[Translation.-Extra Gazette of the 23d of April, 1898.] SPANIARDS: OFFICE OF THE GOVERNMENT AND OF THE Between Spain and the United States of North America hostilities have broken out. The moment has come for us to show the world that we have courage to spare to conquer those who, feigning to be loyal friends, have taken advantage of our misfortunes and have exploited our magnanimity by the use of means that cultured nations hold to be base and unworthy. The North American people, made up of all social excrescences, have exhausted our patience and have provoked a war by their perfidious machinations, by their unloyal acts, by their attempts upon the rights of peoples and upon international convictions. The struggle will be short and decisive. The God of victories will grant unto us one that is brilliant and complete, as reason and the justice of our cause demand. Spain, that has the sympathy of every nation, will come out triumphant from this new trial, humiliating and dumfounding the adventurers of those States who, without homogeneity and without history, only offer to humanity shameful traditions and the spectacle of legislative chambers wherein there appear united insolency and defamation, cowardice and cynicism. A fleet, manned by foreigners without instruction and without discipline, is about to come to this archipelago with the wild purpose of taking away from you all that implies life, honor, and liberty. The North American sailors pretend to be inspired by a courage of which they are incapable, and they appear to look upon as a feasible enterprise the substitution of the Catholic religion, which you profess, by that of Protestantism; to treat you as tribes refractory to civilization, to possess themselves of your riches as if the right of ownership were unknown to you; to seize, in a word, those among you whom they may consider useful to man their ships, or to work their lands and carry on their industries. Vain designs! Ridiculous boasting! Your indomitable bravery will suffice to prevent them from daring to attempt, much less to realize them. Ye will not consent, no, that the religion which ye profess be scoffed at, nor that impetuous feet shall desecrate the temple of the true God, nor that unbelief shall demolish the sacred images which ye adore. The aggressors shall not profane the tomb of your fathers; they shall not satisfy their impure passions at the cost of the honor of your wives and daughters; they shall not seize the property that your self-denial has accumulated to maintain your lives; they shall not realize, no, none of those crimes begotten of their wickedness and avarice, because your valor and your patriotism suffice to frighten and overwhelm those people, who, calling themselves civilized and cultured, have resorted to the extermination of the aborigines of North America without making the effort to bring them to civilization and progress. Filipinos, prepare for the struggle. For, united under the protection of the glorious Spanish flag, always covered with laurels, we will fight with the conviction that victory will crown our efforts, and we will answer the intimidation of our enemies with the decisive action of the Christian and the patriot at the shout of "Viva España!" AUGUSTIN, Your General. MANILA, April 23, 1898. I certify that the above is a true copy taken from the Manila Gaceta on file in these archives. MANILA, P. I., October 10, 1901. M. DE IRIARTE, [Translation.-From El Español, a Manila newspaper, issue of April 29, 1898.] NORTH AMERICA. It is not my practice to attack the weak; it is just the contrary; but when the weak takes undue advantage of the kindness with which he has been treated, it is well to call a halt and tell him. You are of obscure origin; your principal nucleus has been formed out of soulless beings-the refuse of Europe. You have become, apparently, a cultured nation, but you have always kept at the bottom a fund of perversity. Your ideas can not get beyond trade and profit, and every means is legitimate so long as it enables you to reach your purpose; shame has never reddened your cheeks. Where there is no heart there can be no good and you are lacking it. You are the assassins of thousands of tribes of red skins, and the Mississippi has flowed red with the blood of your victims, for your diplomacy has been that of the dagger, poison, and the stake. You do not know the rights of the individual, you have no other law but egotism, no other belief than that in money; for filthy lucre you will sacrifice everything, you will sell absolutely everything. You call yourself the focus of civilization when you are but a few brands of the fire built in that cavern called the American Union. You are going to measure arms with a nation as noble as it is great and generous, and whose sublime history is lost in the night of time. The world admires it because it is the land one people of which made ancient Rome tremble and has ever been admired and respected even to the present time for its valor and nobility. Your infamous traffic with your most worthy brethren of the Cuban brush, Maceo, Guillermon, Araggueren, and other traitors who ought to have been hanged as many times as they have been forgiven; that traffic, I repeat, the world has knowledge of and the stain of ignominy covers your face as the mask covers every villain who commits a crime with cowardly impunity, because his cowardice prevents him from doing otherwise. Your ships, manned and stupidly handled by hands that tremble when they grasp the sword, if they should happen to come in front of our noble sailors, will feel like the prostitute who trembles with fear when she faces a virgin, and will flee with fear, for no being can be brave whose conscience is stained. It is a great sacrifice to have to speak to you in such language, people of the Union, but I do not do otherwise through the fear that you will not understand me if I use a more correct one. Our soldiers will go to Washington, and when this shall have happened, which will be very soon, I advise you to gather up the cast-off sandals of our soldiers and that you press them to your face, and mayhap in this manner you may absorb some of the dignity that exudes even from the feet of a Spanish soldier. Be not afraid. A large indemnity and a promise from you that in the future you will be decent people will put an end to the conflict. Your advisor, APRIL 26, 1898. F. J. CEBALLOS. [Translation. From La Voz Española, Manila, April 25, 1898.] CATHOLIC ALLOCUTION. Yesterday there was distributed