Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/506

 462 SPANISH HISTORY customed to conquer, and led by so experienced an'd intrepid a chief as Coxinga. In the year I709 the Spaniards of the Philip- pines expelled all the Chinese from these islands. The pretexts for their expulsion were, — that they came under the mask of cultivating the land, but became traders ; — that, in their occupation as traders, they became monopolists; — and that they carried ofl* the wealth of the country to* China. The natural tendency of emigration from China to the Philip- pines was so strong, that it is not surprising to see the Chinese use every means in their power to gain an establishment. That they should prefer the occupations of commerce to husbandry, is easily enough accounted for. The land was in possession of the Spaniards, who had a monopoly of it, and the Chinese were not so ignorant or inattentive to their own interests, as to labour for other men's advantage ; they refused to be servants where they could be masters. Their capital, in the form of intelligence, enterprise, and industry, was natural- ly directed to commercial pursuits ; where those qualifications gave them a natural and legitimate monopoly over the supineness and ignorance of the Spanish colonists. They engaged not only in the pursuits most beneficial to themselves, but to the society of which they were members also. The epithet of monopolizers is used towards them by the Spanish writers, in the vulgar and popular