BATANGAS, December 26, 1901 — 11 a. m. General WHEATON, Manila :

Your message requiring my opinion as to the benefit of peace negotiations by Manila and other conspirators in suppression of insurrection in Batangas is received. Respectfully report that I have become convinced that within two months at the outside there will be no more insurrection in this brigade, and nothing for conspirators to negotiate about. We may not have secured all the guns or caught all the insurgents by that time, and the present insurrection will end and the men and the guns will be secured in time. My only fear is that they will bury their guns and scatter, sneaking away individually into other provinces to await a more favorable temperature at home, or they may march with their guns northward into Morong, Bulacan, or Nueva Ecija, or southeastward into General Grant ' s brigade. I am practically sure they cannot remain here in Batangas, Laguna, and a part of Tayabas. The people are now assembled in the towns, with all the visible food supply, except that cached by insurgents in mountains. For the next six days all station commanders will be employed hunting insurgents and their hidden food supplies within their respective jurisdictions. Population of each town will be turned out, and all transportation that can be found impressed to bring into Government storehouses all food that is found, if it be possible to transport it. If not, it will be destroyed .

I am now assembling in the neighborhood of 2,500 men, who will be used in columns of about 50 men each. I expect to accompany this command. Of course no such strength is necessary to cope with all the insurgents in the Philippine Islands, but the country is indescribably rough and badly cut up, the ravines and mountains. I take so large a command for the purpose of thoroughly searching each ravine, valley, and mountain peak for insurgents and for food, expecting to destroy everything I find outside of towns, all able- bodied men will be killed or captured. Old men, women, and children will be sent to towns. This movement begins January 1, by which time I hope to have nearly all the food supply in the towns. If insurgents hide their guns and come into the towns it will be to my advantage, for I shall put such a pressure on town officials and police that they will be compelled to identify insurgents. If I catch these I shall get their guns in time. I expect to first clean out the wide Loboo peninsula south of Batangas, Tiasan, and San Juan de Boc Boc road. I shall then move command to the vicinity of Lake Taal and sweep the country westward to the ocean and south of Cavite ; returning through Lipa, I shall scour and clean up the Lipa Mountains ; swinging northward, the country in the vicinity of San Pablo, Alaminos, Tanauan, and Santo Tomas will be scoured, ending at Mount Maquiling, which will then be thoroughly searched and devastated. This is said to be the home of Malvar and his parents .

Swinging back to the right, the same treatment will be given all the country of which Mount Cristobal and Mount Banahao are the main peaks. These two mountains, Mount Maquiling, and the mountains northeast of Loboo are the main haunts of the insurgents. After the 1st of January no one will be permitted to move about without pass. I shall keep the country full of scouting detachments and give insurgents no peace. I feel morally certain that they cannot stand the strain and the lack of food that will ensue for two months. The ten companies of the Ninth Cavalry would be most valuable in these operations. If this does not bring about a surrender we will get the guns and the insurgents also little by little. We have several towns on our side begging for mercy and organizing in opposition to insurgents. They have formed volunteer companies to control their towns and have notified insurgents that they must surrender or the people themselves intend to join the Americans in their operations .

The insurgent army in this province was made of town contingents, each town being supplied with so many guns and being required to maintain so many soldiers. All the guns, except about a dozen formerly pertaining to the town of Bauan, have already been captured by Captain Hartman, mainly through the efforts of the towns people themselves. This was the first town on which Captain Boughton laid his heavy hand as brigade provost-marshal and provost court. We expect to have every town in these provinces in the same attitude shortly. As for peace commissioners, if Sixto Lopez or any other man of equal influence could be trusted to work honestly and sincerely, there is no doubt but what he could bring about peace, for, with few exceptions, it can be now truthfully said that everybody wants peace, even the insurgents. Malvar and a few irreconcilables like himself may not be ready to cry quits, but insurgent soldiers are coming in every day claiming to have been serving involuntarily and to have escaped from their leaders. They come in notwithstanding they know they will go into the carcel. Despite these conditions, however, it is doubtful if any peace commission, from Aguinaldo down, could secure a thorough surrender of all the guns. The breaking away at the last minute of disaffected parties would occur as it did in the Cailles surrender, or all the best guns would be buried or concealed. Such results following a peace brought about by peace commissioners prior to the suffering by these people of the real hardships of war would almost certainly be followed by another insurrection within the next five years .

These people need a thrashing to teach them some good common sense, and they should have it for the good of all concerned. Sixto Lopez is now interested in peace because I have in jail all the male members of his family found in my jurisdiction, and have seized his houses and palay and his steamer, the Purisima Concepcion, for use of the Government. As for the peace commissioners sent by the Manila Peace League, they have accomplished nothing that I know of. Paterno got 30 passes, good for anybody to whom he chose to give or send them, as they were only numbered, in order that they might be good in anyone ' s hands in which he or his agents might place them. I fear that a number of insurgent officers who have committed barbarous crimes may have availed themselves of these passes to escape from the country. This may possibly be a necessary preliminary to success on the part of the peace commissioners. Paterno stated in his letter of application that he wanted to furnish each messenger with three passes. Notwithstanding all these passes expire December 31, the only peace commissioner who reported himself to me prior to December 19 was Señor Velarde, who about the middle of the month reported himself at Calamba, and within a few days thereafter telegraphed me that he had returned to Manila on business with the Peace League. On the above date, December 19, six peace commissioners arrived here on the Ysla de Negros, a chartered transport, with seven passes. It looked to me as though a number of men had managed to get themselves back into closed ports on the passes .

The names of the six were taken from the manifest, and they were permitted to go about their business, whereupon they immediately disappeared. It was then discovered that one of the six men named on the manifest, Mariano Mendoza, had not come, but that one, Luciano Lucas, whom I remember as an irreconciliable prisoner of war when I was provost-marshal-general, had come in his place. He had been insurgent colonel under Pio del Pilar, and while a prisoner at Postigo was several times reported to me as an insurgent agitator among the prisoners. The citizen, Williams, whom the division commander sent here, informed me that this Luciano Lucas, after having been released at Manila and taking the oath of allegiance, had come here to Batangas and had smuggled his way to Mindoro on a mission to the insurgents while Williams was there. A native who served me at Manila, an exceptionally intelligent and strong-minded man, was sent down to assist me by Buen Camino. I asked him to ascertain and let me know what these six peace commissioners were doing. He could locate but two of them, who had gone to Bauab, and stated that they were very deliberate in their movements ; notwithstanding it was then the 23d of December and their passes expired on January 1, they had as yet done nothing, but they were proposing to find the insurgents and offer to make peace with them for the Government on the basis of immunity for all past crimes .

It is needless for me to add that I have little faith in the success of peace commissioners who are sent out by such unscrupulous tricksters as Paterno, Poblete, et al .

J. F. BELL, Brigadier-General, Commanding .

WHEATON, Major-General, Commanding.
MANILA, P. I., December 28, 1901. ADJUTANT-GENERAL DIVISION OF THE PHILIPPINES :