The governor general sought in various ways to gain the support of the country. He called for Filipino volunteers, and, curiously enough, they responded with enthusiasm. The rapidity with which they were recruited was probably largely due to the activity of the friars. This added to the hatred of them felt by the class of natives represented by Aguinaldo. Between June and December, 1897, the time was spent in an obscure bargaining, the outcome of which was the so-called Treaty of Biacnabato, which Primo de Rivera--the governor general--has stated was merely a promise to pay a money bribe to the insurgents if they would cease a combat in which they had lost hope of success but which they could still prolong to the detriment of the resources and the prestige of Spain. The result of the bargainings was that Spain agreed to pay eight hundred thousand Mexican dollars for the surrender of Aguinaldo and his principal leaders and the arms and ammunition in their possession. An amnesty was proclaimed. Aguinaldo and his leaders were sent to Hongkong under escort, where they declared themselves loyal Spanish subjects. Primo de Rivera returned to Spain. As he received in return for the money only about two hundred rifles and a little ammunition, it is not probable that he made any of the promises of changes in the government of the archipelago which the Filipinos have insistently stated since then were the real objects of the agreement. Whatever may have been the true motives which actuated the Spanish governor general in adopting this method of terminating a successful campaign, he succeeded in purchasing only an armistice and not a peace. On January 23, 1898, a Te Deum was sung in the cathedral of Manila to mark the reëstablishment of peace in the archipelago. The insurgent leaders had been bought off and their followers had surrendered their arms. As Spanish dominion in the Philippines was now about to close, let us stop a moment to inquire what it had brought to the Islands. It may have been hard and utterly unprogressive, but it turned the tribes of Luzon and the Visayas from tribal feuds and slave-raiding expeditions to agriculture. To accomplish these results required untiring energy and a high enthusiasm among the missionaries. They had lived among savages, speaking their tongue, until they had almost forgotten their own. Spain had ceased to be everything to them; their order was their country. Spanish officials came and went, but the ministers of the Church remained, and as they grew to be the interpreters of the wants of the people, in many cases their protectors against spoliation, power fell into their hands. It is rather interesting to learn that in 1619, in the reign of Philip III, it was proposed to abandon the Philippines on account of their useless expense to Spain, but a delegation of friars from the Islands implored him not to abandon the twenty thousand Christians they had converted, and the order was countermanded.