The Philippine Islands Part 39

A "first cla.s.s" Manila funeral, before the American advent, was a whimsical display of pompous ignorance worth seeing once. There was a hideous bier with rude relics of barbarism in the shape of paltry adornments. A native driver, with a tall "chimney pot" hat, full of salaried mournfulness, drove the white team. The bier was headed by a band of music playing a lively march, and followed by a line of carriages containing the relations and friends of the deceased. The burial was almost invariably within twenty-four hours of the decease--sometimes within six hours.

There is nothing in Manila which instantly impresses one as strikingly national, whether it be in artistic handicraft, music, painting, sculpture, or even diversions. The peculiar traditional customs of an Eastern people--their native dress, their characteristic habits, const.i.tute--by their originality and variation, the only charm to the ordinary European traveller. The Manila middle-cla.s.s native, in particular, possesses none of this. He is but a vivid contrast to his vivacious Spanish model, a striking departure from his own picturesque aboriginal state, and an unsuccessful imitator of the grace and easy manners of his Western tutor. In short, he is neither one thing nor the other in its true representation compared with the genial, genuine, and natural type to be found in the provinces.

Many years' residence in Manila, or in any one particular locality of the Archipelago, will not enable either the alien or the native to form a just opinion of the physical, social, or economic conditions of the Colony; they can only be understood after extensive travelling through and around the Islands. Nor will three or four tours suffice for the intelligent inquirer, because first impressions often lead to false conclusions; information obtained through one source must needs be verified by another; the danger of mistaking isolated cases for general rules has to be avoided, and, lastly, the native does not reveal to the first-time traveller the intricacies of Philippine life. Furthermore, the traveller in any official capacity is necessarily the least informed person concerning the real thought and aspirations of the Filipino or true Philippine life; his position debars him from the opportunity of investigating these things.

It would be beyond the scope of this work to take the reader mentally through the thousand or more miles of lovely scenery, and into the homes of the unsophisticated cla.s.ses who still preserve, unalloyed, many of their natural characteristics and customs. But within half a day's journey from the capital there are many places of historical interest, among which, on account of its revived popularity since the American advent, may be mentioned Los Banos, on the south sh.o.r.e of the Laguna de Bay.

Los Banos (the baths) owes its origin to the hot springs flowing from the volcanic Maquiling Mountain, which have been known to the natives from time immemorial when the place was called Maynit, which signifies "hot."

At the close of the 16th century these mineral waters attracted the attention of Martyr Saint Pedro Bautista (_vide_ p. 64), who sent a brother of his Order to establish a hospital for the natives. The brother went there, but shortly returned to Manila and died. So the matter remained in abeyance for years. Subsequently a certain Fray Diego de Santa Maria, an expert in medicine and the healing art, was sent there to test the waters. He found they contained properties highly beneficial in curing rheumatism and certain other maladies, so thenceforth many natives and Spaniards went there to seek bodily relief. But there was no convenient abode for the visitors; no arrangements for taking the baths, and the Government did nothing. A Franciscan friar was appointed chaplain to the sick visitors, but his very incommodious residence was inadequate for the lodging of patients, and, for want of funds, the priest abandoned the project of establishing a hospital, and returned to Manila. In 1604 the Gov.-General, Pedro Bravo de Acuna, gave his attention to this place, and consented to the establishment of a hospital, church, and convent. The hospital was constructed of bamboo and other light material, and dedicated to Our Lady of Holy Waters.

Fray Diego de Santa Maria was appointed to the vicarage and the charge of the hospital. The whole was supported by gifts from the many sick persons who went there, but the greatest difficulty was to procure food. Several natives made donations of lands, with the produce of which the hospital was to be maintained. These gifts, however, proved insufficient. The priests then solicited permission from the villagers of Pila (on the lake sh.o.r.e near Santa Cruz) to pasture cattle on the tongue of land on the opposite coast called Jalajala, which belonged to them. With their consent a cattle-ranche was established there; subsequently, a building was erected, and the place was in time known as the _Estancia de Jalajala_. Then the permission was asked for and obtained from the Pila natives to plant cocoanut palms, fruit-trees, and vegetables. Later on the Austin and Franciscan friars quarrelled about the right of dominion over the place and district called Maynit, but eventually the former gave way and ceded their alleged rights in perpetuity to the Franciscans.

In 1640 Los Banos (formerly a dependency of Bay, under the Austin friars) was const.i.tuted a "town." The Franciscans continued to beg one concession after another, until at length, in 1671, stone buildings were commenced--a church, convent, hospital, bathing-pond, vapour-house, etc., being constructed. Natives and Europeans flocked in numbers to these baths, and it is said that people even came from India to be cured. The property lent and belonging to the establishment, the acc.u.mulated funds, and the live-stock had all increased so much in value that the Government appointed an administrator. Thenceforth the place declined; its popularity vanished; the administrator managed matters so particularly for his own benefit that food again became scarce, and the priest was paid only 10 pesos per month as salary. In Jalajala a large house was built; the land was put under regular cultivation; tenants were admitted; but when the property was declared a royal demesne the Pila inhabitants protested, and nominally regained possession of the lent property. But the administrator re-opened and contested the question in the law-courts, and, pending these proceedings, Jalajala was rented from the Government. During this long process of legal entanglements the property had several times been transferred to one and another until the last holder regarded it as his private estate.

At the beginning of last century Jalajala came into the possession of M. Paul de la Gironniere, from whom it pa.s.sed to another Frenchman, at whose death a third Frenchman, M. Jules Daillard, became owner. On his decease it became the property of an English Bank, from whom it was purchased by the Franciscan friars, in 1897, for the sum of P.50,000, and re-sold by them to a Belgian firm in 1900.

The bathing establishment was gradually falling into decay, until its complete ruin was brought about by a fire, which left only the remnant of walls. The priest continued there as nominal chaplain with his salary of 10 pesos per month and an allowance of rice. The establishment was not restored until the Government of Domingo Moriones (1877-80). A vapour bath-house and residence were built, but the hospital was left unfinished, and it was rotting away from neglect when the Spaniards evacuated the Islands.

The portion of the Hospital of Los Banos which remained intact, and the house attached thereto, which the natives called "the palace,"

served to accommodate invalids who went to take the cure. These baths should only be taken in the dry season--December to May.

Besides the convent and church the town simply consisted of a row of dingy bungalows on either side of the highroad, with a group of the same on the mountain side. Since the American advent the place has been much improved and extended.

