ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN 1856. 39 



The prisoners were sent back to Manila in the brigantine Clavelino, 

 the same vessel which had brought them, in charge of Lieut. Jose 

 Martinez, assisted by 12 privates and 2 corporals. Thus ended the 

 attempt of Don Pablo to introduce convict labor into Guam. 



FELIPE DE LA CORTE. 



On May 16, 1855, Don Felipe de la Corte relieved Don Pablo Perez 

 as governor of the Mariannes. During his administration Guam was 

 visited b}^ a terrible epidemic of smallpox, which lasted nine months 

 and carried off two-fifths of the population. In a report upon 

 economic conditions, dated June 19, 1856, Don Felipe says: 



For a long time the attention of the superior Government has been called to the 

 slow progress of the population of these Marianne Islands, and the governors and 

 special commissioners sent here have been directed to investigate the causes of this 

 stationary condition of the population and even the decrease sometimes noticed in 

 the number of inhabitants. * * * Some have thought to find the origin of this 

 evil in the changeableness of the climate and the inconstancy of its seasons; others 

 in the use of articles of food not very nutritious or perhaps injurious (nuts of 

 Cycas), and others in the great number of rats, which destroy the abundant harvests. 



After a dissertation on the principles of political economy, " a 

 science which teaches us by sure principles the means of bringing about 

 the prosperity of a country and of ridding it of objects opposed to its 

 progress," Don Felipe goes on to say: 



It is not necessary to tire oneself in seeking other causes than that of poverty, 

 which is the only thing that retards the progress of the population of the Marianne 

 Islands. Other things to which it has been attributed are accidents. The use of 

 hurtful food, poor clothing, and other things, far from being considered a cause, are 

 in reality the effects of that poverty and the direct means through which it works 

 for the speedy destruction of this unhappy portion of the human race. This pov- 

 erty, the general and sole cause, has not, however, been perceived by many, because 

 they could not believe that it could occur in the midst of a soil which produces 

 abundant and varied fruits, in spite even of those plagues, and because they have 

 confounded with wealth the occurrence here at all times of fruits growing spontane- 

 ously which the natives use for food during the periods when more wholesome kinds 

 are lacking. * * * The prosperity of a country depends, instead of upon the 

 abundance of its spontaneous products, rather upon the wealth accumulated in it, 

 and here precisely is the great defect and the origin of the evil in the Marianne Islands. 

 In them, most excellent Seiior, nobody possesses anything, with very few exceptions. 

 Here all live absolutely for the day, and domestic utensils, tools of laborers, lodgings, 

 and everything — absolutely everything — is so mean, so little durable, and so incapa- 

 ble of constituting wealth that all, or nearly all, could with solemnity declare at all 

 hours that they are poor. * * * To correct the evils upon which I here have 

 touched, and to ameliorate the condition of these islanders, my predecessors, with 

 laudable zeal, have reproduced without ceasing exhortations, orders, and decrees 

 that they should plant and harvest wholesome and abundant fruits. But who would 

 believe it? With fat harvests, of which the grain has sometimes even been burned 

 for lack of consumers, poverty has continued and reached even to us; for not hav- 

 ing sought the means of accumulating that wealth then superfluous, to fill out the 

 dearth later in worse seasons, all has perished at the moment, and without object. 

 And what is still worse, it has created in these natives the idea in good years as well 

 as in bad, of large crops as well as of small, that they can not hope for a beneficial 



