Note 20 — Chapter VI · Insurgent Rule in the Cagayan Valley

At the outset the Spanish officers of the Tabacalera Company20 fared comparatively well. In a letter dated September 27, 1898, and addressed to the secretary of war of the revolutionary government, Leyba says of the taking of Tuguegarao that the only terms of the surrender were to respect life. He therefore felt at liberty to seize all the money that the friars had hidden, “which was accomplished by applying the stick.” He adds that they did nothing to the agents of the great Tabacalera Company, then the most powerful commercial organization in the Islands, for the significant reason that they had found that its stock was largely held by Frenchmen and feared trouble.21