Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 51).djvu/42

36 province his utmost efforts to restrain the Ilocanos from violence." Still worse were the effects of the renewal of absolutism in Spain, on the return of Fernando VII from his captivity in France; for on May 4, 1814, he issued a decree abolishing the Cortes, and nullifying its acts, and immediately began a course of persecution and condemnation, even to death, of all the prominent Liberals in the country. He also reëstablished in Spain the Inquisition which had been abolished by the Cortes on February 22, 1813), and the Society of Jesus. When the royal decrees were received in Filipinas, the Indians believed that they were false, and concocted in Manila; one thousand five hundred Ilocanos seized their arms, and began plundering, killing, and destroying throughout the province. This was mainly, however, a rebellion of the common people (Tagal, cailianes) against the ruling class, the principalia or notables; and the latter finally took arms against the rebels, aiding the Spaniards to suppress the insurrection. On July 20, 1814, a treaty of peace was made between Spain and France. "Gardoqui, by an edict of December 1, 1814, prohibited the introduction of opium into Filipinas, imposing on those who should violate this law six years of confinement in a presidio and the confiscation of the opium; and to those who were found smoking the drug a fortnight's imprisonment for the first offense, thirty days for the second, and four years in presidio for the third. A term of eight days was allowed in order that persons who might possess unsold stocks of the said drug could deposit them in the custom-house for reshipment to