On his way from Manila to Los Banos the traveller will pa.s.s (on the left bank of the Pasig River) the ruins of _Guadalupe Church_, which mark the site of a great ma.s.sacre of Chinese during their revolt in 1603 (_vide_ p. 114). The following legend of this once beautiful and popular church was given to me by the Recoleto friars at the convent of the Church of La Soledad, in Cavite:--During the construction of the world-famed _Escorial_, by order of Philip II., the architect's nephew, who was employed by his uncle on the work, killed a man. The King pardoned him on condition that he be banished to the Philippines. He therefore came to Manila, took holy orders, and designed and superintended the building of Guadalupe Church, from the scaffolding of which he fell, and having been caught by the neck in a rope suspended from the timbers he was hanged.

During the wars of the Rebellion and Independence this ancient building was destroyed, only the shot-riddled and battered outer walls remaining in 1905.

CHAPTER XXII

The Tagalog Rebellion of 1896-98 First Period

After the Napoleonic wars in Spain, the "Junta Suprema Central del Reino" convened the famous "Cortes de Cadiz" by decree dated September 12, 1809. This _junta_ was succeeded by another--"El Supremo Consejo de la Regencia"--when the _Cortes_ pa.s.sed the first Suffrage Bill known in Spain on January 29, 1810. These _Cortes_ a.s.sembled deputies from all the Colonies--Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, Guatemala, Santa Fe, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, etc.; in fact, all those dependencies which const.i.tuted the four Viceroyalties and the eight Captain-Generalships of the day. The Philippine deputy, Ventura de los Reyes, signed the Act of Const.i.tution of 1812. In 1820 the _Cortes_ again admitted this Colony's representatives, amongst whom were Vicente Posadas, Eulalio Ramirez, Anselmo Jorge Fajardos, Roberto Pimental, Esteban Marques, Jose Florentino, Manuel Saez de Vismanos, Jose Azcarraga, and nine others. They also took part in the parliamentary debates of 1822 and 1823. The Const.i.tution was shortly afterwards suspended, but on the demise of Ferdinand VII. the Philippine deputies, Brigadier Garcia Gamba and the half-breed Juan Francisco Lecaros, sat in Parliament. Again, and for the last time, Philippine members figured in the _Cortes_ of the Isabella II. Regency; then, on the opening of Parliament in 1837, their exclusion, as well as the government of the Ultramarine Provinces by special laws, was voted.

The friars, hitherto regarded by the majority of Filipinos as their protectors and friendly intermediaries between the people and the civil rulers, had set their faces against the above radical innovations, foreseeing in them a death-blow to their own preponderance. Indeed, the "friar question" only came into existence after the year 1812.

In 1868 Queen Isabella II. was deposed, and the succeeding Provisional Government (1868-70), founded on Republican principles, caused an a.s.sembly of Reformists to be established in Manila. The members of this _Junta General de Reformas_ were five Filipinos, namely, Ramon Calderon, Bonifacio Saez de Vismanos, Lorenzo Calvo, Gabriel Gonzalez Esquibel, and Joaquin Pardo de Tavera; eleven civilian Spaniards, namely, Joaquin J. Inchausti, Tomas Balbas y Castro, Felino Gil, Antonio Ayala, with seven others and five Spanish friars, namely, Father Fonseca, Father Domingo Trecera, Rector of the University, (Dominicans), one Austin, one Recoleto and one Franciscan friar. This _junta_ had the power to vote reforms for the Colony, subject to the ratification of the Home Government. But monastic influence prevailed; the reforms voted were never carried into effect, and long before the Bourbon restoration took place (1874) the Philippine a.s.sembly had ceased to exist. But it was impossible for the mother country, which had spontaneously given the Filipinos a taste of political equality, again to yoke them to the old tutelage without demur. Alternate political progress and retrogression in the Peninsula cast their reflex on this Colony, but the first sparks of liberty had been gratuitously struck which neither reaction in the Peninsula nor persecution in the Colony itself could totally extinguish. No Filipino, at that period, dreamed of absolute independence, but the few who had been taught by their masters to hope for equal laws, agitated for their promulgation and became a thorn in the side of the Monastic Orders. Only as their eyes were spontaneously opened to liberty by the Spaniards themselves did they feel the want of it.

The Cavite Rising of 1872 (_vide_ p. 106), which the Philippine Government unwisely treated as an important political movement and mercilessly avenged itself by executions and banishment of many of the best Manila families, was neither forgotten nor forgiven. To me, as a foreigner, scores of representative provincial natives did not hesitate to open their hearts in private on the subject. The Government lost considerably by its uncalled-for severity on this occasion. The natives regarded it as a sign of apprehension, and a proof of the intention to rule with an iron rod. The Government played into the hands of the Spanish clergy, and all the friars gained by strengthening their monopoly of the inc.u.mbencies they lost in moral prestige. Thinking men really pitied the Government, which became more and more the instrument of the ecclesiastics. Since then, serious ideas of a revolution to be accomplished one day took root in the minds of influential Filipinos throughout the provinces adjacent to Manila. _La Solidaridad_, a Philippine organ, founded in Madrid by Marcelo Hilario del Pilar, Mariano Ponce, Eduardo Leyte and Antonio Luna for the furtherance of Philippine interests was proscribed, but copies entered the Islands clandestinely. In the villages, secret societies were formed which the priests chose to call "Freemasonry"; and on the ground that all vows which could not be explained at the confessional were anti-christian, the Archbishop gave strict injunctions to the friars to ferret out the so-called Freemasons. Denunciations by hundreds quickly followed, for the priests willingly availed themselves of this licence to get rid of anti-clericals and others who had displeased them. In the town of Malolos (which in 1898 became the seat of the Revolutionary Congress) Father Moses Santos caused all the members of the Town Council to be banished, and when I last dined with him in his convent, he told me he had cleared out a few more and had his eye on others. From other villages, notably in the provinces around the capital, the priests had their victims escorted up to Manila and consigned to the Gov.-General, who issued the deportation orders without trial or sentence, the recommendation of the all-powerful _padre_ being sufficient warrant. Thus hundreds of families were deprived of fathers and brothers without warning or apparent justification;--but it takes a great deal to rouse the patient native to action. Then in 1895 came the Marahui campaign in Mindanao (_vide_ p. 144). In order to people the territory around Lake Lanao, conquered from the _Moros_, it was proposed to invite families to migrate there from the other islands, and notifications to this effect were issued to all the provincial governors. At first it was put to the people in the smooth form of a proposal. None volunteered to go, because they could not see why they should give up what they had to go and waste their lives on a tract of virgin soil with the very likely chance of a daily attack from the _Moros_. Peremptory orders followed, requiring the governors to send up "emigrants" for the Yligan district. This caused a great commotion in the provinces, and large numbers of natives abandoned their homes to evade antic.i.p.ated violence. I have no proof as to who originated this scheme, but there is the significant fact that the _orders_ were issued only to the authorities of those provinces supposed to be affected by the secret societies. Under the then existing system, the governors could not act in a case like this without the co-operation of the parish priests; hence during the years 1895 and 1896 a systematic course of official sacerdotal tyranny was initiated which, being too much even for the patient Filipino, was the immediate cause of the members of the _Katipunan_ secret society hastening their plans for open rebellion, the plot of which was prematurely discovered on Thursday, August 20, 1896. The rebellion in Cuba was calling for all the resources in men and material that Spain could send there. The total number of European troops dispersed over these Islands did not exceed 1,500 well armed and well officered, of which about 700 were in Manila. The native auxiliaries amounted to about 6,000. The impression was gaining ground that the Spaniards would be beaten out of Cuba; but whilst this idea gave the Tagalogs moral courage to attempt the same in these Islands, so far as one could then foresee, Spain's reverse in the Antilles and the consequent evacuation would have permitted her to pour troops into Manila, causing the natives'

last chance to vanish indefinitely.

