ffect 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 anticipated 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 Japan to present a petition to the Mikado, praying him to annex
the Philippines. This petition, said to have been signed by 5,000
Filipinos, was received by the Japanese 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, turne