THE CAPTAIN OF THE LAUNCH

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THE CAPTAIN OF THE QUARTERMASTER'S LAUNCH BY JAMES H. BLOUNT. THROUGHOUT the whole of the month of December, 1901, the Court of the First Instance for the First Judicial District of the Philippine Islands had been in extraordinary session in the town of Ilagan, in the province of Isabela, trying an old man and his three sons, natives, charged by certain Spaniards of Ilagan with having murdered an officer of the Spanish army at that place during the second phase of the last insurrection against Spain, that is to say, the uprising which occurred in 1898, as soon as the Filipino people had been informed and believed that Admiral Pewey and the American land forces about Manila were co-operating with Aguinaldo for the purpose of enabling the people of the Philippine Islands to throw off the Spanish yoke and gain their independence. Beside the necessity for concluding this trial to open court, on the China Sea coast of Luzon, two hundred miles from Ilagan, on the first Tuesday in January following, the case itself was one which any American would have been glad to be able to avoid trying, and, that being impossible, glad to finish at the earliest practicable moment. It was claimed by his countrymen, the prosecutors, that the deceased had been put to death under circumstances of revolting cruelty, but even if this were so, it seemed not unlikely that the deceased himself had under the Spanish regime perpetrated cruel ties equally revolting upon kinsmen and friends of the defendants. The trial was begun, and we proceeded • "full speed ahead." After disposing of great clouds of witnesses, the end was at last reached. The defendants were probably all guilty, but the evidence introduced admitted of a reasonable doubt as to the old man and one of the boys. The other two were convicted. As soon as sentence was pronounced, Mr.

Brower (the court stenographer) and the undersigned hurried out of the court room down to the river landing, where a steamer was waiting for us. Our servants and bag gage were already aboard, and as soon as we arrived, the ropes were hauled in, and away we went, racing against time to reach the other end of the circuit, two hundred miles away, so that court might open there on the date fixed by law. From Ilagan to our destination, Laoag, the town we called home, was one hundred and ten miles down the river to the sea. and thence ninety miles by sea. The river boat solved the problem as far as the mouth of the river. In fact, that being the rainy season, and the river being swollen and swift, we traveled those one hundred and ten miles at a most dizzy rate. We had gotten through the session of the court convened to pub lish the verdict in the case above men tioned by ten o'clock in the morning. So that we must have pulled out from Ilagan not later than ten fifteen. Yet before sundown we hove in sight of Aparri, the town at the mouth of the river, and be fore dark were tied up to the steamer's dock at that place. In those days there was no regular sys tem of transportation for employees of the civil government. The only efficient means of transportation was that possessed by the military authorities. I had written to the civil authorities at Manila some time before, urging that some regular and re liable means of travel be furnished us up our way, and received a reply stating that it was their purpose to do so as soon as practicable, so that we might be independ ent of the military. The letter from Manila added: "In the meantime I would suggest that if you find a military boat going your way you say, in your blandest tones, ' please