The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 51, 1801-1840: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 51, 1801-1840: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
Coffee, about 400 pekuls, at 28 dollars; Cotton, 1,000, at 20 to 25
dollars; Indigo, 1,000 quintals, at 90 to 110 dollars per quintal;
wax, 600 pekuls at 40 to 50 dollars; red wood, &c. &c. in large
quantities. In a printed account, the number of foreign vessels for
that year (1818) are stated to be, English, 18; American, 10; French,
4; Portuguese, 2; Chinese Junks, 10, and 8 Spanish vessels. The value
of imports as follows:
Goods, 2,296,272 dollars
Cash, 758,239
==========
$3,054,511
The exports, 1,205,649 dollars; but this last is any thing but correct,
not only from the very imperfect nature of the custom-house valuations,
but from the smuggling, which is carried on to an immense amount. It
will be nearer the truth to estimate the imports at about 3,8, or
3,900,000, and the exports at 3 1/4 or 3,500,000. [114]
The imports consist of piece-goods for the Acapulco market, and for
home consumption from Bengal; cambrics and handkerchiefs of plaided
patterns from Madras; woollens, wines, spirits, silks, printed cottons,
hosiery, hardware, &c. from Europe (principally from France); bird's
nests, tortoise and mother-of-pearl shell, bich-de-mar [i.e., balate],
wax, dried fish, &c. from Soolo, Borneo, and other islands of the
Archipelago; toys, silks, nankeens, teas, and dollars from China;
dollars from the United States; and from South America, silver,
cochineal, and cacao. Of these articles the specie and cochineal
are mostly exported to Bengal and Madras, and the produce of the
Soolos and Borneo to China; the other exports have been noticed in
a preceding page.
An active coasting trade [115] is carried on by the natives amongst
the islands, though they suffer dreadfully from the pirates; but
such is their enterprising turn, that with these in sight, they will
often cross from one island to another, when they have a fair start;
and frequently set out on a long trip in a small prow [i.e., prau],
armed only with their spears and "campilans," [116] though knowing
the pirates to be in the neighbourhood of their track. They are well
known in the piratical states, where a Manila slave always commands
a higher price than any other. They have been much stigmatized in
British country-ships, as the leaders of mutinies, &c.; but though no
doubt can exist that they have often assisted in cutting off vessels,
yet I question much whether the fault was not in a great measure to
be attributed to a want of discrimination between the high spirit
of the Philippine islander, and the meek sufferance of the patient
Lascar--a fatal mistake, when both are trampled on, as it is to be
feared they but too often are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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