erent. It is probable, too, that the
liberty which Freemasons enjoyed to meet in secret session was taken
advantage of by the leaguers. There were risings in the Islands
long before the introduction of Freemasonry. This secret society
was introduced into the Colony a little before the year 1850. In
1893 the first lodges of the Spanish Grand Orient were opened,
and there were never more than 16 lodges of this Order up to the
evacuation by the Spaniards. Each lodge had about 30 members, or,
say, a total of 500. The Spanish deputy, Dr. Miguel Morayta, in his
speech in the Spanish Congress in April, 1904, stated that General
Ramon Blanco's reply to Father Mariano Gil (the discoverer of the
_Katipunan_) was that the identity of Freemasonry with _Katipunan_
"existed only in the brains of the friars and fanatical Spaniards."

[174] By intermarriage and blood relationship Don Pedro P. Rojas is
allied with several of the best Manila families. His grandfather,
Don Domingo Rojas, a prominent citizen in his time, having become a
victim of intrigue, was confined in the Fortress of Santiago, under
sentence of death. The day prior to that fixed for his execution, he
was visited by a friend, and the next morning when the executioner
entered his cell, Don Domingo was found in a dying condition,
apparently from the effect of poison. Don Domingo had a son Jose and
a daughter Marguerita. On their father's death, they and Jose's son,
the present Don Pedro P. Rojas, went to Spain, where Dona Marguerita
espoused a Spaniard, Don Antonio de Ayala, and Don Jose obtained from
the Spanish Government a declaration stating that whereas Don Domingo
had been unjustly condemned to capital punishment, the Gov.-General
was ordered to refund, out of his own pocket, to the Rojas family
the costs of the trial. The Rojas and Ayala families then returned
to the Philippines, where Don Antonio de Ayala made a considerable
fortune in business and had two daughters, one of whom, Dona Carmen,
married Don Pedro P. Rojas, and the other wedded Don Jacobo Zobel, an
apothecary of large means and of German descent. Don Pedro P. Rojas,
who was born in 1848, has two sons and two daughters. The three
families belonged to the _elite_ of Manila society, whilst the Rojas
and the Ayalas acquired a just reputation both for their enterprising
spirit, which largely benefited the Colony, and for their charitable
philanthropy towards all classes.

[175] _Aguinaldo_ is the Spanish