To the character of the original conquest and of the earlier government of the Philippines may be traced many of the impediments which now stand in the way of improvement. In America and the West Indies all the brutality of military conquerors was exhibited, and the possession and plunder of new territories were encouraged by the Spanish court, and were the main object of the Spanish invader. But far different was the policy adopted in the Philippines, where only a small body of soldiers was accompanied by zealous missionaries, whose purpose was rather to convert and christianize the Indians than to pillage and destroy them. These friars gradually obtained a paramount influence over the Indians. The interests of trade have ever been the predominant consideration among Dutch colonizers, and among British adventurers the commercial element has always been intimately associated with the desire for territorial occupation. To the Spaniards it must be conceded that the religious purpose--be its value what it may--has never been abandoned or forgotten. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and authority are interwoven in the Philippines with the machinery of government and the daily concerns of life.
And such ecclesiastical action has been comparatively little interfered with in the Philippines. The development which mental emancipation has given to many Protestant countries and their dependencies has reached few Catholic colonies; nor is that emancipation, indeed, consistent with the more rigid discipline and doctrines of Rome. But in the case of the most prosperous instances of colonization by the British, the native races have either wholly disappeared or are in progress of extinction, while the infusion of Spanish and foreign blood into the colonies of Spain has not only allowed the increase of the indigenous population, but has been insufficient to change or do more than slightly modify their national characters. It has undoubtedly been the boast of the Catholics that Francis de Xavier and his followers won more for the Roman Church in the East than Luther or Calvin ever tore away from it in the West; but the value of the conquests, contrasted with that of the losses and sacrifices, if fairly estimated, would hardly be deemed unsatisfactory to the Protestant cause.