In 1893 there was another great public scandal, when the friars were openly accused of having printed the seditious proclamations whose authorship they attributed to the natives. The plan of the friars was to start the idea of an intended revolt, in order that they might be the first in the field to quell it, and thus be able to again proclaim to the Home Government the absolute necessity of their continuance in the Islands for the security of Spanish sovereignty. But the plot was discovered; the actual printer, a friar, mysteriously disappeared, and the courageous Gov.-General Despujols, Conde de Caspe, was, through monastic influence, recalled. He was very popular, and the public manifestation of regret at his departure from the Islands was practically a protest against the Religious Orders. In June, 1888, some cases of personal effects belonging to a friar were consigned to the care of an intimate friend of mine, whose guest I was at the time. They had become soaked with sea-water before he received them, and a neighbouring priest requested him to open the packages and do what he could to save the contents. I assisted my friend in this task, and amongst the friar's personal effects we were surprised to find, intermixed with prayer-books, scapularies, missals, prints of saints, etc., about a dozen most disgustingly obscene double-picture slides for a stereoscope. What an entertainment for a guide in morals! This same friar had held a vicarage before in another province, but having become an habitual drunkard, he was removed to Manila, and there appointed a confessor. From Manila he had just been again sent to take charge of the _cure of souls_. I knew a money-grabbing parish priest--a friar--who publicly announced raffles from the pulpit of the church from which he preached morality and devotion. On one occasion a 200-peso watch was put up for P500--at another time he raffled dresses for the women. Under the pretext of being a pious institution, he established a society of women, called the Association of St. Joseph (_Confradia de San Jose_), upon whom he imposed the very secular duties of domestic service in the convent and raffle-ticket hawking. He had the audacity to dictate to a friend of mine--a planter--the value of the gifts he was to make to him, and when the planter was at length wearied of his importunities, he conspired with a Spaniard to deprive my friend of his estate, alleging that he was not the real owner. Failing in this, he stirred up the petty-governor and headmen against him. The petty-governor was urged to litigation, and when he received an unfavourable sentence, the priest, enraged at the abortive result of his malicious intrigues, actually left his vicarage to accompany his litigious _protege_ to the chief judge of the province in quest of a reversion of the sentence.