[290] La Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, a very strong commercial organization.

[291] “I call your attention to the fact that the only terms to the surrender were to respect life, and it was for this reason that I seized all the money they [i.e. the friars,—­D.C.W.] had hidden away, which was accomplished by applying the stick.  In this capital I found thirty-four thousand dollars in silver and a draft on the Compania General de Tabacos for twenty thousand dollars which can be collected here...

“The bearer can give you more details concerning the abuses committed in this province of Vizcayana by the forces of Mayor Duflin Esquizel.  Also, I wish to inform you that we have done nothing to the Compania General de Tabacos, for we have learned from their records that much of their stock is held by Frenchmen, and consequently we fear a conflict.  For this reason we await your orders on this matter.  We took all the arms we found in their possession, however.”—­P.I.R., 271.2.

[292] P.I.R. 192.4.

[293] “I was in that town, for a similar purpose, with Governor Taft in 1901, after a bloody war which almost certainly would not have occurred had the Paris Peace Commission known the conditions then existing, just like this, all over Luzon and the Visayan Islands.”—­Blount, p. 116.

[294] “On account of this the vulgar people doubted the legality of our actions in the collection of taxes, and accordingly it became difficult; and this, coupled with the inveterate abuses of the heads of the towns, which the head of the province was not able to perceive in time to check, caused a tumult in Echague, which, owing to wise councils and efforts at pacification, was appeased without it being followed by serious consequences; but I have no doubt that this tumult was due only to the suggestions of ungovernable and passionate persons animated by the spirit of faction, since those who took part in it were all Ilocanos, no native of Echague having any hand in it.  The same thing occurred in Naguilian, where the disorders were also quieted.  Not only did I make no report of all this to the government of the republic on account of the abnormality of the present conditions, but I also succeeded in concealing them from the foreigners here so that they should not succeed in discovering the truth, which would be to the prejudice of our cause.”—­Taylor, 42 AJ.

[295] “I may add that as judge of that district in 1901-2 there came before me a number of cases in the trial of which the fact would be brought out of this or that difference among the local authorities having been referred to the Malolos Government for settlement.  And they always awaited until they heard from it,”—­Blount, p 112.

[296] “General Otis’s reports are full of the most inexcusable blounders about how ‘the Tagals’ took possession of the various provinces and just about those of a New Yorker or a Bostonian sent up to Vermont in the days of the American Revolution to help organize the resistance there, in conjunction with one of the local leaders of the patriot cause in the Green Mountain State.”—­Blount, p. 112.