This Dewey-Anderson call on Aguinaldo was on July 1st. Admiral Dewey now began to foresee that the Washington programme was going to put him in an awkward position. So he began to take Aguinaldo more seriously. On July 4th, he wired Washington: "Aguinaldo proclaimed himself President of the Revolutionary Republic on July 1st." [74] It was on July 7th that Admiral Dewey captured 1300 armed Spanish prisoners, the garrison of Isla la Grande, off Olongapo, and turned them over to the forces of the Aguinaldo government because he had no way to keep them. [75] Was not that taking that government a bit seriously? How wholly unauthorized by the facts was this of "not taking it seriously," on the part of "The Liberator of the Filipinos," [76] the immortal victor of Manila Bay, who two months before had taught the nation the magnitude of its power for good, in a cause as righteous as the crusades of old, and more sensible! But to return to General Anderson's account in the North American Review of his call, with Admiral Dewey, on the insurgent chief: "He asked me at once whether the 'United States of the North' either had, or would recognize his government. I am not quite sure as to the form of the question, whether it was 'had' or 'would'? In either form it was embarrassing." General Anderson then tells of Aguinaldo's returning his call: "A few days thereafter he made an official call, coming with cabinet, staff, and band. He asked if we, the North Americans, as he called us, intended to hold the Philippines as dependencies. I said I could not answer that, but that in 122 years we had established no colonies. He then made this remarkable statement: 'I have studied attentively the Constitution of the United States, and I find in it no authority for colonies, and I have no fear.'" General Anderson adds: "It may seem that my answer was evasive, but I was at the time trying to contract with the Filipinos for horses, fuel, and forage." While this history must not lapse into an almanac, it may not be amiss to follow these early stages of this matter through a few more successive dates, because the history of that period was all indelibly branded into Filipino memory shortly afterward with the red-hot iron of war.