In 1888 he went to Hong Kong, where was a Philippine colony. Here he sought and obtained a military education, and studied military works, and the historical campaigns of the world's greatest heroes. He learned Latin, English, French, and Chinese.
At the breaking out of the insurrection of the Philippines against Spain in 1896, Aguinaldo espoused the cause of liberty, and was made an officer and became a leader. The revolution grew and affected the native troops, and its spirit filled the archipelago. It became the purpose of the more fiery patriots to "drive the Spaniards into the sea."
Aguinaldo advocated the acceptance of concessions by the Spanish Government, by which the rights of the native races should be recognized and protected. His policy was accepted, and the insurgents disbanded. He received Spanish gold to abandon the war for independence, and fell under the suspicion that his patriotism was purchasable. This suspicion has shadowed his fame. He went to Hong Kong.
The island Hong Kong, which is English, is a school of good government. Here Aguinaldo seems to have conceived an ambition to free the native races of the archipelago, and form a republic of the confederated islands. The Spanish-American War revealed to him an opportunity to strike for liberty. He said to the Filipinos: "The hour has come."
The Filipinos looked upon him as the man for the crisis.
An article in the Review of Reviews represents the chief as saying to an American naval officer:
"There will be war between your country and Spain, and in that war you can do the greatest deed in history by putting an end to Castilian tyranny in my native land. We are not ferocious savages. On the contrary, we are unspeakably patient and docile. That we have risen from time to time is no sign of bloodthirstiness on our part, but merely of manhood resenting wrongs which it is no longer able to endure. You Americans revolted for nothing at all compared with what we have suffered. Mexico and the Spanish republics rose in rebellion and swept the Spaniard into the sea, and all their sufferings together would not equal that which occurs every day in the Philippines. We are supposed to be living under the laws and civilization of the nineteenth century, but we are really living under the practices of the Middle Ages.