Maj. Gen. Merritt's report of the capture of Manila contains the following:

"In leaving the subject of the operations I submit that for troops to enter under fire a town covering a large area, to rapidly deploy and guard all principal points in the extensive suburbs, to keep out the insurgent forces pressing for admission, and, finally, by all this, to prevent entirely all rapine, pillage, and disorder, and gain entire and complete possession of a city of 300,000 people, filled with natives hostile to the European interests,

was an act which only the law-abiding, temperate, resolute American soldier . . could accomplish."

When it came to putting in writing the actual terms of the capitulation of Manila, the Spaniards wanted all sorts of things defined: what they could and could not do and what we could and could not do; but we proposed to put in this sentence instead of all these qualifications, permissions and conditions:

This city, its inhabitants, its churches and religious worship, its educational establishments and its private property of all descriptions are placed under the special safeguard of the faith and honor of the American army."

After thinking it all over, the Spaniards were quite content to leave the whole thing just that way,

-“under the special safeguard of the faith and honor of the American army," and the Spaniards were perfectly safe in so doing. The American army never received a higher tribute from its best friends. This one came from its mortal enemy.

And when the day was done and he sat out on deck in his wicker chair, with his Scotch collie beside him, and, looking across the bay, saw for the first time the old Stars and Stripes waving softly to and fro in the evening breeze over the palace of the Spanish Governor-General, Dewey folded his hands and said to Brumby, "I feel that I have won a greater victory than that of May first." And he had. In the years that are to come, Dewey's greatest work, if I mistake not, the work that demanded the greatest and broadest qualities will be deemed not the Battle of Manila, but the course and measures by which, with only half a dozen unarmored ships, he, for three long months, kept Manila and the Spanish army and the insurgents and the hostile navies of Europe all working in harmony toward the accomplishment of his one purpose, namely, the actual occupation by the United

States of the City of Manila, and the surrender of the Spanish army which garrisoned it. It was a fearful team to drive, but he kept them in the road until he got the load safely into the barn and the door shut.

By a curious coincidence, for the second time in our history, a decisive blow was struck by us in a war after peace had actually been declared between our opponents and ourselves. The first was the battle of New Orleans, which took place January 8, 1815, although the treaty of peace (Ghent) was signed on the preceding December 24th; the second was the capitulation of the city of Manila and the Spanish army defending it. This took place twenty-four hours after the signing of the Protocol providing for the cessation of hostilities between Spain and ourselves. In neither case, of course, did either party know that the war had ended. Whether the Protocol of the 12th of August, the 3d condition of which provided that the United States should hold and occupy the

city and bay of Manila pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which should determine "the control, disposition and government of the Philippines," superseded or only acted co-ordinately with the capitulation of the next day it is unnecessary to consider. Under either capitulation or Protocol, our obligations were the same toward everybody. Either way the question be decided, the fact remains that we were in "military occupation" of Manila. That is the important point, not how it was that we occupied Manila but that we did occupy it.

Then the situation sharply changed. The United States military and naval forces took possession. The moment that military occupation took place the United States assumed new liabilities. What they are has already been well defined. We went over the authorities sometime ago when we were considering why Dewey had to have help before he could accept the surrender of Manila and its garrison. These new liabilities were the same that Spain had before the surrender.

The obligations that would have attached to us on May 1, 1898, had Dewey then taken Manila and its garrison, are the same obligations that we actually did assume on the 13th of August, 1898.