are still a check on them in the interests of the people.  The clergy are receivers in their districts of the capitation tax paid by the natives, and impose it; they are the most economical agency of the government.”

The Archbishop of Manila is substantially of this judgment.  De Morga opens his address to the reader: 

“The monarchy of Kings of Spain has been aggrandized by the zeal and care with which they have defended within their own hereditary kingdoms, the Holy Catholic Faith, which the Roman Church teaches, against whatsoever adversaries oppose it, or seek to obscure the truth by various errors, which faith they have disseminated throughout the world.  Thus by the mercy of God they preserve their realms and subjects in the purity of the Christian religion, deserving thereby the glorious title and renown which they possess of Defenders of the Faith.  Moreover, by the valor of their indomitable hearts, and at the expense of their revenues and property, with Spanish fleets and men, they have furrowed the seas, and discovered and conquered vast kingdoms in the most remote and unknown parts of the world, leading their inhabitants to a knowledge of the true God, and to the fold of the Christian Church, in which they now live, governed in civil and political matters with peace and justice, under the shelter and protection of the royal arm and power which was wanting to them.  This boast is true of Manila, and of Manila alone amongst all the colonies of Spain or the other European states.  If the natives of Manila have been more fortunate than those of Cuba, Peru, Jamaica, and Mexico, it has been owing to the absence of gold, which in other places attracted adventurers so lawless that neither the Church nor Courts of justice could restrain them.”

It is against the orders named as worthy exalted praise that the insurgents are most inflamed, and whose expulsion from the islands is certain in case of Philippine jurisdiction.  The truth appears to be that the Spanish Colonial system was slower in the East Indies than in the West Indies and South America in producing the revolutionary rebellion that was its logical consequence, and the friars more and more became responsible for official oppression and gradually became odious.