AGUINALDO'S ACTION 421 arms, and the question was reserved as to whether these should be returned to them before they were conveyed back to Spain. The United States army and navy guaranteed the safety of life and propertyin thecity. In order to carry out this last stipulation many of the Spanishbattalions retained their arms for some and assisted the Americans in guarding the northern approaches to the city against Aguinaldo's men.

In all. 7,000 Spanish troops laid down their arms. Before the capitulation was signed the Spaniards burned the gunboat Cebu in the river Pasig. General Augustin had embarked for Hong Kong on board the Gerwere the Philiopine insurgents over-anxious at first to push matters to the decision of combat. Thetreaty withSpain, or at least the preliminary draft, left the fate of the islands uncertain.

Agoncillo,alawyer and a colleague of Aguinaldo, was despatched from Manila to Washington to represent the Malolps Republic, and to try to obtain some promise of independence under an American protectorate. Hopes werebuilt upon the fact that a large number of the senators in the American Congress were known to be anything but enthusiasts for colonial expansion. But American opinion was seriously prejudiced against theadvocates ofPhilippine independence by the terrible news that came from the islands AGUINALDO.

Photo: Met Chung,HongKong.)

man flagship. His second in command, General Jaudenes, negotiated the terms of surrender.

Aguinaldo,indignant at the way- in which he had been first used as a tool, then thrust into the background, made vain endeavours to obtain from the Americans a pledge that they would inaugurate an independent republic of the Philippines. Failing in this,he proclaimed the Republic atMalolos on September 16th.

A subsidiary republic wasproclaimed at Iloilo, the chief town of the South-Eastern Philippines, the group known as the Visayas. Arms were imported, and, if rumour speaks truly, some of them came from Japan, and with them came "ome adventurers who had served in the Japanese army.

The Americans were anxious, if possible, to avoid armed strife with the people they had come to deliver from Spanish domination. Nor of the atrocities inflicted on the adherents of Spanishruleby the insurgents If was naturallyasked if the island empire of Spain in the Far East was to be transferred to the rule of men who had proved themselves to be more than half savages. There was an unpleasant feeling, too, that, on the night of the sortie from Manila in the last week beforeits capture, the retreat of Aguinaldo's men that left the American flank open to attack was due to treachery rather than carelessness. Yet even with these adverse influences the fate of the Philippines was still in the balance, when on the very eve of the vote in the Senate Aguinaldo's army, on the night of the qth of February, iSno, attacked the American outpostsbefore Manila,and were onlyrepulsed alter thirteen hours of hard fighting.

The insurgents had hoped for a rising of the native population in the streets of the city, but there were only a few isolated attacks made on