of the allegiance and unquestioning support of the Filipinos, [93]
but it is to be feared that the sending of this cablegram was only
one more move in the Insurgent game of deceit.

There were annexationists in Manila as well as in Hongkong. [94]
Indeed we know that some of the strongest and best of the Filipinos
there were in favour of it.

Felipe Buencamino, writing in 1901, said:--

"In June of 1898, Don Cayetano Arellano [95] addressed to Don
Felipe Buencamino and Don Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista a letter
written from the town of Pagsanján, province of Laguna, in reply
to one addressed to him by those two gentlemen. In this letter Don
Cayetano outlined the idea of union with the United States and said:
'Avoid all doing and undoing, and when America has established a stable
order of affairs, then it will be time enough to make laws.' Mabini,
whose influence at that time was in the ascendant in Aguinaldo's
government, paid no heed to this wise advice. In October of 1898,
while the Philippine government was established in Malolos, and before
congress had promulgated a Philippine constitution, Messrs. Arellano
and Pardo [96] still more earnestly advocated union with America,
the first as secretary of foreign affairs and the latter as chief
diplomat. Their plan consisted in asking the United States to
acknowledge the independence of the country under a protectorate
through the mediation of General Otis, and this plan was accepted at
a cabinet meeting by Don Emilio Aguinaldo. But on the following day
Sandico came and told Aguinaldo that he had had a conference with
the Japanese consul and had been told by him: 'that if Aguinaldo
would support absolute independence the Japanese Government would