Those who have been long resident in the Far East and are well informed on the subject do not take that view at all. From the facts which I am about to give regarding this rebellion it will be clearly seen that the above statement is merely a hypothetical conjecture. A plot was formed, at the instance of rich Chinese half-breeds, to murder all the Europeans. The priests choose to call this secret society "freemasonry," whilst the conspirators themselves style their body the "Katipunan," which simply means the "League." Each member, on being sworn in, made the "blood compact," which consists of an incision in the arm or leg whence the blood was taken to inscribe the roll of brotherhood. The general massacre of whites was to have taken place on the night of the 20th of August last, but at almost the last hour a woman came to Father Mariano Gil, the parish priest of Tondo--a suburb of Manila--and paved the way for a repentant member of the League to make his full confession of the plot under a promise of immunity from punishment. The promise was given and the confession made. An hour afterwards the civil guard was on the track of the principal leaders of the movement. Three hundred known malcontents were arrested in a few hours in the capital and adjacent provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga and further arrests having since been effected daily, the Manila prisons are overcrowded with suspects and proved delinquents. Room for more is being made by the periodical shipping off of batches of prisoners to the Caroline Islands, Mindanao Island, Fernando Po, and other distant possessions. I have just learnt from the secretary of the military court that at this moment there are 4,377 individuals awaiting trial by court-martial. Many of the richest men in the colony, the leaders of Manila society, such as it is, figure amongst the promoters of this conspiracy. Pedro Rojas, a wealthy Chinese half-caste and popularly supposed to be the prime mover of the rebellion, accepted the hospitality of the Governor-General in his palace only forty-eight hours before the hour destined to witness the general massacre. The most curious fact--which no one dares to discuss in public--is that this man, denounced by all, was allowed to quietly leave the colony. He embarked in a steamer, ostensibly for Spain, but left it at Singapore and is supposed to be residing in some Asiatic port to watch events. The arch-agitator, José Rizal, who had been purging himself of his former misdemeanors by a two years' banishment to the south, was sent as a prisoner to Spain, where he was confined in the Catalunian fortress of Montjuich for a few days and then shipped back to Manila for trial.