TRUE VERSION OF THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION BY DON EMILIO AGUINALDO Y FAMY PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC. _Tarlak (Philippine Islands), 23rd September, 1899_. TO ALL CIVILIZED NATIONS AND ESPECIALLY TO THE GREAT NORTH AMERICAN REPUBLIC. I dedicate to you this modest work with a view to informing you respecting the international events which have occurred during the past three years and are still going on in the Philippines, in order that you may be fully acquainted with the facts and be thereby placed in a position to pronounce judgment upon the issue and be satisfied and assured of the Justice which forms the basis and is in fact the foundation of our Cause. I place the simple truth respectfully before and dedicate it to you as an act of homage and as testimony of my admiration for and recognition of the wide knowledge, the brilliant achievements and the great power of other nations, whom I salute, in the name the Philippine nation, with every effusion of my soul. _The Author._ CHAPTER I The Revolution of 1896 Spain maintained control of the Philippine Islands for more than three centuries and a half, during which period the tyranny, misconduct and abuses of the Friars and the Civil and Military Administration exhausted the patience of the natives and caused them to make a desperate effort to shake off the unbearable galling yoke on the 26th and 31st August, 1896, then commencing the revolution in the provinces of Manila and Cavite.