These words were not "fighting words," the Insurgent policy being, as I have shown by the records, to consider the acceptance of a protectorate or of annexation in the event that it did not prove possible to negotiate absolute independence, or probable that the American troops could be driven from the islands. The growing confidence of the Insurgents in their ability to whip the cowardly Americans, rather than any fixed determination on their part to push a struggle for independence to the bitter end, led to their attack. CHAPTER V Insurgent Rule and the Wilcox-Sargent Report The Good Book says, "By their fruits ye shall know them, whether they be good or evil," and it seems proper to apply this test to the Insurgents and their government. The extraordinary claim has been advanced that the United States destroyed a republic in the Philippines and erected an oligarchy on its ruins. Various writers and speakers who have not gone so far as this have yet maintained that Aguinaldo and his associates established a real, effective government throughout the archipelago during the interim between his return and the outbreak of hostilities with the United States. In summarizing conditions on September 15, 1898, Judge Blount says: [236]-- "Absolute master of all Luzon outside Manila at this time, with complete machinery of government in each province for all matters of justice, taxes, and police, an army of some 30,000 men at his beck, and his whole people a unit at his back, Aguinaldo formally inaugurated his permanent government--permanent as opposed to the previous provisional government--with a Constitution, Congress, and Cabinet, patterned after our own, [237] just as the South American republics had done before him when they were freed from Spain, at Malolos, the new capital." He refers to our utter failure to understand "what a wonderfully complete 'going concern' Aguinaldo's government had become throughout the Philippine Archipelago before the Treaty of Paris was signed." [238] He bases his claim as to the excellent state of public order in the Insurgent territory at this time on a report of Paymaster W. E. Wilcox and Naval Cadet L. R. Sargent of the United States Navy, who between October 8 and November 20, 1898, made a long, rapid trip through northern Luzon, traversing the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinán, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Isabela, Cagayan, South Ilocos and Union, in the order named, thence proceeding to Dagupan and down the railroad through Pangasinán, Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan to Manila. He says that these gentlemen found the authority of Aguinaldo's government universally acknowledged, the country in a state of perfect tranquillity and public order, [239] with profound peace and freedom from brigandage and the like. [240]