This meant, "It is true we do love the Almighty Dollar very dearly, oh, Sisters of the Family of Nations, but there are some axiomatic principles of human liberty that we love better, and one of them is the 'unalienable right' of every people to pursue happiness in their own way, free from alien domination." All these things were well known to both the contracting parties when Admiral Dewey set Aguinaldo ashore at Cavite, May 20, 1898, and got him to start his insurrection "under the protection of our guns," as he expressed it. [34] Accordingly, when the insurgent leader went ashore, the declaration of war was his major premise, the assurances of our consuls and the acts of our Admiral pursuant thereto were his minor premise, and Independence was his conclusion. Trusting to the faith and honor of the American people, he took his life in his hands, left the panoplied safety of our mighty squadron, and plunged, single-handed, into the struggle for Freedom. What was the state of the public mind on shore, and how was it prepared to receive his assurances of American aid? Consider the following picture in the light of its sombre sequel. Just as the war broke out, Consul Williams had left Manila and gone over to Hong Kong, where he joined Admiral Dewey, and accompanied him back to Manila, and was thus privileged to be present at the battle of Manila Bay, May 1st. Under date of May 12th, from his consular headquarters aboard the U. S. S. Baltimore, he reports [35] going ashore at Cavite and being received with enthusiastic greetings by vast crowds of Filipinos. "They crowded around me," says Brother Williams, "hats off, shouting 'Viva los Americanos,' thronged about me by hundreds to shake either hand, even several at a time, men, women, and children, striving to get even a finger to shake. So I moved half a mile, shaking continuously with both hands." Tut! tut! says the casual reader. What did the Government at Washington know of all these goings on, that it should be charged later with having violated as binding a moral obligation as ever a nation assumed? It is true that the news of the Williams ovation, as in the case of the Pratt serenade, reached Washington only by the slow channels of the mail. But Washington did in fact receive the said news by due course of mail. When it came, however, Washington was nursing visions of savages in blankets smoking the pipe of peace with the agents of the Great White Father in the White House--i.e., thought, or hoped, the Filipinos were savages--and remained as deaf to the sounds of the Williams ovation as it had been to the strains of the Pratt serenade. However, hardly had Admiral Dewey taken his binoculars from the gig that carried Aguinaldo ashore to raise his auxiliary insurrection, when he called his Flag Secretary, or the equivalent, and dictated the following cablegram to the Secretary of the Navy: