ho
had been Insurgent officers or soldiers and while serving in this
capacity had become so enamoured of a lawless life that they were now
unwilling to settle down and work for their daily bread, preferring
to continue to live off their long-suffering fellow-countrymen,
whom they robbed and murdered more mercilessly than ever.

The war was practically over. The insurrection had failed. In my
opinion no Filipino who held out to the end for independence compared
in intellectual power with Mabini, and I deem his views as to why
it failed worthy of special attention. At the time of his death,
he left behind a memoir from which I quote the following:--

"The revolution failed because it was poorly led, because its head
conquered his place, not by meritorious, but by reprehensible actions,
because in place of supporting the men most useful to the people,
he rendered them useless because he was jealous of them. Believing
that the aggrandizement of the people was nothing more than his own
personal aggrandizement, he did not judge the merits of men by their
capacity, character, or patriotism, but by the degree of friendship
and relationship which bound them to him; and wishing to have his
favorites always ready to sacrifice themselves for him, he showed
himself complaisant to their faults. Having thus secured the people,
the people deserted him. And the people having deserted him, he had
to fall like a wax idol melted by the heat of adversity. God forbid
that we should forget so terrible a lesson learned at the cost of
unspeakable sufferings." [426]

These are by no means the only reasons why the revolution failed,
but they foredoomed it to failure.

The surrender or capture of the more respectable military element
left the unsurrendered firearms in the hands of men most of whom
were ignorant, many of whom were criminal, and nearly all of whom
were irresponsible and unscrupulous.

Strict enforcement of the rules of civilized warfare against them
was threatened, but not actually resorted to.

The situation was particularly bad in Batangas. General J. F. Bell
was put in charge there, and he found a humane and satisfactory
solution of the existing difficulties in reconcentration--not the
kind of reconcentration which made the Spaniards hated in Cuba, but
a measure of a wholly different sort. This measure and its results
have been concisely described by Taylor, as follows:--

"General Bell said he was as anxious as any one