Note 15 — Chapter III · Insurgent “Coöperation”

On August 21, Apacible obviously did not think that it would be an easy matter to escape from Spanish domination, much less that the islands were already rid of it, for he wrote to Mabini that the United States were likely again to deliver the Filipinos into the hands of Spain. He said that “if events will be what their telegrams indicate, we have a dark and bloody future before us. To be again in the hands of Spain will mean a long and bloody war, and it is doubtful whether the end will be favourable to us... Spain free from Cuba and her other colonies will employ her energy to crush us and will send here the 150,000 men she has in Cuba.”15 Apacible thought that the best thing was independence under an American protectorate.