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The Datos, and their families, are like the old Danes, or Norsemen, born to be seamen; and the barbarous state of their native country preventing the establishment of a mercantile marine, their energies have marked out a scheme of warlike adventure on the sea, to succeed in which their natural quickness and duplicity of character eminently qualify them.
If the debts of the Datos are not paid off at once they are allowed to stand over for another year, at which distance of time they are very seldom recoverable, good memories being very seldom met with there.
Phrases like Trahimur sub nomine pacis Momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum, recall the pen of Tacitus. Others are finer still Caesar's energy is rivalled by the line "Nil actum credens dum quid superesset agendum." The duty of securing liberty, even at the cost of blood, was never more finely expressed than by the noble words: "Ignoratque datos ne quisquam serviat enses."
A few days later the Moro datos, Piang, Ali and Djimbangan, dropped in with their followers, cut off the head of the Filipino presidente, served a few other leading officials and citizens in the same manner, and proceeded to set up a government of their own which was the only government that the place had prior to the arrival of the American troops.
"Datos y apuntamientos para la biografía de D. Manuel E. de Gorostiza," en Memorias de la Academia Mexicana, México, 1876, t. I, págs. 93-101.
The Datos themselves decide their quarrels and disputes with each other, by arming and assembling all their slaves and those of their friends who are willing to help them, and fight it out; but should their disputes run very high, or the feud last for any length of time, some powerful Dato, or the Sultan himself, interferes, and decides it finally by obliging both parties to keep the peace.
For although the chiefs of the islands, or Datos, usually acquiesce in appearance to his will, they do so more from fear of his power at the moment than with any idea of his legitimate authority, and in effect they very seldom comply with his decrees.
During this time some seventy adults have been baptized, among them six datos, or headmen of districts, with their wives. Matters are in such condition that in a short time all the people of this village will be baptized.
The vulture splits a bamboo, out of which spring man and woman, who beget many children, and, when their number becomes too great, drive them out with blows. Some conceal themselves in the chamber, and these become the Datos; others in the kitchen, and these become the slaves. The rest go down the stairs and become the people.
The footing on which the trade is carried on with Sooloo is rather a strange one; although regulations have at various times been arranged between the Spanish government and that court, by which, although the Sultan has formally promised to give his guarantee that all goods sold by the traders from the Philippines to the Datos shall be paid for, yet there are very few of the traders at Manilla who consider the pledge of his Highness as of much importance, as it is usually only redeemed when his own particular interest requires it.
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