1796, to the sum of 513,168 pesos--that is to say, they increased in eighteen years by 260,726 pesos, or more than half of that capital; and, in this century, from 1820 to 1837 this fund yielded an increase of 420,849 pesos. It is important to note that as soon as the Jesuit estates were seized his Majesty reduced those foundations from 45 to 26, abolishing the rest, and leaving a capital of [only] 151,626 pesos; it is this which has furnished so wonderful results."... It is fully understood that the Jesuits of Filipinas felt profound grief at having to abandon a country in which they had gathered so rich a harvest, considering their excessive regard for worldly possessions--as is affirmed by the venerable Palafox, the bishops whose opinions we have cited, and Pope Clement XIV, who suppressed the Society, and all persons who have been occupied with this special idiosyncrasy of the Jesuits. The incidents connected with the expulsion of the Jesuits from Filipinas were among the most productive of scandal which, in matters of that sort, the history of that country records. At that time the Jesuits enjoyed so great a predominance, and realized such enormous gains throughout the archipelago (with their well-equipped industrial enterprises, their lucrative trade, and the produce of their vast estates), and they kept the [Spanish] natives of the country so thoroughly exploited and so subjected to their domineering influence--cajoling the vanity of some with the hypocritical deference with which the fathers treated them, and favoring the notions of independence in others, giving them to understand that they [the Jesuits] were not Spaniards, but citizens of the world (which is the aspect under which they make themselves more congenial to the islanders than the friars do, for the latter never fail to make it known that they are Spaniards)--that their wrath was unutterable when the decree for their expulsion from the islands was made known to them. They attempted to evade the royal mandate, and to disparage and criticise the monarch's authority and his acts, unloosing against these the passions of their fanatical partisans; and with their infamous conduct they presented a most melancholy spectacle, in which the royal authority was questioned, religion made light of, and vices and faults which it would have been expedient for them to keep secret were displayed to the public.