the effect of their privations (some of starvation in Tayabas), or
as a result of brutal treatment. A minority of them received as good
treatment as possible under the circumstances. The fate of the majority
depended chiefly upon the temperament of the native commander of the
district. There were semi-savage native chiefs, and there were others,
like Aguinaldo himself, with humane instincts. Amongst the former,
for instance, there was Major Francisco Braganza, who, on February
28, 1900, in Camarines Sur, ordered one hundred and three Spanish
soldiers to be tied up to trees and cut and stabbed to death with
bowie-knifes and their bodies stripped and left without burial. He
was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be hanged, September 26,
1901, and the sentence was carried out at Nueva Caceres (Camarines
Sur) on November 15 following. Many prisoners managed to escape, no
doubt with the aid or connivance of natives, until Aguinaldo issued a
decree, dated Malolos, November 5, 1898, imposing a penalty of twenty
years' imprisonment on whomsoever should give such aid. Aguinaldo
told me he was personally inclined to liberate these prisoners, or,
at least, those civilians accustomed to an easy office life who,
if they went free, would have had no inclination whatever to fight,
but would have done their best to embark for Spain. The few who might
have broken their _parole_ would have been easily caught again "for
the last time in their lives," and the women and children were an
obstacle to military operations. Indeed, from time to time, Aguinaldo
did liberate small groups of civilians, amongst whom were some of
my old friends whom I afterwards met in Spain. Aguinaldo's Prime
Minister, Apolinario Mabini (_vide_ p. 546), was, however, strongly
in favour of retaining the Spaniards as hostages until the Spanish
Government should officially recognize the Philippine Republic. It
will be clearly seen from the negotiations entered into between the
respective parties that this recognition was the condition which
the rebels most pertinaciously insisted upon, whilst the Spaniards'
offers of millions of dollars were always met by much larger demands,
which practically implied a refusal to treat on a money basis. The
facts in the negotiations certainly support Aguinaldo's statement
to me that the rebels never sought money, but political advantage,
by the retention of the prisoners.

The intense excitement in Spain over the prisoners' doo