ordinary uncertainty of the sea as the risk of capture by English
freebooters. Everybody in the Philippines had heard of these daring
English mariners, who were emboldened by an almost unbroken series of
successes which had correspondingly discouraged the Spaniards. They
carried on unceasing war despite occasional proclamation of peace
between England and Spain, for the Spanish treasure ships were
tempting prizes, and though at times policy made their government
desire friendly relations with Spain, the English people regarded
all Spaniards as their natural enemies and all Spanish property as
their legitimate spoil.

The Filipinos realized earlier than the Spaniards did that torturing to
death shipwrecked English sailors was bad policy. The result was always
to make other English sailors fight more desperately to avoid a similar
fate. Revenge made them more and more aggressive, and treaties made
with Spain were disregarded because, as they said, Spain's inhumanity
had forfeited her right to be considered a civilized country.

It was less publicly discussed, but equally well known, that the
English freebooters, besides committing countless depredations
on commerce, were always ready to lend their assistance to any
discontented Spanish subjects whom they could encourage into open
rebellion.

The English word Filibuster was changed into "Filibusteros" by the
Spanish, and in later years it came to be applied especially to those
charged with stirring up discontent and rebellion. For three centuries,
in its early application to the losses of commerce, and in its later
use as denoting political agitation, possibly no other word in the
Philippines, outside of the ordinary expressions of daily life, was
so widely known, and certainly none had such sinister signification.

In contrast to this lawless association is a similarity of laws. The
followers of Cortez, it will be remembered, were welcomed in Mexico
as the long-expected "Fair Gods" because of their blond complexions
derived from a Gothic ancestry. Far back in history their forbears
had been neighbors of the Anglo-Saxons in the forests of Germany,
so that the customs of Anglo-Saxon England and of the Gothic
kingdom of Castile had much in common. The "Laws of the Indies,"
the disregard of which was the ground of most Filipino complaints
up to the very last days of the rule of Spain, was a compilation
of such of these Anglo-Saxon-Castilian laws and customs as it was
thought could be extended to the Americas, originally called the New
Kingdom of Castile, which included the Philippine Archipelago. Thus
the New England township and the Mexican, and consequently the early
Philippine pueblo, as units of local government are nearly related.

These American associations, English influences, and Anglo-Saxon ideals
also culminated in the life work of Jose Rizal, the heir of all the
past ages in Philippine history. But other causes operating in his
own day--the stories of his elders, the incidents of his childhood,
the books he read, the men he met, the travels he made--as later
pages will show--contributed further to make him the man he was.

It was fortunate for the Philippines that after the war of
misunderstanding with the United States there existed a character that
commanded the admiration of both sides. Rizal's writings revealed to
the Americans aspirations that appealed to them and conditions that
called forth their sympathy, while the Filipinos felt confidence,
for that reason, in the otherwise incomprehensible new government
which honored their hero.

Rizal was already, and had been for years, without rival as the idol
of his countrymen when there came, after deliberation and delay, his
official recognition in the Philippines. Necessarily there had to be
careful study of his life and scrutiny of his writings before the head
of our nation could indorse as the corner stone of the new government
which succeeded Spain's misrule, the very ideas which Spain had
considered a sufficient warrant for shooting their author as a traitor.

Finally the President of the United States in a public address at
Fargo, North Dakota, on April 7, 1903--five years after American
scholars had begun to study Philippine affairs as they had never
been studied before--declared: "In the Philippine Islands the
American government has tried, and is trying, to carry out exactly
what the greatest genius and most revered patriot ever known in the
Philippines, Jose Rizal, steadfastly advocated," a formal, emphatic
and clear-cut expression of national policy upon a question then of
paramount interest.

In the light of the facts of Philippine history already set forth
there is no cause for wonder at this sweeping indorsement, even
though the views so indorsed were those of a man who lived in
conditions widely different from those about to be introduced by
the new government. Rizal had not allowed bias to influence him in
studying the past history of the Philippines, he had been equally
honest with himself in judging the conditions of his own time, and
he knew and applied with the same fairness the teaching which holds
true in history as in every other branch of science that like causes
under like conditions must produce like results, He had been careful in
his reasoning, and it stood the test, first of President Roosevelt's
advisers, or otherwise that Fargo speech would never have been made,
and then of all the President's critics, or there would have been
heard more of the statement quoted above which passed unchallenged,
but not, one may be sure, uninvestigated.

The American system is in reality not foreign to the Philippines,
but it is the highest development, perfected by experience, of the
original plan under which the Philippines had prospered and progressed
until its benefits were wrongfully withheld from them. Filipino