"It is true there were cruelties practised by the Filipinos on the Spaniards. But they were ebullitions of revenge for three centuries of tyranny. They do not prove unfitness for self-government. I, for one, prefer to follow the example set by the Roosevelt amnesty of 1902, and draw the veil over all those matters." [286] The judge drew the veil not only over this, but, as we have seen, over numerous other pertinent matters which occurred in this land of "profound peace and tranquillity" just at the time Wilcox and Sargent were making their trip. My apologies to him for withdrawing the veil and for maintaining that such occurrences as those in question demonstrate complete and utter unfitness for self-government on the part of those who brought them about! If it be true that Blount knew more than one officer of the American army who did things to the Filipinos almost as cruel as Villa did to Lieutenant Piera, why did he not report them and have the criminals brought to justice? Such an attack on the army, in the course of which there is not given a name or a fact which could serve as a basis for an investigation, is cowardly and despicable. I do not for a moment believe that Blount speaks the truth, but if he does, then his failure to attempt to bring to justice the human fiends concerned brands him! It has been the fashion in certain quarters to make vile allegations of this sort against officers of the United States army, couching them in discreetly general terms. This is a contemptible procedure, for it frees those who make reckless charges from danger of the criminal proceedings which would otherwise doubtless be brought against them. On arrival at Ilagan, the town where Piera was tortured to death, Blount says [287] that Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent were "given a grand _baile_ [ball] and _fiesta_ [feast], a kind of dinner-dance, we would call it.... From Ilagan they proceeded to Aparri, cordially received everywhere, and finding the country in fact, as Aguinaldo always claimed in his proclamations of that period, seeking recognition of his government by the Powers, in a state of profound peace and tranquillity--free from brigandage and the like." Within sight of the banquet hall, within hearing of the music, lay a lighter on which were huddled eighty-four priests of the Catholic Church, many of them gray-haired old men, innocent of any evil conduct, who for weeks had suffered, mentally and physically, the tortures of the damned. Of the events of this evening and the following day Father Malumbres says:--