Note 9 — Special Note.

And who shall say that the hand of Divine Justice has not protected as well as avenged. For many months the katipuneros had woven a fine-meshed net around the Spanish population of the Philippines, a labor the more easily accomplished in the same degree as the scandalous carelessness of the Blanco administration became more and more marked. Blanco himself was a freemason9 and was always, like our present civil administration, surrounded by friends of his own choice, people who at no time suffered from an excess of patriotism; and the few honorable exceptions which did exist were, unfortunately, persons whose good moral influence was powerless to better a situation which day by day became worse10.