t sun of the tropics,
commended by Providence to the care of noble Spain, be thou not
ungrateful; acknowledge her, salute her who warmed thee with the
breath of her own culture and civility. Thou hast longed for
independence, and thine emancipation from Spain has come; but
preserve in thine heart the remembrance of the more than three
centuries which thou hast lived with her usages, her language,
and her customs. It is true she sought to crush thine aspiration
for independence, just as a loving mother resists the lifelong
separation from the daughter of her bosom; it only proved the
excess of affection, the love Spain feels for thee. But thou,
Filipinas, flower of the ocean, delicate flower of the East, still
weak, scarce eight months weaned from thy mother's breast, hast
dared to brave a great and powerful nation such as is the United
States, with thy little army barely disciplined and shaped. Ah,
beloved brethren, all this is true; and still we say we will be
slaves to none, nor let ourselves be duped by gentle words.

Certainly Aguinaldo could not have been the author of the above
composition published in his name.

By the middle of July the censorship of Press cablegrams from Manila
had become so rigid that the public in America and Europe could get
very little reliable telegraphic news of what was going on in the
Islands. The American newspaper correspondents therefore signed a
"round robin" setting forth their complaints to General Otis, who took
little heed of it. It was well known that the hospitals were crowded
with American soldiers, a great many of whom were suffering solely from
their persistence in habits contracted at home which were incompatible
with good health in a tropical climate. Many volunteers, wearied of the
war, were urging to be sent back to the States, and there was a marked
lack of cordiality between the volunteer and the regular regiments. In
the field the former might well compare with the smartest and the
bravest men who ever carried arms; off active service there was a
difference between them and the disciplined regulars perceptible to
any civilian. The natives particularly resented the volunteers' habit
of entering their dwellings and tampering, in a free and easy manner,
with their goods and the modesty of their women. They were specially
disgusted with the coloured regiments, whose conduct was such that
the authorities