As above stated, the Governor General is supreme head of every branch of the public service, not excepting the Courts of Justice.  How this power was exercised is shown in the hundreds of executions for alleged political offenses, which took place during the years 1895, 1896 and 1897, by the thousands deported to Mindanao and Fernando Po, and by the number of political prisoners in jail at the time of our entry into Manila.  On the first examination which General McArthur, as Military Governor, made of the jail, about August 22nd, he released over 60 prisoners confined for alleged political offenses.  One of them was a woman who had been imprisoned for eleven years, by order of the Governor General, but without any charges ever having been presented against her; another was a woman who had been in jail for three years on a vague charge, never formulated, of having carried a basket of cartridges to an insurgent.

The day of reckoning for three centuries of this sort of government came when Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish squadron on May 1st, 1898.  An insurrection had been in progress from August, 1896, to December, 1897.  Unable to suppress it the Government had made a written treaty with the insurgent leaders, paying them a large sum of money and promising to introduce various reforms on condition that they would leave the country.  Hardly had the Spanish officials recovered from this when the appalling disaster of the destruction of their fleet occurred under their very eyes.

Then followed in rapid succession the naval blockade, the arrival of the insurgent leaders from Hongkong, the raising of the insurgent army, which blockaded Manila on the land side, and finally, the American troops.  At the end of 104 days after the destruction of the Spanish fleet, the city surrendered to a combined land and naval attack of the American forces.  On the day after the capitulation, the American Commander in Chief issued his proclamation establishing a military government, appointed a Military Governor, a Minister of Finance, a Collector of Customs, Collector of Internal Revenue, Postmaster and Judge of the Provost Court; took possession of all public funds (about $900,000), and all public offices, and as rapidly as possible put this government in operation.

The machinery of the Spanish Government was thoroughly disorganized when we entered Manila.  The Courts of Justice, except the inferior criminal courts, had not been in session since early in May; the officials had been cut off from communication with the other islands and with Spain for over three months; there had been no customs to collect, and, owing to the entire suspension of business, but little internal revenue; a forced loan of $2,000,000 for military purpose had been extracted from the Spanish-Philippine Bank, and yet the troops were several months in arrears of pay; all government offices outside the walled city had been moved to temporary quarters within the walls and their records had been lost or thrown into confusion; the officials seeing the inevitable end in sight, were intent only on planning for their return to Spain.