with all its vices, follies, and illiberalities; and the present
condition of these islands affords an unquestionable proof of the
fact. Almost every other country of the Archipelago is, at this
day, in point of wealth, power, and civilization, in a worse state
than when Europeans connected themselves with them three centuries
back. The Philippines alone have improved in civilization, wealth,
and populousness. When discovered most of the tribes were a race of
half-naked savages, inferior to all the great tribes, who were pushing,
at the same time, an active commerce, and enjoying a respectable share
of the necessaries and comforts of a civilized state. Upon the whole,
they are at present superior in almost everything to any of the other
races. This is a valuable and instructive fact." [119]

This judgment of Crawfurd in 1820 was echoed by Mallat (who was
for a time in charge of the principal hospital in Manila), in 1846,
when he expressed his belief that the inhabitants of the Philippines
enjoyed a freer, happier, and more placid life than was to be found
in the colonies of any other nation. [120]

Sir John Bowring, who was long Governor of Hong Kong, was impressed
with the absence of caste: "Generally speaking, I found a kind
and generous urbanity prevailing,--friendly intercourse where that
intercourse had been sought,--the lines of demarcation and separation
less marked and impassable than in most oriental countries. I have
seen at the same table Spaniard, Mestizo and Indian--priest, civilian,
and soldier. No doubt a common religion forms a common bond; but to
him who has observed the alienations and repulsions of caste in many
parts of the eastern world--caste, the great social curse--the binding
and free intercourse of man with man in the Philippines is a contrast
worth admiring." [121] Not less striking in its general bearing than