“A beautiful city, Admiral Rainey—from a distance. Strongly fortified—for the fifteenth century. But you can sweep away the fortifications as easily as you sank the Spanish war vessels. What is a walled city with a moat to guns that will carry for miles?”
“I do not doubt, General Saguanaldo,” returned the American admiral as he sat on deck of his flag ship in the harbor of Manila, faultlessly garbed as though for a party, talking to the Filipino insurgent after the battle that had spread his name around the globe, “I do not doubt my ability to reduce the Spanish works, but I was looking to the future. Should I destroy so much private property as would be involved in bombarding Manila I would make enemies of the owners, who would give us trouble in days to come. I dare not take such a serious step until I am instructed from America.”
“But consider, admiral,” plead the insurgent, “Manila sits there, fair to see, but she has drawn the very life from the people of the interior for centuries. The private property of which you speak was gotten from labor by the sorrow of others.”
“You are doubtless right, general, and I would not blame you if you should seek revenge from them, for your people have suffered greatly. But with me it is a different proposition. I am not acting for myself alone.”
“Nor am I. It may be you do not know the sorrows of Luzon, Señor Admiral!”
“It may be I do not, General Saguanaldo.”
“May I tell you of them, Admiral Rainey?”
“I shall be pleased to know more of this land that I have just come to command until my country tells me what to do, or ends the unhappy war.”
“When Spaniards from Mexico first landed in Maynila, centuries ago,” continued General Saguanaldo, “the simple-minded natives bowed to the white people as to gods; and they have been on their knees rendering tribute of Luzon’s products ever since. It did not take the natives long to learn the nature of the Spaniards, who were inflamed by the lust of gold, both by their experience with the Incas and Aztecs in America and by the hard terms of the Spanish rulers, for we have had to pay tribute to Rome, to Spain and to Mexico—all.”
“I am told the people of the interior are primitive—half naked Igorrotes, or Negritos, wearing only breech clouts.”