The Germans broke nearly all of Dewey's regulations about as fast as he made them.

They

moved about in the darkness; on several occasions they tried to run the blockade by putting out their lights; they would follow our transports as close as possible just to spy out to see how many men we had on board; they would not salute the flag of the United States as they passed it.

Dewey sat there in his wicker chair under the muzzle of one of his big guns, never missing any of it, and when the right time came he showed his claws. Two of his messages to the German admiral will go down into history. "Don't pass the American flag again without seeing it" was Dewey's way of calling the Kaiser's representatives' attention to the fact that the German salutes to the American flag had been notably absent for some time, and "Brumby, tell Von Diedrich that if he wants a fight, he can have it right now," when some fresh annoyance from the Germans was added to our admiral's heavy strain.

CHAPTER III

DEWEY AND AGUINALDO

DANGER FROM AGUINALDO, AND CHARACTER OF HIS

FORCES

SOON an additional trouble broke broke around Dewey's head. This one must have given him more worry than all the rest combined; for there was no way to control it. He was dependent upon luck to escape misfortune from it. Nothing that he could do would direct it or govern it in an appreciable degree; and yet it could snatch -away in an instant everything he had gained, and give the hostile powers the very opening for which they were, for all the world like so many cats at a rat-hole, so eagerly watching. All they wanted was an excuse to jump in and seize the rat for themselves. The insurgents, Aguinaldo and his army, were closing in on Manila. They gradually drove in the Spaniards and were likely to take the city. They were treacherous, bloodthirsty and

ignorant of the laws of war. Dewey was like a man in a powder magazine with 30,000 savages surrounding him, juggling lighted matches in their hands. Any instant they might commit some outrage that would have given the foreign war-vessels in the harbor a decent excuse to intervene. That was what they were there for; to use force if they could find any justification for it. Their hostile attitude shows that plainly enough. They had a perfect right to turn their guns on to the city any moment their consuls or their other citizens were endangered.

Just as we had done at Greytown in 1853, so France or Germany or China or Japan could have done to Manila,-bombarded it the moment it became evident that the insurgents would capture the city, if such a time were to come, as it was evidently recognized by all the nations whose ships were there that massacre and sack would follow a capture of Manila by Aguinaldo; that was what those ships of war of all nations were there for,exactly that for which they were there. Where should we have been if the other nations had interfered? Until they intervened we would have such a grip on Manila as made it certain that if

Dewey could obtain enough help from home we would soon have that city and its garrisoning army and the entire Philippines surrender to us. The moment another nation interfered our grip would be gone. Somebody else would snatch it from us and very likely that would be done by a nation hand-in-glove with Spain, to whom the islands might be turned over by the intervening power when the war should be over. We could only protect our position there by another Battle of Manila, our unarmored cruisers against their armored ships. That means that we should have had another war on our hands,-and we were on the brink of a second war every day from the time Dewey sunk the Spanish fleet,-every instant night and day.

Senator Lodge in his admirable work, "The War with Spain," thus describes Dewey's situation:

"In the front was Spain, an open and public enemy On either hand were warships of unfriendly powers, watching sullenly and eagerly for any error, for a sign of weakness, for the least excuse for interference. All around Manila were the insurgents . . . untrustworthy, treacherously led, and capable, at any moment, of action which might endanger our relations with other powers,

or of intriguing with these same powers against us."

NECESSARY FOR US TO RESTRAIN AGUINALDO

Dewey's game was to play straight ahead, and he did it to perfection. Before any American troops had arrived, he felt it necessary to hold back Aguinaldo.

Willis John Abbott says in his "Blue Jackets of '98," p. 332:

"Before the arrival of the first expedition from the United States, Aguinaldo had made such progress in arming and organizing the natives. that, in a series of engagements around Manila the Spaniards were worsted, losing heavily and being driven into the lines immediately surrounding the city. By the last of May, the exultant insurgents were within seven miles of the city, which their lines completely surrounded, and their prisoners numbered almost three thousand. Then the first damper was put upon their enthusiasm by Admiral Dewey himself. Fearing that if the city should be taken by the insurgents, there would result a sack and massacre, which would compel the intervention of the other armed forces in the harbor, he sent word to Aguinaldo that the advance must be stopped. Between the Filipino front and the town lay the Malolele River. This stream they were forbidden to cross. 'If you do,' said