Several months before the outbreak, the _Katipunan_ sent a deputation to j.a.pan to present a pet.i.tion to the Mikado, praying him to annex the Philippines. This pet.i.tion, said to have been signed by 5,000 Filipinos, was received by the j.a.panese Government, who forwarded it to the Spanish Government; hence the names of 5,000 disaffected persons were known to the Philippine authorities, who did not find it politic to raise the storm by immediate arrests.

The so-called "Freemasonry" which had so long puzzled and irritated the friars, turned out, therefore, to be the _Katipunan_, which simply means the "League." [173] The leaguers, on being sworn in, accepted the "blood compact" (vide p. 28), taking from an incision on the leg or arm the blood with which to inscribe the roll of fraternity. The cicatrice served also as a mark of mutual recognition, so that the object and plans of the leaguers should never be discussed with others. The drama was to have opened with a general slaughter of Spaniards on the night of August 20, but, just in the nick of time, a woman sought confession of Father Mariano Gil (formerly parish priest of Bigaa, Bulacan), then the parish priest of Tondo, a suburb of Manila, and opened the way for a leaguer, whose heart had failed him, to disclose the plot on condition of receiving full pardon. With this promise he made a clean breast of everything, and without an hour's delay the civil guard was on the track of the alleged prime movers. Three hundred supposed disaffected persons were seized in Manila and the Provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan within a few hours, and, large numbers being brought in daily, the prisons were soon crowded to excess. The implacable Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda advocated extermination by fire and sword and wholesale executions. Gov.-General Ramon Blanco hesitated to take the offensive, pending the arrival of reinforcements which were called for. He informed the Home Government that the rising was of no great importance, but that he required 1,000 more troops to be sent at once. The reply from Madrid was that they were sending 2,000 men, 2,000,000 cartridges, 6,000 Remington rifles, and the gunboats _Isla de Cuba_ and _Isla de Luzon_. Each steamer brought a contingent of troops, so that General Blanco had a total of about 10,000 Spanish regulars by the end of November. Spain's best men had been drafted off to Cuba, and these were chiefly raw levies who had all to learn in the art of warfare.

Meanwhile, the rebellion had a.s.sumed alarming proportions. Among the first to be seized were many of the richest and most prominent men in the Colony--the cream of Manila society. There was intense excitement in the capital as their names gradually leaked out, for many of them were well known to us personally or by repute. No one who possessed wealth was safe. An opulent Chinese half-caste, Don Pedro P. Rojas, who was popularly spoken of as the prime supporter of the rebellion, was a guest at Government House two days before the hour fixed for the general slaughter. It cost him a fortune to be allowed to leave the Islands. He took his pa.s.sage for Europe in the _Isla de Panay_, together with Dr. Rizal, but very prudently left that steamer at Singapore and went on in the French mail to Ma.r.s.eilles and thence to Paris, where he was still residing in 1905. No _doc.u.mentary_ evidence could be produced against him, and on June 1, 1897, the well-known politician, Romero Robledo, undertook his defence in the _Cortes_, in Madrid, in a brilliant speech which had no effect on his parliamentary colleagues. For the Spaniards, indeed, the personal character of Pedro P. Rojas was a matter of no moment. The Manila court-martial, out of whose jurisdiction Rojas had escaped, held his estates, covering over 70,000 acres, under embargo, caused his numerous steam cane-mills to be smashed, and his beautiful estate-house to be burnt, whilst his 14,000 head of cattle disappeared. Subsequently the military court exonerated Pedro P. Rojas in a decree which stated "that all those persons who made accusations against him have unreservedly retracted them, and that they were only extracted from such persons by the tortures employed by the Spanish officials; that the supposed introduction of arms into the Colony through an estate owned by Pedro P. Rojas is purely fantastical, and that the only arms possessed by the rebels were those taken by them in combat from the Spanish soldiers." [174] But his second cousin, Francisco L. Rojas, a shipowner, contrabandist, and merchant, was not so fortunate. He was also one of the first seized, and his trial was pending until General Blanco left the Islands. During this period Rojas' wife besought the General to release him, but he could not do so without incurring public censure, in view of the real or fict.i.tious condemnatory evidence brought against him by the court-martial. The chief accusation was that of importing arms for the rebellion. It even became a current topic, for a few weeks, that some German merchants had made a contract with Rojas to sell him the arms, but the Spanish authorities had sufficient good sense, on this occasion, not to be guided by public outcry. When General Polavieja arrived, Francisco L. Rojas' fate became a certainty, and he was executed as a traitor. The departure of Pedro P. Rojas and the serenity of General Blanco aroused great indignation among the civilian Spaniards who clamoured for active measures. A week pa.s.sed before it was apparent to the public that he had taken any military action. Meanwhile, he was urged in vain by his advisers to proclaim martial law. The press censor would not allow the newspapers to allude to the conspirators as "rebels," but as "brigands" (_tulisanes_). The authorities were anxious to stifle the notion of rebellion, and to treat the whole movement as a marauding affair. On August 23 the leading newspaper published a patriotic appeal to the Spaniards to go _en ma.s.se_ the next day to the Gov.-General to concert measures for public safety. They closed their shops and offices, and a.s.sembled before Government House; but the General refused to receive them, and ordered the newspaper to pay a fine of P500, which sum was at once raised in the streets and cafes.

On August 26, 1,000 rebels made a raid on Coloocan, four miles outside the capital. They killed a few Chinese, and seized others to place them in the van of their fighting men. The armed crowd was kept at bay by a posse of civil guards, until they learnt that a cavalry reinforcement was on the way from Manila. Then the rebels, under cover of darkness, fled towards the river, and were lost sight of. The next morning I watched the troopers cross over the _Puente de Espana_. There was mud up to the ponies' bellies, for they had scoured the district all around. The hubbub was tremendous among the habitual saunterers on the _Escolta_--the Rialto of Manila. For the next few days every Spaniard one met had some startling news to tell, until, by the end of the week, a reaction set in, and amidst jokes and _copitas_ of spirits, the idea that the Coloocan affair was the prelude to a rebellion was utterly ridiculed. The Gov.-General still refused to proclaim martial law, considering such a grave measure unnecessary, when suddenly the whole city was filled with amazement by the news of a far more serious attack near Manila.

