begun to yield to the labors of the friars when some of the latter
pressed on adventurously into China and found martyrs' deaths in
Japan. In examining the political administration of the Philippines,
then, we must be prepared to find it a sort of outer garment under
which the living body is ecclesiastical. Against this subjection to
the influence and interests of the Church energetic governors rebelled,
and the history of the Spanish domination is checkered with struggles
between the civil and religious powers which reproduce on a small
scale the mediæval contests of Popes and Emperors.

Colonial governments are of necessity adaptations of familiar domestic
institutions to new functions. The government of Spain in the sixteenth
century was not that of a modern centralized monarchy but rather of
a group of kingdoms only partially welded together by the possession
of the same sovereign, the same language, and the same religion. The
King of Spain was also the ruler of other kingdoms outside of the
peninsula. Consequently when the New World was given a political
organization it was subdivided for convenience into kingdoms and
captaincies general in each of which the administrative machinery was
an adaptation of the administrative machinery of Spain. In accordance
with this procedure the Philippine islands were constituted a kingdom
and placed under the charge of a governor and captain general,
whose powers were truly royal and limited only by the check imposed
by the Supreme Court (the _Audiencia_) and by the ordeal of the
_residencia_ at the expiration of his term of office. Among his
extensive prerogatives was his appointing power which embraced
all branches of the civil service in the islands. He also was _ex
officio_ the President of the _Audiencia_. [53] His salary was $8,000
[54] a year, but his income might be largely augmented by gifts or
bribes. [55] The limitations upon the power of the Governor imposed by