There is abundant evidence that the natives of the Cagayan valley clothed and fed them when they could, and wept over the painful humiliations and the dreadful sufferings which they were powerless to prevent or relieve.
The tormentors were men from distant provinces, with no possible personal grievances against the priests whom they martyrized.

Their action was the result, not of an "ebullition of revenge for three centuries of tyranny" as stated by Blount, but of insensate greed of gold and damnable viciousness.

I believe the American people will hold that such cruelities brand those who practise them as unfit to govern their fellows, or themselves.
Lest I be accused of basing my conclusions on _ex parte_ statements I will now return to the Insurgent record of events in the Cagayan valley.
At the outset the Spanish officers of the Tabacalera Company [290] 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.