About 4 a.m. on Sunday, August 30, the rebels concentrated at the village of San Juan del Monte, distant half an hour on horseback from the city gates. They endeavoured to seize the powder magazine. One Spanish artilleryman was killed and several of the defenders were badly wounded whilst engaged in dropping ammunition from window openings into a stream which runs close by. Cavalry and infantry reinforcements were at once sent out, and the first battle was fought at the entrance to the village of San Juan del Monte. The rebels made a hard stand this time under the leadership of Sancho Valenzuela (a hemp-rope maker in a fairly good way of business), but he showed no military skill and chiefly directed his men by frantic shouts from the window of a wooden house. Naturally, as soon as they had to retreat, Valenzuela and his three companions were taken prisoners. The rebels left about 80 dead on the field and fled towards the Pasig River, which they tried to cross. Their pa.s.sage was at first cut off by gunboats, which fired volleys into the retreating mob and drove them higher up the bank, where there was some hand-to-hand fighting. Over a hundred managed to get into canoes with the hope of reaching the Lake of Bay; but, as they pa.s.sed up the river, the civil guard, lying in ambush on the opposite sh.o.r.e, fired upon them, and in the consequent confusion every canoe was upset. The loss to the rebels in the river and on the bank was reckoned at about 50. The whole of that day the road to San Juan del Monte was occupied by troops, and no civilian was allowed to pa.s.s. At 3 p.m. the same day martial law was proclaimed in Manila and seven other Luzon provinces.

The next morning at sunrise I rode out to the battlefield with the correspondent of the _Ejercito Espanol_ (Madrid). The rebel slain had not yet been removed. We came across them everywhere--in the fields and in the gutters of the highroad. Old men and youths had joined in the scrimmage and, with one exception, every corpse we saw was attired in the usual working dress. This one exception we found literally upside down with his head stuck in the mud of a paddy-field. Our attention was drawn to him (and possibly the Spaniards' bullets, too) by his bright red baggy zouave trousers. We rode into the village, which was absolutely deserted by its native inhabitants, and stopped at the estate-house of the friars where the Spanish officers lodged. The _padre_ looked extremely anxious, and the officers advised us not to go the road we intended, as rebel parties were known to be lurking there. The military advice being practically a command, we took the highroad to Sampaloc on our way back to the city.

In the meantime the city drawbridges, which had probably not been raised since 1852 (_vide_ p. 343, footnote), were put into working order--the bushes which had been left to flourish around the approaches were cut down, and the Spanish civilians were called upon to form volunteer cavalry and infantry corps. So far the rebel leaders had issued no proclamation. It was not generally known what their aims were--whether they sought independence, reforms, extermination of Spaniards or Europeans generally. The att.i.tude of the thoroughbred native non-combatants was glum silence born of fear. The half-castes, who had long vaunted their superior birth to the native, found themselves between two stools. If the natives were going to succeed in the battle, they (the half-castes) would want to be the peaceful wire-pullers after the storm. On the other hand, they had so long striven to be regarded as on a social equality with the Spaniards that they could not now abstain from espousing their cause against the rebels without exciting suspicion. Therefore, in the course of a few days, the half-castes resident in the capital came forward to enlist as volunteers. But no one imagined, at that time, how widespread was the _Katipunan_ league. To the profound surprise of the Spaniards it was discovered, later on, that many of the half-caste volunteers were rebels in disguise, bearing the "blood compact" mark, and presumably only waiting to see which way the chances of war would turn to join the winning side.

Under sentence of the court-martial established on August 30, the four rebel leaders in the battle of San Juan del Monte were executed on September 4, on the Campo de Bagumbayan, facing the fashionable Luneta Esplanade, by the seash.o.r.e. Three sides of a square were formed by 1,500 Spanish and half-caste volunteers and 500 regular troops. Escorted by two Austin and two Franciscan friars, the condemned men walked to the execution-ground from the chapel within the walled city, where they had been confined since the sentence was pa.s.sed. They were perfectly self-composed. They arrived on the ground pinioned; their sentence was read to them and Valenzuela was unpinioned for a minute to sign some doc.u.ment at a table. When he was again tied up, all four were made to kneel on the ground in a row facing the open sea-beach side of the square. Then amidst profound silence, an officer, at the head of 16 Spanish soldiers, walked round the three sides of the square, halting at each corner to p.r.o.nounce publicly the formula--"In the name of the King! Whosoever shall raise his voice to crave clemency for the condemned shall suffer death." The 16 soldiers filed off in fours and stood about five yards behind each culprit. As the officer lowered his sword the volley was fired, and all but Valenzuela sank down and rolled over dead. It was the most impressive sight I had witnessed for years. The bullets, which had pa.s.sed clean through Valenzuela's body, threw up the gravel in front of him. He remained kneeling erect half a minute, and then gradually sank on his side. He was still alive, and four more shots, fired close to his head, scattered his brains over the gra.s.s. Conveyances were in readiness to carry off the corpses, and the spectators quitted the mournful scene in silence. This was the first execution, which was followed by four others in Manila and one in Cavite in General Blanco's time, and scores more subsequently.

Up the river the rebels were increasing daily, and at Pasig a thousand of them threatened the civil guard, compelling that small force and the parish priest to take refuge in the belfry tower. On the river-island of Pandacan, just opposite to the European Club at Nagtajan, a crowd of armed natives, about 400 strong, attacked the village, sacked the church, and drove the parish priest up the belfry tower. In this plight the _padre_ was seen to wave a handkerchief, and so drew the attention of the guards stationed higher up the river. Aid was sent to him at once; the insurgents were repulsed with great loss, but one European sergeant was killed, and several native soldiers wounded. The rebellion had spread to the northern province of Nueva Ecija, where the Governor and all the Europeans who fled to the Government House in San Isidro were besieged for a day (September 8) and only saved from capture by the timely arrival from Manila of 500 troops, who outflanked the insurgents and dispersed them with great slaughter. In Bulacan the flying column under Major Lopez Arteaga had a score of combats with the rebels, who were everywhere routed. Spaniards and creoles were maltreated wherever they were found. A young creole named Chofre, well known in Manila, went out to Mariquina to take photographic views with a foreign half-caste friend of his named Augustus Morris. When they saw the rebels they ran into a hut, which was set fire to. Morris (who was not distinguishable as a foreigner) tried to escape and was shot, whilst Chofre was burnt to death. From Maragondon a Spanish lady was brought to Manila raving mad. At 23, _Calle Cabildo_ (Manila), the house of a friend of mine, I several times saw a Spanish lady who had lost her reason in Mariquina, an hour's drive from Manila.

