By January, Admiral Dewey, General Anderson and General Merritt had left the Philippine Islands and General Otis was in command. He announced that the government of the United States would be extended over the islands of the archipelago. Next day Aguinaldo retorted with what was virtually a declaration of war. From then on he and his advisers hastened their preparations for the conflict. Members of the native militia who were living in Manila under the protection of the American garrison were warned to stand ready to receive the signal which should start the sack and pillage of the city and the massacre of its inhabitants. By the end of January there were about thirty thousand Filipinos under arms fronting the American lines outside the city, all keyed up for the moment when they should be let loose to drive the Americans into the sea. This time the spoils of Manila should not be snatched from them! The signal for the advance was to be a conflagration in Manila. Ten thousand militiamen were to rise, set fire to the city, free the Spanish prisoners of war, arm them with arms stored in the arsenal, and attack the Americans. They were to be promptly aided in this last detail by the thirty thousand Filipinos waiting outside, who, surrounding the city, would drive back the fourteen thousand American soldiers upon their burning citadel and upon the two hundred thousand Filipinos, who would by this time have joined their countrymen. If everything had worked out as he had planned, Aguinaldo might very probably have entered the city. He chose a night early in February, at a time when he knew the American reinforcements which had been ordered could not yet have arrived. Firing began about nine o'clock in the evening, near the San Juan bridge, and continued during the night. Meanwhile, the militia in the city tried to assemble, but the groups were promptly fired on and dispersed. In the morning the ships of Dewey's fleet opened fire from the flanks of the American line. A little later our troops sprang forward and swept their antagonists before their fierce attack. In this encounter the Filipinos lost about eight hundred, and the Americans two hundred and fifty. For a week the insurgents were quite demoralized, and no wonder, for this was not the way they had expected the "cowardly" Americans to act. But when they saw that our men did not follow up their advantage by pursuit, their courage revived and they began once more to believe those things which they wished to believe. Our troops had to stay where they were because they had not sufficient transportation to take them anywhere else, because the enemy within the city still needed their attention, and because their reinforcements had not arrived.