Does the Indian, in spite of all this, escape, and by patient industry make a little way in the world? he is vexed with offices; he is chosen Alguazil, Lieutenant, and Captain of his town; to these offices no pay is attached, they always occasion expenses and create him enemies; he is pinched or cheated by the Mestizos, a forestalling, avaricious, and tyrannical race. Does he suffer in silence? it is a signal for new oppressions: does he complain? a law suit. The Mestizos are all connected, they are rich, and the Indian is poor. The imperfect mode of trial, both in civil and criminal cases (by written declarations and the decisions of judges alone), lays them open to a thousand frauds; for if the magistrate be supposed incorruptible, his notaries or writers (escribanos and escribientes) are not so; and from their knavery, declarations are often falsified, or one paper is exchanged for another whilst in the act of or before signing them. To such a degree does this exist, that few Indians, even of those who can read Spanish tolerably, will sign a declaration made before a magistrate without threats, or without having some one on whom they can depend, to assure them they may safely do so. Nor is this to be wondered at, when it is known that declarations on which the life or fortune of an individual may depend are left, often for days, in the power of writers or notaries, any of whom may be bought for a doubloon; and some of them are even the menial servants of the magistrate! This applies to Luzon. In the other islands, this miserable system is yet worse: they have seldom but one communication a year with the capital, to which all causes of any magnitude are sent for decision or confirmation; and, as the papers are often (purposely) drawn up with some informality, the cause, after suffering all the first ordeal of chicane and knavery, experiences a year's delay before it is even allowed a chance of being exposed to that which awaits it at Manila. Or should the cause be at length carried to the Audiencia, or Supreme Court, and there, as is sometimes the case, be judged impartially, the delay of the decision renders it useless--the sentence is evaded--or treated with contempt! This may appear almost incredible, but known to any person who has resided in Manila.