Crowds of peaceful natives swarmed into the walled city from the suburbs. The Gov.-General himself abandoned his riverside residence at Malacanan, and came with his staff to _Calle Potenciana_. During the first four months quite 5,000 Chinese, besides a large number of Spanish and half-caste families, fled to Hong-Kong. The pa.s.sport system was revived; that is to say, no one could leave Manila for the other islands or abroad without presenting himself personally at the Civil Governor's office to have his _cedula personal_ vised.

The seditious tendency of a certain Andres Bonifacio, a warehouse-man in the employ of a commercial firm in Manila, having come to the knowledge of the Spaniards, he was prematurely constrained to seek safety in Cavite Province which, thenceforth, became the most important centre of the rebellion. Simultaneously Emilio Aguinaldo [175] rallied his fighting-men, and for a short while these two organizers operated conjointly, Bonifacio being nominally the supreme chief. From the beginning, however, there was discord between the two leaders as to the plan of campaign to be adopted. Bonifacio advocated barbarous persecution and extermination of the Europeans, whilst Aguinaldo insisted that he was fighting for a cause for which he sought the sympathy and moral support of friends of liberty all the world over and that this could never be obtained if they conducted themselves like savages. Consequent on this disagreement as to the _modus operandi_, Bonifacio and Aguinaldo became rivals, each seeking the suppression of the other. Aguinaldo himself explains [176] that Bonifacio having condemned him to death, he retaliated in like manner, and the contending factions met at Naig. Leaving his armed followers outside, Aguinaldo alone entered the house where Bonifacio was surrounded by his counsellors, for he simply wished to have an understanding with his rival. Bonifacio, however, so abusively confirmed his intention to cut short Aguinaldo's career that the latter withdrew, and ordered his men to seize Bonifacio, who was forthwith executed, by Aguinaldo's order, for the prosperity of the cause and the good of his country.

Bonifacio's followers were few, and, from this moment, Emilio Aguinaldo gradually rose from obscurity to prominence. Born at Cauit [177] (Cavite) on March 22, 1869, of poor parents, he started life in the service of the inc.u.mbent of San Francisco de Malabon. Later on he went to Manila, where, through the influence of a relative, employed in a humble capacity in the capital, he was admitted into the College of San Juan de Letran under the auspices of the Dominican friars. Subsequently he became a schoolmaster at Silan (Cavite), and at the age of twenty-six years he was again in his native town as petty-governor (Munic.i.p.al Captain). He is a man of small frame with slightly webbed eyes, betraying the Chinese blood in his veins, and a protruding lower lip and prominent chin indicative of resolve. Towards me his manner was remarkably placid and una.s.suming, and his whole bearing denoted the very ant.i.thesis of the dashing warrior. Throughout his career he has shown himself to be possessed of natural politeness, and ever ready with the soft answer that turneth away wrath. He understands Spanish perfectly well, but does not speak it very fluently. Aguinaldo's explanation to me of the initial acts of rebellion was as follows:--He had reason to know that, in consequence of something having leaked out in Manila regarding the immature plans of the conspirators, he was a marked man, so he resolved to face the situation boldly. He had then been petty-governor of his town (Cauit) sixteen months, and in that official capacity he summoned the local detachment of the civil guard to the Town Hall, having previously arranged his plan of action with the town guards (_cuadrilleros_). Aguinaldo then spoke aside to the sergeant, to whom he proposed the surrender of their arms. As he quite antic.i.p.ated, his demand was refused, so he gave the agreed signal to his _cuadrilleros_, who immediately surrounded the guards and disarmed them. Thereupon Aguinaldo and his companions, being armed, fled at once to the next post of the civil guard and seized their weapons also. With this small equipment he and his party escaped into the interior of the province, towards Silan, situated at the base of the Sungay [178]

Mountain, where the numerous ravines in the slopes running towards the Lake Bombon (popularly known as the Lake of Taal) afforded a safe retreat to the rebels. Hundreds of natives soon joined him, for the secret of Aguinaldo's influence was the widespread popular belief in his possession of the _anting-anting_ (_vide_ p. 237); his continuous successes, in the first operations, strengthened this belief; indeed, he seemed to have the lucky star of a De Wet without the military genius.

On August 31, 1896, eleven days after the plot was discovered in Manila, he issued his _p.r.o.nunciamiento_ simultaneously at his birthplace, at Novaleta, and at San Francisco de Malabon. This doc.u.ment, however, is of little historic value, for, instead of setting forth the aims of the revolutionists, it is simply a wild exhortation to the people, in general vague terms, to take arms and free themselves from oppression. In San Francisco de Malabon Aguinaldo rallied his forces prior to their march to Imus, [179] their great strategic point. The village itself, situated in the centre of a large, well-watered plain, surrounded by planted land, was nothing--a mere collection of wooden or bamboo-and-thatch dwellings. The distance from Manila would be about 16 miles by land, with good roads leading to the bay sh.o.r.e towns. The people were very poor, being tenants or dependents of the friars; hence the only building of importance was the friars' estate-house, which was really a fortress in the estimation of the natives. This residence was situated in the middle of a compound surrounded by ma.s.sive high walls, and to it some 17 friars fled on the first alarm. For the rebels, therefore, Imus had a double value--the so-called fortress and the capture of the priests. After a siege which lasted long enough for General Blanco to have sent troops against them, the rebels captured Imus estate-house on September 1, and erected barricades there. Thirteen of the priests fell into their hands. They cut trenches and threw up earthworks in several of the main roads of the province, and strengthened their position at Novaleta. Marauding parties were sent out everywhere to steal the crops and live-stock, which were conveyed in large quant.i.ties to Imus. Some of the captured priests were treated most barbarously. One was cut up piecemeal; another was saturated with petroleum and set on fire, and a third was bathed in oil and fried on a bamboo spit run through the length of his body. There was a _Requiem_ Ma.s.s for this event. During the first few months of the rising many such atrocities were committed by the insurgents. The Naig outrage caused a great sensation in the capital. The lieutenant had been killed, and the ferocious band of rebels seized his widow and daughter eleven years old. The child was ravished to death, and they were just digging a pit to bury the mother alive when she was rescued and brought to Manila in the steam-launch _Mariposa_ raving mad, disguised as a native woman. Aguinaldo, personally, was humanely inclined, for at his headquarters he held captive one Spanish trooper, an army lieutenant, a Spanish planter, a friar, and two Spanish ladies, all of whom were fairly well treated. The priest was allowed to read his missal, the lieutenant and trooper were made blacksmiths, and the planter had to try his hand at tailoring.

