Note 1 — Chapter XVII · RESULTS AND INFLUENCES

For months the war was fought with varying chances. Sometimes the Filipinos routed the Spaniards;1 sometimes they were driven back. Fresh troops came from Spain; gradually the revolutionists retired into the mountains; but it was evident that no forces the Spaniards were likely to gather would be enough to suppress this uprising. What Spain faced was such years of wearying warfare as had drained her treasury and brought her shame in Cuba. It was a prospect the Government viewed with no satisfaction. Another governor-general, Primo de Rivera, came out to take the place of Polavieja, the foolish man that had led the mad hunt after Katipunanists. Once before de Rivera had been governor-general; by some extravagance he was believed to understand the Filipinos and to be their friend. He now sought to end a strife so unpromising of any result except deficits. A meeting was arranged with the insurgent chiefs, at which a treaty2 was patched together whereby the Filipinos were to have all the reforms and rights they had demanded and had fought for, except actual independence. When we come to look to-day at these sweeping changes we should note that prominent among them was the triumph of the people so long delayed over the orders. These were to be expelled or secularized.3 Complete religious freedom was explicitly guaranteed—and no more friars, no more System. By this token it would seem, then, that Rizal had already conquered. He exposed the orders; the orders killed him, but apparently wrought thereby their own ruin.