RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
left off when Admiral Dewey steamed up Manila Bay. It was hopeless from the start, and one after another of the leading insurrectos, as the months went by, abandoned the struggle in favour of prosperous peace and came in to Manila to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. But as pacification progressed a few of the leaders declared themselves to be "irreconcilable" and either took to the hills with marauding bands of ladrones, or went over to Hongkong and joined the little Filipino colony there. This colony in Hongkong—which still exists, by the way—was known as the "junta" and its business in life was to hatch schemes for murderous uprisings, smuggle arms and incendiary literature into the islands, raise money for carrying on hostilities and make itself useful generally.
The methods employed by these "irreconcilables" were peculiarly their own. They consisted, mainly, of coercion and threats of assassination among Filipino people who were staying at home and endeavouring to keep out of trouble. Then, too, they were reported to have made a great deal of money by compelling Filipino hemp and tobacco planters to sell to them these valuable products at prices fixed by themselves, and later disposing of them in Hongkong at the regular market price which gave them a tremendous margin of profit.
These were the conditions—merely sketched—which existed in the Philippine Islands when the second Commission was sent out, and the first Filpinos Mr. Taft ever met, he met in Hongkong. They were not members of the "junta" but were high-class, wealthy, non-combatant refugees named Cortez, who lived under a threat of assassination, who had had all their property confiscated because of their sympathy with the insurrection against Spain, had secured restitution through the government at Washington, and who came now to beg the Commission for protection against their own
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