Note 3 — Chapter III · Of Military Justice

In the evening of February 10 the native civil government held an extraordinary session in the Town Hall to discuss the course to be adopted in view of the announced bombardment. The public, Filipinos and foreigners, were invited to this meeting to take part in the debate if they wished, Raymundo Melliza, Victorino Mapa, Martin Delgado, and Pablo Araneta, being amongst those who were present. It was proposed to burn the town. Melliza vehemently protested against such a barbarous act, and asked why they should destroy their own property? What could they gain by pillage and flames?3 But a certain V—— and his party clamoured for the destruction of the place, and being supported by an influential lawyer (native of another province) and by one of the insurgent generals, Melliza exclaimed, “If you insist on plunder and devastation, I shall retire altogether,” whereupon a tremendous hubbub ensued, in the midst of which Melliza withdrew and went over to Guimarás Island. But there were touches of humour in the speeches, especially when a fire-eating demagogue gravely proposed to surround an American warship with canoes and seize her; and again when Quintin Salas declared that the Americans would have to pass over his corpse before the town surrendered! Incendiaries and thieves were in overwhelming majority at the meeting; naturally (to the common people in these Islands) an invitation to despoil, lay waste and slay, bolstered up by apparent authority, found a ready response, especially among the Tagálog mercenaries who had no local attachment here. The instigators of this barbarity sought no share of the spoils; they had no property interests in Yloilo, but they were jealous of those who had. The animosity of Jaro and Molo against Yloilo had existed for years, the formersʼ townspeople being envious of the prosperous development of Yloilo (once a mere fishing-village), which obscured the significance of the episcopal city of Jaro and detracted from the social importance of the rich Chinese half-caste residential town of Molo.4 Chiefly from these towns came the advocates of anarchy, whose hearts swelled with fiendish delight at the prospect of witnessing the utter ruin and humiliation of their rivals in municipal prestige. Yloilo, from that moment, was abandoned to the armed rabble, who raided the small shops for petroleum to throw on to the woodwork of the houses prior to the coming onslaught. The bombardment having been announced for the 12th, they reckoned on a full day for burning and sacking the town. But early in the morning of the 11th the steam-launch Pitt, whilst reconnoitring the harbour, was fired upon; the launch replied and withdrew. Natives were observed to be busy digging a trench and hastening to and from the cotta at the harbour entrance; there was every indication of their warlike intentions. Therefore suddenly, at 9 oʼclock that morning, without further notification, the Americans opened fire. The natives in the cotta fled along the quayway towards the centre of the town under a shower of bullets hurled from the quick-firing guns. The attack on Yloilo was hardly a bombardment proper; shells were intentionally thrown over the houses as a warning and burst in suburban open spaces, but comparatively few buildings were damaged by the missiles. In the meantime, from early morn, the native soldiery, followed by a riff-raff mob, rushed hither and thither, throwing firebrands on to the petroleum-washed houses, looting stores, and cutting down whomsoever checked them in their wild career. The Chinese barricaded themselves, but the flames devoured their well-stocked bazaars; panic-stricken townsfolk ran helter-skelter, escaping from the yelling bands of bloodthirsty looters. Europeans, revolver in hand, guarded their properties against the murderous rabble; an acquaintance of mine was hastening to the bank to deposit ₱3,000 when he was met by the leader S——, who demanded his money or his life; one foreign business house was defended by 15 armed Europeans, whilst others threw out handfuls of pesos to stay the work of the pétroleur. The German Vice-Consul, an old friend of mine, went mad at the sight of his total loss; a Swiss merchant, my friend for over 20 years, had his fine corner premises burnt down to the stone walls, and is now in comparative poverty. Even Spanish half-castes were menaced and contemptuously called Cachilas5; and the women escaped for their lives on board the schooners in the harbour. Half the town was blazing, and the despairing cries of some, the yells of exultant joy of others, mingled with the booming of the invadersʼ cannon.