religious corporations in the
Philippines be expelled and an autonomous system of government,
political and administrative, be established, though by special
request of General Primo de Rivera these conditions were not insisted
on in the drawing up of the Treaty, the General contending that such
concessions would subject the Spanish Government to severe criticism
and even ridicule.

General Primo de Rivera paid the first installment of $400,000 while
the two Generals were hold as hostages in Biak-na-bato.

We, the revolutionaries, discharged our obligation to surrender our
arms, which were over 1,000 stand, as everybody knows, it having
been published in the Manila newspapers. But the Captain General
Primo de Rivera failed to fulfill the agreement as faithfully as
we did. The other installments were never paid; the Friars were
neither restricted in their acts of tyranny and oppression nor were
any steps taken to expel them or secularize the religious Orders;
the reforms demanded were not inaugurated, though the _Te Deum_
was sung. This failure of the Spanish authorities to abide by the
terms of the Treaty caused me and my companions much unhappiness,
which quickly changed to exasperation when I received a letter from
Lieutenant-Colonel Don Miguel Primo de Rivera (nephew and private
Secretary of the above-named General) informing me that I and my
companions could never return to Manila.

Was the procedure of this special representative of Spain just?

CHAPTER III

Negotiations

But I and my companions were not to be kept long in our distress,
grieving over the bad faith of the Spaniards, for in the month of
March of the year referred to (1898) some people came to me and in the
name of the Commander of the U.S.S. _Petrel_ asked for a conference
in compliance with the wishes of Admiral Dewey.

I had some interviews with the above-mentioned Commander, _i.e._,
during the evening of the 16th March and 6th April, during which the
Commander urged me to return to the Philippines to renew hostilities
against the Spaniards with the object of gaining our independence,
and he assured me of the assistance of the United States in the event
of war between the United States and Spain.

I then asked the Commander of the _Petrel_ what the United States
could concede to the Filipinos. In reply he said: "_The United States
is a great and rich nation and needs no colonies_."

In view of this reply I suggested to the Comma