given under date of August 26, 1898, to the effect that friendly
relations should be maintained with the Americans until the diplomatic
negotiations at Paris should end; that an effort should be made
to find out the future status of the islands "by deceitful means,"
and that confidence should never be put in the Americans.

Aguinaldo put the whole matter in a nutshell in a postscript to this
letter, saying:--

"You should issue an order commanding that all our chiefs should
employ a policy of friendship toward the Americans until our status
is defined; but said order should be confidentially given. Try to
mislead them." [75]

Bray also very strongly advised awaiting the results of the Paris
conference. [76]

Blount claims that the Filipinos hoped that the Treaty of Paris
would leave their country to them as it left Cuba to the Cubans,
[77] and adds that having helped us take the city of Manila, they
"felt that they had been 'given the double cross,'" "believed that
the Americans had been guilty of a duplicity rankly Machiavellian,
and that was the cause of the war." [78]

The quotations already given from Insurgent records show plainly
that the principal thing for which the Filipinos were waiting was
the ousting of Spain from the Philippines by the United States; those
which follow show that war was by no means inevitable as a result of
a a decision at Paris adverse to Filipino hopes, for the question of
whether a United States protectorate, or even annexation to the United