In the meantime the peace movement was rapidly gaining adherents among the people in spite of the still active insurrectos , or rather, because of them and their methods; while everybody seemed to welcome the change from a strictly military to a partially civil government.

The popularity of the Commission, as offering a change from the strictness of military rule, was becoming every day more marked. Juan de Juan, a Spaniard, and editor of the lively organ El Progreso , which was always in opposition to anything American, said that on the first of September when the Commission began to exercise its authority, he intended to devote the whole front page of his paper to just three words: “Gracias a Dios,”⁠—Thanks to God! Juan de Juan was a good deal of a Bohemian and really cared little what happened so long as he got a sensation out of it. September first came and went, and I don’t remember whether he made good this extravagant threat or not. I presume he didn’t for, though I had been in Manila less than a week, I surely would have remembered.