The insurgents occupied Paranaque and Las Pinas on the outskirts of Manila, and when General Blanco had 5,000 fresh troops at his disposal he still refrained from attacking the rebels in their positions. Military men, in conversation with me, excused this inaction on the ground that, to rout the rebels completely without having sufficient troops to garrison the places taken and to form flying columns to prevent the insurgents fleeing to the mountain fastnesses, would only require them to do the work over again when they reappeared. So General Blanco went on waiting in the hope that more troops would arrive with which to inflict such a crushing defeat on the rebels as would ensure a lasting peace. The rebels were in possession of Imus for several months. Three weeks after they took it, artillery was slowly carried over to Cavite, which is connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus, so the rebels hastened to construct a long line of trenches immediately to the south of this (_vide_ map), whereby communication with the heart of the province was effectually cut off. Not only did their mile and a half of trenches and stockade check any advance into the interior from the isthmus, but it served as a rallying-point whence Cavite itself was menaced. The Spaniards, therefore, forced to take the offensive to save Cavite falling into rebel hands, made an attack on the Novaleta defences with Spanish troops and loyal native auxiliaries on November 10. The next day the Spaniards were repulsed at Binacayan with the loss of one-third of the 73rd Native Regiment and 60 Spanish troops, with 50 of both corps wounded. The intention to carry artillery towards Imus was abandoned and the Spaniards fell back on Dalahican, about a mile north of the rebel trenches of Novaleta, where they established a camp at which I spent a whole day. They had four large guns and two bronze mortars; in the trench adjoining the camp they had one gun. The troops numbered 3,500 Spaniards under the command of General Rios. The 73rd Native Regiment survivors had quarters there, but they were constantly engaged in making sorties on the road leading to Manila. No further attempt was made in General Blanco's time to dislodge the rebels from their splendidly-constructed trenches, which, however, could easily have been sh.e.l.led from the sea side.

A number of supposed promoters of the rebellion filled the Cavite prison, and I went over to witness the execution of 13 of them on September 12. I knew two or three of them by sight. One was a Chinese half-caste, the son of a rich Chinaman then living. The father was held to be a respectable man of coolie origin, but the son, long before the rebellion, had a worthless reputation.

In the Provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan, north of Manila, the rebel mob, under the command of a native of Cabiao (Nueva Ecija) named Llaneras, was about 3,000 strong. To oppose this Major Lopez Arteaga had a flying column of 500 men, and between the contending parties there were repeated encounters with no definite result. Whenever the rebels were beaten off and pursued they fled to their strongholds of San Mateo (Manila, now Rizal) and Angat (Bulacan). The Spaniards made an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the enemy at Angat, whilst at San Mateo, where they were supposed to be 5,000 strong, they were left undisturbed. The rebels attacked Calumpit (Bulacan), pillaged several houses, decapitated an Englishman's cook, and drove the civil guard and the parish priest up the belfry tower. On the other side of the river, Llaneras visited the rice-mills of an Anglo-American firm, took some refreshment, and a.s.sured the manager, Mr. Scott, that the rebels had not the least intention to interfere with any foreigners (as distinguished from Spaniards), against whom they had no complaint whatever.

At length a plan of campaign was prepared, and expeditionary forces were to march in two directions through the disaffected provinces south of Manila, and combine, according to circ.u.mstances, when the bulk of the rebels could be driven together. One division operated from the lake town of Vinan, whilst General Jaramillo took his troops round to Batangas Province and worked northwards. Before the lake forces had gone very far they met with a reverse at the hands of the rebels in the neighbourhood of Carmona, but rallied and pushed on towards the rebel quarters near Silan, where the enemy was apparently concentrating for a great struggle. The combined columns under General Jaramillo at length opened the attack. A pitched battle was fought, and no quarter was given on either side. This fierce contest lasted a whole day, and the Spaniards were forced to retire with considerable loss. The combined operations accomplished nothing decisive, and served only to check an advance on the capital by the rebels, who were already in practical possession of the whole of Cavite province excepting the port, a.r.s.enal, and isthmus of Cavite.

In Manila the volunteers mounted guard whilst the regulars went to the front. For a while the volunteers were allowed to make domiciliary search, and they did very much as they liked. Domiciliary search was so much abused that it had to be forbidden, for the volunteers took to entering any house they chose, and roughly examined the persons of natives to see if they had the _Katipunan_ brand. Crowds of suspects were brought into Manila, and shiploads of them were sent away in local steamers to the Caroline Islands and Mindanao, whilst every mail-steamer carried batches of them _en route_ for Fernando Po. On October 1 the s.s. _Manila_ sailed with 300 Filipinos for Chafarinas Islands, Ceuta, and other African penal settlements. In the local steamers many of them died on the way. The ordinary prisons were more than full, and about 600 suspects were confined in the dungeons of Fort Santiago at the mouth of the Pasig River, where a frightful tragedy occurred. The dungeons were over-crowded; the river-water filtered in through the crevices in the ancient masonry; the Spanish sergeant on duty threw his rug over the only light- and ventilating-shaft, and in a couple of days carts were seen by many citizens carrying away the dead, calculated to number 70. Provincial governors and parish priests seemed to regard it as a duty to supply the capital with batches of "suspects" from their localities. In Vigan, where nothing had occurred, many of the heads of the best families and moneyed men were arrested and brought to Manila in a steamer. They were bound hand and foot, and carried like packages of merchandise in the hold. I happened to be on the quay when the steamer discharged her living freight with chains and hooks to haul up and swing out the bodies like bales of hemp. From Nueva Caceres (Camarines), the Abellas and several other rich families and native priests were seized and shipped off. Poor old Manuel Abella, like scores of others, was tortured in Bilibid prison and finally shot. He was a notary, unfortunately possessed of a fine estate coveted by an impecunious Spaniard, who denounced Abella, and was rewarded by being appointed "Administrator" of his property, out of which he so enriched himself that he was able, in a few months, to return to Spain in a good financial position. A friend of mine, a native planter of Balayan, was imprisoned for months, and then sent back to his town declared innocent. He had been a marked man since 1895, just after his son Quintin, a law student, had had a little altercation with his clerical professors in Manila. Thousands of peaceful natives were treated with unjustifiable ferocity. The old torture-chamber on the ground-floor of the convent of Baliuag (Bulacan) is still shown to visitors. The court-martial, established under the presidency of a colonel, little by little practised systematic extortion, for, within three months of the outbreak, hundreds of the richest natives and half-castes in Manila were imprisoned for a few days and released _conditionally_. From the lips of my late friend, Telesforo Chuidian, a wealthy Chinese half-caste, known to all Manila society, I heard of the squalid misery and privations to which he and others of his cla.s.s were subjected, but the complete list would fill a page. Some were even re-arrested for the same nefarious purpose, and the daily papers published their names on each occasion. Archbishop Nozaleda and Gov.-General Blanco were at variance from the beginning of the revolt, and in accordance with historical precedent it could only end in one way, namely, that the clerical party advised the Canovas Ministry to recall the General and appoint in his stead another who would be obedient to the friars.

