The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 36]

I649-1666] CONDITION OF PHILIPPINES, I842

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thinking of what they are going to get from him.
For example, the alcalde gives him 60 duros as an
advance for forty measures of sugar at the harvest
time. The harvest is bad and he can only give 20.
In such case the reckoning is after the following
fashion: 'The sugar has been sold for 4 duros, and
hence 20 measures will amount to 80 duros. You
cannot pay them to me, consequently they can just
as well remain as an advance for the coming year at
one and one-half.' In consequence of that the
farmer signs a paper by which he enters under obligation to deliver 53 measures at the next harvest.
Harvest time comes, and if it is bad, he only presents,
say, 13. Therefore, 40 measures at 4 duros amount
to I60 duros of debt, and at one and one-half make
Io8 measures for the following year. In this way
the man keeps on adding more and more until all his
goods are at the disposal of the alcalde. Besides,
there are innumerable other vexations to which he
must subject himself. For instance: he has to deliver to the alcalde Ioo cabans of rice; when he presents them the alcalde measures them out with a
larger measure than that used in the market. Hence,
in reality, the alcalde exacts from him more than he
is bound to pay. The same thing happens with indigo. For, a discussion arises as to whether the
indigo is, or is not, very damp, and some libras must
be taken off for waste; or, whether it is of poorer
quality than the Indian promised, and so on." "But
surely it must needs be that it is fitting to take money
advanced, since there is one who seeks it, and it is
worth more for a farmer to cultivate his land in this
way than that he leave it without cultivation for lack
of the necessary capital. In regard to the tyrannies