Note 1 — Chapter XIII · THE SAFE-CONDUCT

Powerful influences now seemed to draw him again to the East; it is likely that but for his book he would have gone thither direct from Madrid when he learned how little help he might expect from the gross and inert government. The situation of his family caused him a harrowing anxiety.1 It was for his sake that they were subjected to the abominable persecutions of the petty tyrants of the existing System. His soul revolted at the idea that they should be thus tormented while he was safely out of the range of his enemies’ venom. After his consultations with the Filipinos in Madrid the gloomy outlook in the Philippines was more than before a burden on his thought. He must have known that this time, as he had forecasted in his writings, revolt would be more than local. He could hardly hope to be allowed to land in the Islands, but Hong-Kong was a convenient point from which to watch developments and to put forth his influence; and as to his family he began to have a purpose that if carried out would take them beyond the power of Spanish officers to hector and to wound. In October, 1891, he sailed for Hong-Kong, where he hoped to establish himself in his profession, to gather his family, and to be ready to help his countrymen with the cautionary wisdom of which he held them to be most in need.