General Blanco was not sufficiently sanguinary for the monks. As a strategist he had refused, at the outset, to undertake with 1,500 European troops a task which was only accomplished by his successor with 28,000 men. But the priests thought they knew better, and Blanco left for Spain in December, 1896. The relative positions of the parties at this crisis stood as follows:--The rebels were in possession of the whole of the Province of Cavite excepting the city and a.r.s.enal of Cavite and the isthmus connecting that city with the mainland. They were well fortified at Imus with trenches and stockades extending from the estate-house fort in several directions, defended by an army of 6,000 to 7,000 men. Their artillery was most primitive, however, consisting only of a few small guns called _lantacas_, some new guns of small calibre roughly cast out of the church bells, and iron waterpipes of large diameter converted into _mitrailleuse_ mortars. They were strongly entrenched behind a mile and a half of strategically constructed earthworks defending the town of Novaleta, which they held. They were supposed to have at least 20,000 men in occupation there. Including San Francisco de Malabon, Silan, Perez Dasmarinas, and the several other places they held, their total force in the whole province was estimated at 35,000 men. About one-fifth of that number was armed with rifles (chiefly Mausers), the remainder carrying bowie-knives and bamboo lances. The bowie-knife was irresistible by the Spaniards when the native came to close-quarter fighting. The rebels had ample supplies of rice, buffaloes, etc., stolen from the non-combatant natives. To my personal knowledge they had daily communication with Manila, and knew everything that was going on there and the public feeling in the capital. They had failed in the attempt to seize the town of Santa Cruz (La Laguna), where they killed one Spaniard and then retreated. Loyal natives in Vinan organized volunteer forces to keep them out of that town. Those Manila volunteers known as the _Guerrilla a muerte_ battalion, with a few regulars, frequently patrolled the lake coast in steam-launches from Manila, and kept the rebels from occupying that district. North of Manila the rebellion reached no farther than Bulacan and Pampanga Provinces, where Llaneras's flying column, together with the rebels in the mountain fastnesses of Angat and San Mateo, amounted to about 10,000 men. Llaneras notified the Manila-Dagupan (English) Railway officials that they were to cease carrying loyal troops on their line; but as those orders were not heeded, a train was wrecked on November 19 about 20 miles up from the capital. The locomotive and five carriages were smashed, the permanent-way was somewhat damaged, five individuals were wounded, and the total loss sustained was estimated at P40,000. In the last week of November the friars'

estate-house at Malinta, some five miles north of Manila, was in flames; we could see the blaze from the bay. The slightest reverse to Spanish arms always drew a further crowd of rebels into the field.

The total European force when General Blanco left was about 10,000 men. In Cavite Province the Spaniards held only the camp of Dalahican, and the city and a.r.s.enal of Cavite with the isthmus. The total number of suspects shipped away was about 1,000. I was informed by my friend the Secretary of the Military Court that 4,377 individuals were awaiting trial by court-martial. The possibility of the insurgents ever being able to enter the capital was never believed in by the large majority of Europeans, although from a month after the outbreak the rebels continued to hold posts within a couple of hours' march from the old walls. The natives, however, were led to expect that the rebels would make an attempt to occupy the city on Saint Andrew's Day (the patron-saint day of Manila, _vide_ p. 50). The British Consul and a few British merchants were of opinion that a raid on the capital was imminent, and I, among others, was invited by letter, dated Manila, November 16, 1896, and written under the authority of H.B.M.'s Consul, to attend a meeting on the 18th of that month at the offices of a British establishment to concert measures for escape in such a contingency. In spite of these fears, business was carried on without the least apparent interruption.

When General Blanco reached Spain he quietly lodged at the Hotel de Roma in Madrid, and then took a private residence. Out of courtesy he was offered a position in the _Cuarto Militar_, which he declined to accept. For several months he remained under a political cloud, charged with incompetency to quell the Philippine Rebellion. But there is something to be said in justification of Blanco's inaction. He was importuned from the beginning by the relentless Archbishop and many leading civilians to take the offensive and start a war _a outrance_ with an inadequate number of European soldiers. His 6,000 native auxiliaries (as it proved later on) could not be relied upon in a _civil_ war. Against the foreign invader, with Spanish prestige still high, they would have made good loyal fighting-material. Blanco was no novice in civil wars. I remember his career during the previous twenty-five years. With his 700 European troops he parried off the attacks of the first armed mobs in the Province of Manila (now Rizal), and defended the city and the approaches to the capital. Five hundred European troops had to be left, here and there, in Visayas for the ordinary defence. Before the balance of 300 could be embarked in half a dozen places in the south and landed in Manila, the whole Province of Cavite was in arms. He could not leave the defence of the city entirely in the hands of untrained and undrilled volunteers and march the whole of his European regular troops into another province. A severe reverse, on the first encounter, might have proved fatal to Spanish sovereignty. Blanco had the enormous disadvantage (one must live there to appreciate it) of the wet season, and the rebels understood this. He had, therefore, to damp the movement by feigning to attach to it as little importance as possible. Lastly, Blanco was a man of moderate and humane tendencies; a colonial governor of the late Martinez Campos school, whose policy is--when all honourable peaceful means are exhausted, use force.

The Canovas party was broken up by the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Prime Minister on August 8, 1897. This ministry was followed by the provisional Azcarraga Cabinet, which, at the end of six weeks, was superseded by the Liberal party under the leadership of Praxedes Sagasta, who, to temporize with America, recalled the inflexible General Weyler from Cuba, and on October 9 appointed General Ramon Blanco, Marquis de Pena Plata, to take the command there.

