"_Senator Patterson_. Very well, they were to assist you. Did you not either permit them or encourage them--I do not care which term you use--to organize into an army, such as it was, that they might render you such assistance as you needed? "_Admiral Dewey_. They were assisting us, but incidentally they were fighting their enemy; they were fighting an enemy which had been their enemy for three hundred years. "_Senator Patterson_. I understand that, Admiral. "_Admiral Dewey_. While assisting us they were fighting their own battles, too. "_The Chairman_. You were encouraging insurrection against a common enemy with which you were at war? "_Admiral Dewey_. I think so. I had in my mind an illustration furnished by the civil war. I was in the South in the civil war, and the only friends we had in the South were the negroes, and we made use of them; they assisted us on many occasions. I had that in mind; I said these people were our friends, and 'we have come here and they will help us just exactly as the negroes helped us in the civil war.' "_Senator Patterson_. The negroes were expecting their freedom-- "_Admiral Dewey_. The Filipinos were slaves, too. "_Senator Patterson_. What were the Filipinos expecting? "_Admiral Dewey_. They wanted to get rid of the Spaniards; I do not think they looked much beyond that. I cannot recall but I have in mind that the one thing they had in their minds was to get rid of the Spaniards and then to accept us, and that would have occurred--I have thought that many times--if we had had troops to occupy Manila on the 1st day of May before the insurrection got started; these people would have accepted us as their friends, and they would have been our loyal friends--I don't know for how long, but they would have been our friends then. "_Senator Patterson_. You learned from Pratt, or Wildman, or Williams, very early, did you not, that the Filipinos wanted their own country and to rule their own country; that that is what they were expecting? "_Admiral Dewey_. I heard from Williams that there was an insurrection there against the Spaniards. The Spaniards were very cruel to them, and I think they did not look much beyond getting rid of them. There was one, Dr. Rizal, who had the idea of independence, but I don't think that Aguinaldo had much idea of it. "_Senator Carmack_. Then what useful purpose did the Filipino army serve; why did you want the Filipino army at all? "_Admiral Dewey_. I did not want them. "_Senator Carmack_. Did you not want the Filipino forces? "_Admiral Dewey_. No, not really. It was their own idea coming over there. We could have taken the city at any moment we had the troops to occupy it."