Читать книгу The Inhabitants of the Philippines - Frederic H. Sawyer - Страница 25

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To Weyler succeeded a man very different in appearance and character, Don Emilio Despujols, Conde de Caspe.

Belonging to an ancient and noble family of Catalonia, holding his honour dear, endowed with a noble presence and possessed of an ample fortune, he came out to uplift and uphold the great charge committed to him, and rather to give lustre to his office by expending his own means than to economise from his pay, as so many colonial governors are accustomed to do. He established his household upon a splendid scale, and seconded by his distinguished countess, whose goodness and munificent charities will ever be remembered, he entertained on a scale worthy of a viceroy and in a manner never before seen in Manila.

Despujols rendered justice to all. Several Spaniards whose lives were an open scandal, were by his order put on board ship and sent back to Spain. Amongst these was one who bore the title of count, but who lived by gambling.

Another was a doctor who openly plundered the natives. Like a Mahometan Sultan of the old times, Despujols was accessible to the poorest who had a tale of injustice and oppression to relate.

The news that a native could obtain justice from a governor-general flew with incredible rapidity. At last a new era seemed to be opening. A trifling event aroused the enthusiasm of the people. Despujols and his countess drove to the Manila races with their postillions dressed in shirts of Júsi and wearing silver-mounted salacots instead of their usual livery. I was present on this occasion and was struck with the unwonted warmth of the governor-general’s reception from the usually phlegmatic natives. Despujols became popular to an extent never before reached. He could do anything with the natives. Whenever his splendid equipages appeared in public he received an ovation. Quite a different spirit now seemed to possess the natives. But not all the Spaniards viewed this with satisfaction; many whose career of corruption had been checked, who found their illicit gains decreased, and the victims of their extortion beginning to resist them, bitterly criticised the new governor-general.

The religious orders finding Despujols incorruptible and indisposed to place military forces at the disposal of the Augustinians and Dominicans to coerce or evict refractory tenants, then took action. Their procurators in Madrid made a combined attack on Despujols, both in the reptile press and by representations to the ministry. They succeeded, and Despujols was dismissed from office by cable. Rumour has it that the Orders paid $100,000 for Despujols’s recall. For my own part I think this very likely, and few who know Madrid will suppose that this decree could be obtained by any other means.

He laboured under a disadvantage, for he did not pay for his appointment as some others did. If he had been paying $30,000 a year to the wife of a powerful minister, he would not have been easily recalled. Or if, like another governor-general, he had been in debt up to the eyes to influential creditors, these would have kept him in power till he had amassed enough to pay them off.

I am of opinion that had Despujols been retained in Manila, and had he been given time to reform and purify the administration, the chain of events which has now torn the Philippines for ever from the grasp of Spain would never have been welded. Whoever received the priests’ money, whoever they were who divided that Judas-bribe, they deserve to be held in perpetual execration by their fellow-countrymen, and to have their names handed down to everlasting infamy.

Despujols left Manila under a manifestation of respect and devotion from the foreign residents, from the best Spaniards and from every class of the natives of the Philippines, that might well go far to console him for his unmerited dismissal. He must have bitterly felt the injustice with which he was treated, but still he left carrying with him a clear conscience and a harvest of love and admiration that no previous governor-general had ever inspired.

For if Moriones manifested courage, energy and incorruptible honesty under what would have been an irresistible temptation to many another man, that rude soldier was far from possessing those personal gifts, the fine presence and the sympathetic address of Despujols, and inspired fear rather than affection.

Yet both were worthy representatives of their country; both were men any land might be proud to send forth. Those two noble names are sufficient to redeem the Spanish Government of the Philippines from the accusation of being entirely corrupt, too frequently made against it. They deserve an abler pen than mine to extol their merits and to exalt them as they deserve above the swarm of pilferers, and sham patriots, who preceded and succeeded them. To use an Eastern image, they may be compared to two noble trees towering above the rank vegetation of some poisonous swamp. For the honour of Spain and of human nature in general, I have always felt grateful that I could say that amongst the governors-general of the Philippines whom I had known there were at least two entitled to the respect of every honest man.