General Camilo Polavieja (Marquis de Polavieja) arrived in Manila in December, 1896, as the successor of Blanco and the chosen _Messiah_ of the friars. He had made a great name in Cuba as an _energetic_ military leader, which, in Spanish colonies, always implied a tinge of wanton cruelty. In Spain he was regarded as the right arm of the ultra-clericals and a possible supporter of Carlism. He was accompanied by General Lachambre, whose acquaintance I made in Havana. In the same steamer with General Polavieja came 500 troops, whilst another steamer simultaneously brought 1,500. Polavieja, therefore, on landing, had about 12,000 European troops and 6,000 native auxiliaries; but each steamer brought fresh supplies until the total European land forces amounted to 28,000. By this time, however, the 6,000 native troops were very considerably reduced by desertion, and the remainder could hardly be relied upon. But Polavieja started his campaign with the immense advantage of having the _whole_ of the dry season before him. General Lachambre, as Deputy Commander of the forces, at once took the field against the rebels in Cavite Province. It would be tedious to relate in detail the numerous encounters with the enemy over this area. Battles were fought at Naig, Maragondon, Perez Dasmarinas, Nasugbu, Taal, Bacoor, Novaleta, and other places. Imus, which in Manila was popularly supposed to be a fortress of relative magnitude, whence the rebels would dispute every inch of ground, was attacked by a large force of loyal troops. On their approach the rebels set fire to the village and fled. Very few remained to meet the Spaniards, and as these few tried to escape across the paddy-fields and down the river they were picked off by sharp-shooters. It was a victory for the Spaniards, inasmuch as their demonstration of force scared the rebels into evacuation. But it was necessary to take Silan, which the rebels hastened to strengthen, closely followed up by the Spaniards. The place was well defended by earthworks and natural parapets, and for several hours the issue of the contest was doubtful. The rebels fought bravely, leaping from boulder to boulder to meet the foe. In every close-quarter combat the bowie-knife had a terrible effect, and the loyal troops had suffered heavily when a column of Spaniards was marched round to the rear of the rebels' princ.i.p.al parapet. They were lowered down with ropes on to a rising ground facing this parapet, and poured in a continuous rifle fire until the rebels had to evacuate it, and the general rout commenced with great slaughter to the insurgents, who dispersed in all directions. Their last stronghold south of Manila having been taken, they broke up into small detachments, which were chased and beaten wherever they made a stand. The Spaniards suffered great losses, but they gained their point, for the rebels, unable to hold any one place against this onslaught, were driven up to the Laguna Province and endeavoured unsuccessfully to hold the town of Santa Cruz. It is interesting to remark, in order to show what the rebel aim at that time really was, that they entered here with the cry of "Long live Spain; Death to the Friars!" After three months'

hard fighting, General Lachambre was proclaimed the Liberator of Cavite and the adjoining districts, for, by the middle of March, 1897, every rebel contingent of any importance in that locality had been dispersed.

Like every other Spanish general in supreme command abroad, Polavieja had his enemies in Spain. The organs of the Liberal party attacked him unsparingly. Polavieja, as everybody knew, was the chosen executive of the friars, whose only care was to secure their own position. He was dubbed the "General Cristiano." He was their ideal, and worked hand-in-hand with them. He cabled for more troops to be sent with which to garrison the reconquered districts and have his army corps free to stamp out the rebellion, which was confined to the Northern Provinces. Cuba, which had already drained the Peninsula of over 200,000 men, still required fresh levies to replace the sick and wounded, and Polavieja's demand was refused. Immediately after this he cabled that his physical ailments compelled him to resign the commandership-in-chief, and begged the Government to appoint a successor. The Madrid journals hostile to him thereupon indirectly attributed to him a lie, and questioned whether his resignation was due to ill-health or his resentment of the refusal to send out more troops. Still urging his resignation, General Fernando Primo de Rivera was gazetted to succeed him, and Polavieja embarked at Manila for Spain on April 15, 1897. General Lachambre, as the hero of Cavite, followed to receive the applause which was everywhere showered upon him in Spain. As to Polavieja's merits, public opinion was very much divided, and as soon as it was known that he was on the way, a controversy was started in the Madrid press as to how he ought to be received. _El Imparcial_ maintained that he was worthy of being honoured as a 19th century conquering hero. This gave rise to a volley of abuse on the other side, who raked up all his antecedents and supposed tendencies, and openly denounced him as a dangerous politician and the supporter of theocratic absolutism. According to _El Liberal_ of May 11, Senor Ordax Avecilla, of the Red Cross Society, stated in his speech at the Madrid Mercantile Club, "If he (the General) thought of becoming dictator, he would fall from the heights of his glory to the Hades of nonent.i.ty." His enemies persistently insinuated that he was really returning to Spain to support the clericals actively. But perhaps the bitterest satire was levelled against him in _El Pais_ of May 10, which, in an article headed "The Great Farce," said: "Do you know who is coming? Cyrus, King of Persia; Alexander, King of Macedonia; Caesar Augustus; Scipio the African; Gonzalo de Cordova; Napoleon, the Great Napoleon, conqueror of worlds. What? Oh, unfortunate people, do you not know? Polavieja is coming, the incomparable Polavieja, crowned with laurels, commanding a fleet laden to the brim with rich trophies; it is Polavieja, gentlemen, who returns, discoverer of new worlds, to lay at the feet of Isabella the Catholic his conquering sword; it is Polavieja who returns after having cast into obscurity the glories of Hernan Cortes; Polavieja, who has widened the national map, and brings new territories to the realm--new thrones to his queen. What can the people be thinking of that they remain thus in silence? Applaud, imbeciles! It is Narvaez who is resuscitated. Now we have another master!" No Spanish general who had arrived at Polavieja's position would find it possible to be absolutely neutral in politics, but to compare him with Narvaez, the military dictator, proved in a few days' time to be the grossest absurdity. On May 13 Polavieja arrived in Barcelona physically broken, half blind, and with evident traces of a disordered liver. His detractors were silent; an enthusiastic crowd welcomed him for his achievements. He had broken the neck of the rebellion, but by what means? Altogether, apart from the circ.u.mstances of legitimate warfare, in which probably neither party was more merciful than the other, he initiated a system of striking terror into the non-combatant population by barbarous tortures and wholesale executions. On February 6, 1897, in one prison alone (Bilibid) there were 1,266 suspects, most of whom were brought in by the volunteers, for the forces in the field gave little quarter and rarely made prisoners. The functions of the volunteers, organized originally for the defence of the city and suburbs, became so elastic that, night after night, they made men and women come out of their houses for inspection conducted most indecorously. The men were escorted to the prisons from pure caprice, and subjected to excessive maltreatment. Many of them were liberated in the course of a few days, declared innocent, but maimed for life and for ever unable to get a living. Some of these victims were well known to everybody in Manila; for instance, Dr. Zamora, Bonifacio Arevalo the dentist, Antonio Rivero (who died under torture), and others. The only apparent object in all this was to disseminate broadcast living examples of Spanish vengeance, in order to overawe the populace. Under General Blanco's administration such acts had been distinctly prohibited on the representation of General Carlos Roca.

Polavieja's rule brought the brilliant career of the notable Filipino, Dr. Jose Rizal y Mercado, to a fatal end. Born in Calamba (La Laguna), three hours' journey from Manila, on June 19, 1861, he was destined to become the idol of his countrymen, and consequently the victim of the friars and General Polavieja. Often have I, together with the old native parish priest, Father Leoncio Lopez, spent an hour with Jose's father, Francisco Mercado, and heard the old man descant, with pride, on the intellectual progress of his son at the Jesuits' school in Manila. Before he was fourteen years of age he wrote a me