Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 01).djvu/56

 Gemelli Careri who visited Manila in 1696 characterizes the governor's residencia as a "dreadful Trial," the strain of which would sometimes "break their hearts."

On the other hand, an acute observer of Spanish-American institutions of the olden time intimates that the severities of the residencia could be mitigated and no doubt such was the case in the Philippines. By the end of the eighteenth century the residencia seems to have lost its efficacy. The governorship was certainly a difficult post to fill and the remoteness from Europe, the isolation, and the vexations of the residencia made it no easy task to get good men for the place. An official of thirty years experience, lay and ecclesiastical, assures us in the early seventeenth century that he had known of only one governor really fitted for the position, Gomez Perez Dasmariñas. He had done more for the happiness of the natives in three years than all his predecessors or successors. Some governors had been without previous political experience while others were deficient in