among the guards of honor and the Brotherhood of the Most Holy Virgin of the Rosary a touching allocution, by order of the archbishop of this diocese, that we have the pleasure of reproducing, as the protection of the Queen of Heaven is to-day more essential than ever before. The allocution is as follows: “My beloved brethren in the Lord and in our most Holy Mother Mary: "The time has arrived when it is necessary for you to show with special enthusiasm your steadfast Catholic faith, your fidelity to the fatherland, and your sentiments of tender devotion toward the Most Holy Virgin, in whose Brotherhood of the Rosary you are inscribed, and whose guards of honor you proclaim yourselves with holy joy. "This day, April 25, war is already declared, and it is possible that at this very time the navy and army of our heroic and Catholic Spain is punishing in distant lands the villainy of a people who, having for a long time abused our nobleness of heart, have obstinately turned a deaf ear to reason and have dared to insult our flag and to violate the most sacred rights of our greatly beloved Spain. "We do not know with certainty if the war will reach the archipelago, this beautiful portion of the Spanish fatherland. It may well come to pass, perhaps in a short time, and in view of this we must all be prepared to manfully struggle as Christians and Spaniards, and to die, if necessary, for the holy cause of loyalty. "To fight for one's country is to fight for God, as He wishes that we sacrifice ourselves for it, and orders us that without hesitation and conditions we defend the society whose sons we are when it is attacked and insulted. To die for one's country is equivalent to dying for virtue; it is also to die for God, for the Holy Maccabees have said: 'It is better to die than to see our country and our temples trampled under foot.' "Be good of heart, then; be brave and have confidence. Our cause is just, is great, is most holy. The North Americans are heretics; they are a people who have destroyed the Indian races that populated their territory; they are a people who have no true God, accepting every sort of religion and false worship; they are a people who against all reason and right believe that they can violate our divine religion, our laws, our property, and our honor, and wish to renew, perhaps in this land, their cruelties and murders of the aborigines, destroying the holy and civilizing work of Spain. April 23, 1898. By order of my prelate, Fray Zacarias Lizárraga, chaplain of the rosary and director of the guard of honor of Mary. [Translation.-From El Español, Manila, April 28, 1898.] The archbishop of Manila, apostolic administrator of the diocese of Jaro, to his diocesans. [Quodcumque Vouleritsi petetis et fiet vobis. (Joan 15.-7.)] In these moments of trial it is our duty to inform ye, beloved sons, that your exacts from you the compliance with two duties-to pray and to fight. faith A heterodox people, possessed by the blackest rancor and all the abject passions that heresy engenders, purposes to attack us. They hate in us that which we most value our religion, the religion of our fathers, left to us as a most precious legacy, that we are obliged to maintain intact, even at the cost of our lives. If for the evil of our sins God should permit the intentions of the aggressor to prosper, the desolation and ruin of our people would be complete; soon would they see the heartrending spectacle of their temples razed, the altars of the true God profaned, and our religion swept away by the diversity of sects that the heretic banner protects; the peace of our homes and all the wealth of our people, united and ennobled by the practices and teachings of the Christian faith, would completely disappear, impelled by the implacable hatred that our enemies profess for the religion and races differing from its own. But no; the Lord will not permit the arrogance of our enemies to triumph. Our cause is that of justice and of religion; we will therefore have God with us. And if God favors us, who can stand before us? Let the enemy put his trust in his fleets and treasures; we, beloved sons, guided by the light of faith, place our trust in God, who loves justice and abhors iniquity, who humbles the proud and exalts the humble, and gives victory as He wills, scoffing at the plans of human presumption. For it is not the number of combatants, nor their warlike armament that decides the battle, but the courage of the heart that descends from on high. De caeao fortitudo est. Therefore, prostrated before the God of Armies, we will raise our voice in humble prayer to heaven, saying with the prophet: Lord, come to our help; hasten to succor us; renew to-day the prodigies that Thou hast worked in the past for our fathers. They went to Thee full of faith and hope, and Thou didst listen to their vows. Over them Thou didst extend Thy powerful arm and saved them. Strong in the faith of Thy word they fought, a few against many, and won the glorious victory. Lepanto and the Sea of Mindoro are witnesses. There the proud fleet that threatened Christianity succumbed. Here was the pride of the heterodox nation that sought with sectarian fury to humble the Spanish flag and at the same time disseminate among these people the errors of heresy, humbled. Here and there the brave soldiers of the faith battled with armies very superior in numbers that, notwithstanding, were beaten by our men, who were transformed into so many heroes by the sovereign strength with which God had inspired them, as a recompense for the virtue of their holy prayers. Spain prayed, Filipinos prayed, our soldiers prayed. When the standards of Mary were unfurled on the ships of Lepanto and on the improvised galleons of Cavite confidence knew no bounds. The prayer of the rosary raised to heaven by the hands of Mary was the sure earnest of victory. For that reason, after the triumph of the Virgin of the Rosary she was proclaimed the Virgin of Victories. Facts so persuasive of the efficacy of prayer will be sufficient, beloved sons, we do not doubt, to prevent you from hearing with indifference the call that we have made upon you to pray. At all times the obligation of prayer is incumbent upon all. (Here follows a long exhortation to prayer, in which the faithful are told that the Lord will not desert them in their hour of tribulation.) May it be the will of the Lord, in whose thrice holy name I do bless ye, to confirm in your hearts feelings of faith and piety. FRAY BERNARDINO, Archbishop. MANILA, April 28, 1898. |