But his political follies might have been condoned.
His public life presents none of those acts of devotion and self-sacrifice which often redeem a career characterized by errors, follies and even crimes.
Compared with the results of English or Dutch colonization the conversion and civilization of the Filipinos is a most remarkable achievement s Notwithstanding the undeniable vices, follies and absurd illiberalities of the Spanish colonial regime, the Philippines were the only group in the East Indies that improved in civilization in the three centuries following their discovery.
The people flocked to hear him, attracted by the force and homeliness of his language, the grotesqueness of his humour, and the impartial severity with which he lashed the follies of all classes of society and of the court in particular.
All the evidence in Barclay's own work goes to prove that he was sincere in his reproof of contemporary follies and vice, and the gross accusations which John Bale 1 brings against his moral character may be put down to his hatred of Barclay's cloth.