He traced the immediate cause to a peremptory order from the governor, Izquierdo, exacting personal taxes from the Filipino laborers in the engineering and artillery corps in the Cavite arsenal, and requiring them to perform forced labor like ordinary subjects. Until then, these workers in the arsenal had been enjoying exemptions from both taxes and forced labor. January 20, the day of the revolt, was payday and the laborers found the amount of taxes as well as the corresponding fee in lieu of the forced labor deducted from their pay envelopes. It was the last straw. That night they mutinied. Forty infantry soldiers and twenty men from the artillery took over command of the Fort of San Felipe and fired cannonades to announce to the world their moment of triumph. It was a short-lived victory. Apparently, the mutineers had expected to be joined by their comrades in the 7th infantry company assigned to patrol the Cavite plaza. They became terror-stricken, however, when they beckoned to the 7th infantry men from the ramparts of the fort and their comrades did not make any move to join them. Instead, the company started attacking them. The rebels decided to bolt the gates and wait for morning when support from Manila was expected to come. He gave a dispassionate account of it and its causes in an article published in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1877. He traced that the primary cause of the mutiny is believed to "be an order from Governor-General Carlos to subject the soldiers of the Engineering and Artillery Corps to personal taxes, from which they were previously exempt. The taxes required them to pay a monetary sum as well as to perform forced labor called, "polo y servicio". The mutiny was sparked on January 20, 1872 when the laborers received their pay and realized the taxes as well as the "falla", the fine one paid to be exempt from forced labor, had been deducted from their salaries.