Note 22 — Chapter IV · Merritt and Aguinaldo

On one occasion General Merritt passed through the village of Bacoor where Aguinaldo had his headquarters, but, says Mr. Millet22 in mentioning this, “They never met.” After the taking of the city, General Merritt remembered that with some 13,000 Spanish prisoners to guard, and a city of 300,000 people, all but a sprinkling of whom were in sympathy with the insurgent cause, on his hands, and an army of at least 14,000 insurgents—probably far more than that—clamoring without the gates of that city, and only 10,000 men of his own with whom to handle such a situation, frankness was out of the question, in view of his orders from the President.23 Therefore, on the day after the city surrendered, General Merritt issued a proclamation, copying24 verbatim from Mr. McKinley’s instructions (ante) such innocuous milk-and-water passages as the one which assured the people that our government “has not come to wage war upon them * * * but to protect them in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights; all persons who, by active aid or honest submission, co-operate with the United States * * * will receive the reward of its support and protection.” But he carefully omitted the words quoted above about the powers of the military occupant being absolute and supreme, “lest his [Aguinaldo’s] pretensions,” to use General Merritt’s expression, “should clash with my designs.” “For these reasons,” says General Merritt (p. 40), “the preparations for the attack on the city were * * * conducted without reference to the situation of the insurgent forces.”