They do not know what charity is. Consequently, whatever benefits they confer are all placed on account as debts, which their tyranny estimates wholly to their own satisfaction. Unfortunate he whom abandonment or orphanage has flung into the house of another, for now for his sustenance, and again for his rearing, he must become a slave. Kindness is shown at the cost of liberty. Although that was general throughout the islands, in this island it is excessive, as it is a tenet of the perfidious sect of Mahomet; and its cruelty has left no liberty that it has not opposed. Therefore, there is not in this nation the middle class that is found in the others which forms the common people out of the freemen; for there are no freemen, nor any mean between chiefs and slaves. Their community is composed of but two extremes, so far separated. It is a fact that there are many ways by which to reduce men to such a condition, and there is no escape from the injury. For, since self-interest is the advantage of those who are powerful, it unites them against the unfortunate one who dares to proclaim the offense that has been done to him, while his punishment conciliates so many other offenders who might perplex justice; and fear shuts the mouths of those whom the same fortune might gain to his favor in the support of his testimonies. Therefore, when it comes to proof there is always a lack of witnesses for innocence; while on the contrary there is for tyranny an oversupply of ocular witnesses of things that they have never seen or heard. When some stranger goes to a village to trade where he does not have the guaranteed patronage of many powerful relations, in the case of any neglect that is shown him in courtesy or in the laws, they bring such a case against him that to get out of it well he abandons his business and perhaps with his business his freedom. The worst of it is that the punishment is always more than the offense, for the just pay as if they were sinners. Their avarice or tyranny not satisfied with the vengeance taken on the criminal makes the offense related to the very blood, in order to extend their cupidity farther. Hence it is that on account of the crime committed by a single one, they make all the relations slaves. I saw four brothers who were all deprived of their inherited freedom because of the incivility and weakness of one. Finding myself in Iligan--a nation which, as it is so new, is even yet throwing out the sparks of this tyrannical fury it happened that a common woman spoke some insulting words to another woman who had rank; and the latter's husband, coming to me to make a complaint, said to me, exaggerating the offense: "Father, if the Spaniards were not here, and we could rule ourselves by our own laws, we would have made mincemeat [gigote] of that woman with a campilan, and slaves of her brothers and sisters and relatives." Finally, he whom avarice rules with a tyrannical power (for all their laws end in self-interest)