We were authorized to recommend suitable persons for appointment to offices, made necessary by personal changes in the existing civil administration, from among the inhabitants who had previously acknowledged their allegiance to the American government. We were to "ever use due respect for all the ideals, customs and institutions of the tribes which compose the population, emphasizing upon all occasions the just and beneficent intentions of the United States," and were commissioned on account of our "knowledge, skill, and integrity as bearers of the good-will, the protection and the richest blessings of a liberating rather than a conquering nation." [439] Nothing could be more false than Blount's insinuation that we were sent out to help Otis run the war. [440] There was no war when we started, and we were expressly enjoined from interfering with the military government or its officers. We were sent to deliver a message of good-will, to investigate, and to recommend, and there our powers ended. Mr. Schurman and I, with a small clerical force, sailed from Vancouver, January 31, 1899. On our arrival at Yokohama we learned with keen regret of the outbreak of hostilities at Manila. Blount has incorrectly stated that President McKinley had sent the commission out when the dogs of war were already let loose. [441] The dogs of war had not been loosed when we started, and one of the main purposes in sending us was to keep them in their kennels if possible. Aguinaldo has made the following statements in his "Reseña Verídica":-- "... We, the Filipinos, would have received said commission, as honourable agents of the great America, with demonstrations of true kindness and entire adhesion. The commissioners would have toured over all our provinces, seeing and observing at close range order and tranquillity, in the whole of our territory. They would have seen the fields tilled and planted. They would have examined our Constitution and public administration, in perfect peace, and they would have experienced and enjoyed that ineffable charm of our Oriental manner, a mixture of abandon and solicitude, of warmth and of frigidity, of confidence and of suspiciousness, which makes our relations with foreigners change into a thousand colours, agreeable to the utmost.