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"The Admiral replied that he 'was delighted at my sincerity, and believed that both Filipinos and Americans should treat each other as allies and friends, clearly explaining all doubts for the better understanding between both parties, and added that, 'so he had been informed, the United States would recognize the independence of the Filipino people, guaranteed by the word of honor of the Americans, more binding than documents which may remain unfulfilled when it is desired to fail in them as happened with the compacts signed by the Spaniards, advising me to form at once a Filipino national flag, offering in virtue thereof to recognize and protect it before the other nations, which were represented by the various squadrons then in the Bay; although he said we should conquer the power from the Spaniards before floating said flag, so that the act should be more honourable in the sight of the whole world, and, above all, before the United States, in order that when the Filipino ships with their national flag would pass before the foreign squadrons they should inspire respect and esteem.

Curiously, the Sultan seems to have remained unmoved by the appeal. Masbate This tight little island of 1236 square miles had in 1903 a Visayan population of 29,451. Its people are all Filipinos, and are on the whole rather an unusually orderly and worthy set.

It should be remembered that these conditions were allowed to arise by a Filipino provincial governor, and by Filipino municipal officials. It is altogether probable that a good American governor would have prevented them, but as it was, neither their cause nor their importance were understood at the outset. The pulájan movement was directed primarily against Filipinos.

With little of the encouragement which might have come from appreciative interest at home, thousands of Americans have now labored in the Philippines for almost twenty years, but with little disposition to settle there permanently. Their efforts to develop the Filipinos have achieved remarkable success.

This zealous officer and district magistrate, in the years 1786-1788 caused 4,485,782 mulberry trees to be planted in the thirty districts under his jurisdiction; and incalculable are the happy results which would have attended a plan so extensive, and commenced with so much vigor, if it could have been continued with the same zeal by his successor, and not at once destroyed, through a mistaken notion of humanity, with which, soon after the departure of Governor Basco, they proceeded to exonerate the Filipinos from all agricultural labor that was not free and spontaneous, in conformity, as was then alleged, to the general spirit of our Indian legislation.

Not only did the Filipinos themselves understand perfectly well that they had no republic, but there were many of them who were fully aware of the fact that they could establish none. Fernando Acevedo, in writing to General Pío del Pilar on August 8, 1898, said:

I am willing to admit to-day that I vastly overrated Romoldo's services, and yet, considering the untutored state of his mind and the extent of his salary, they were a good investment. There has been among some Americans here a carping and antagonistic spirit displayed toward Filipinos, which reflects little credit upon our national consistency or charity.

This latter form of local government is confined to the more primitive wild people. The judiciary is independent. Three of the seven justices of the supreme court, including the chief justice, are Filipinos, as are approximately half of the judges of the courts of first instance and practically all justices of the peace.

Filipinos who place themselves in the service of the enemy acting as spies or disclosing to them secrets of war and the plans of revolutionary positions and fortifications, and those who present themselves under a flag of truce without justifying properly their office and their personality; and 4th, those who fail to recognize a flag of truce duly accredited in the forms, prescribed by international law.

Many Filipinos are still to be found in Fernando Po and in various military prisons in Spain suffering the grievous consequences of the punishment inflicted upon them unjustly and the inclemencies of the climate to which they are not accustomed.