premiums and rewards from the public funds to Filipino farmers who should first make large plantations of coffee, cacao, cinnamon, and cloves, as also to those who should make most progress in the plantations of Chinese cinnamon [canelón], tea, and mulberry-trees, and in raising silk, etc. Those who kept in cultivation a certain area of land, and day-laborers who continued to work for a certain number of years, were exempted from paying tributes; and the native farmers were allowed to keep cockpits in operation daily and without tax, on the estates which they cultivated. "In spite of so many privileges, not many of them were inclined to the cultivation of their fields." Another royal order (April 6, 1828) made important regulations regarding the Chinese residing in the islands; they were to be gathered into villages, as were the Indians; their heads of barangay were to collect the tributes, as in the Indian villages, being allowed three per cent of the collections for their trouble; they were classified into three groups--those who were engaged in foreign or wholesale trade, those in domestic or retail trade, and artisans of all classes--who were obliged to pay a monthly tax of ten, four, and two pesos respectively; those who had settled in the islands, but were not married, must return to China within six months; and any Chinaman who failed to pay his tax for three months was to be sent to compulsory labor on some estate, at a specified wage, from which should be deducted two pesos a month until his tax dues should be paid. [20] Still another royal order of the same date gave free permission to any person of sufficient means to cultivate the opium poppy in Filipinas and export its product therefrom; and ordered that its culture should begin on lands close to Manila. Another decree ordained the establishment of a mint at Manila; but this desirable measure was not carried out until many years afterward, and the islands meanwhile had to suffer from the wretched clipped and debased currency which had so long prevailed there. On October 13, 1828, Ricafort published an edict that all money which came to the islands coined by the revolted Spanish colonies of America should be recoined at Manila, taxing it one per cent for this recoinage. On November 9 following, a long but not destructive earthquake occurred. In that same year a conspiracy was set on foot by some civil officials; it was discovered, and its promoters sent to Spain. As a result, the authorities created a public vigilance commission, and demanded more troops from Spain; a regiment was accordingly sent to Manila in 1830. By royal decree of October 27, 1829, it was provided that the post of superintendent of the exchequer should be filled by the intendant of the army and treasury; accordingly this charge was assumed (September 9, 1830) by Francisco Enriquez, who for two years had been intendant succeeding Urréjola. In January, 1829, an officer named Guillermo Galvey (whose