trophe that could be obtained through the ordinary news channels was so meagre that the officers of the United States warships lying in Hong-kong subscribed money enough to have a complete story of the disaster cabled to them. While this story contained nothing but the admitted facts-those concerning which there was no controversy--it was easy for men of practical experience with explosives to foresee what must be the report of the Board of Investigation; and having that knowledge, it was not difficult to reach the conclusion that war with Spain was almost inevitable. Commodore Dewey at once began his preparations for any duty that might be required of him. The Concord had arrived at Yokohama and the Raleigh at Singapore-both being recent additions to the squadron-and while the Concord had been sent to Chemulpo to relieve the Boston, both these vessels and the Petrel were ordered at once to Hong-kong, as was also the Raleigh. When the five ships were assembled they made prompt preparation for active service, so that when the time for action came there was not a day's delay on account of work upon them.

Having obtained from the Navy Department leave to join Commodore Dewey, and having received the Commodore's permission to accompany him to the Philippines, I sailed from Yokohama, April 12, in the steamer China, and arrived in Hong-kong on the 22d. Among my fellow-passengers in the China was Commander (now Captain) B. P. Lamberton, who had been ordered to take command of the Boston and relieve Captain Frank Wildes, whose tour of sea service had been completed. We entered Hong-kong Harbor in a fresh gale of wind, which was accompanied by sleet and fog, so that we could not see far ahead. It was not until we had run through the narrow entrance called Lye Mun Pass, and had a close view of the inner harbor, that we could make out the presence of our cruisers. Lamberton was just saying that they must have gone to Mirs Bay-as reported to us when we reached Shanghai-when the fog lifted a little, and we saw a line of war-ships in the "man-of-war anchorage."

"They're gray! They're gray!" we shouted, the same thought having come to the mind of each. "That means war!"

There could be no doubt of the situa

tion now. The Boston had stripped off her heavy square yards, and all the vessels were evidently "straining in the leash." The contrast between our ships as they had been in time of peace and as they now were was made more vivid by the arrival of the Baltimore a few hours later, for she was still resplendent in the glossy, enamel-like white for which our cruisers have so long been noted. But the Commodore was ready for her also, and before nightfall the Kowloon drydock was cleared, and at daybreak next morning she was docked and having her bottom cleaned and painted. That very evening Acting-Governor Black issued a neutrality proclamation which required our ships to leave British waters within twenty-four hours; and, in accordance therewith, the Commodore, on Monday, April 25, moved all his squadron to Mirs Bay, about thirty miles distant, in Chinese territory. News of the declaration of war reached us the same day. It had been a part of Dewey's plan to sail for Manila Bay the moment war was officially announced; but as he had received word that the United States consul in Manila had taken steamer for Hongkong on the preceding Saturday, and as the consul was supposed to have a large amount of accurate information concerning the Spanish defences, the Commodore felt that it was wise to wait for his arrival. Bad weather made it impossible for Mr. Williams, the consul, to reach Mirs Bay until Wednesday, April 27, but this delay of two days was due to the alleged importance of Consul Williams's information, and not to any lack of readiness on the part of the fleet. The time spent in Mirs Bay was devoted to drills with guns and torpedoes, and to sub-calibre practice to improve the marksmanship of the gunners.

The celerity of Dewey's movements was one of the important elements of his strategy. Possibly the result would not have been materially different if he had delayed his descent upon the Spaniards a few days; but he was not willing to give his enemy a moment for preparation. It is not merely because Commodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet that he will rank in history as one of the world's greatest naval captains. It is because of the manner in which he reached his end.

Chevalier used to sing a song in which occurred the lines,

It ain't so much jest w'at 'e sez, As the nasty way 'e sez it. Something of the same idea is applicable to Dewey's victory. It was not altogether just what he did, so much as his thorough way of doing it. He not only achieved victory over an inferior force, but he showed that he would have accomplished equal results over an equal or even a superior one. When it was reported that Admiral Camara was on his way to Manila with two powerful battleships, no one in Dewey's squadron felt any doubt that Camara was coming to his doom, although Dewey had only the lightest kind of cruisers, wholly unarmored, with which to fight him. Similarly, when the Germans began to show bad feeling and worse manners, our men would have been glad to tackle their fleet in spite of their two battle-ships and superior numbers.

And speaking of the Germans, it may be well to point out that, while they made themselves as offensive as they dared, and while they acted in a very disagreeable way from the first, Commodore Dewey refrained from taking any notice of their discourtesy until he should be able to do so in such a manner as to admit of no reply.

It is a matter of international courtesy to permit the war-ships of a friendly neutral power to enter a blockaded harbor at will. It is also one of the unwritten laws of naval etiquette that when a neutral vessel takes advantage of this courtesy, she shall be as careful as possible to do nothing to harass the blockading fleet, and not to give even moral encouragement to the blockaded forces.

It would require too much space to repeat all the annoyances to which the Germans lent themselves during the early part of their stay in Manila waters. Their ships came into and went from the harbor at all hours of the day and night. When a steamer made her appearance to seaward, a German vessel would run out to examine her with great promptitude. After one such instance, which occurred at a time when Vice-Admiral von Diederich's flag-lieutenant was on board the Olympia, Admiral Dewey said to the German offi

cer,

"One might almost think your ships were blockading Manila, and not mine." The lieutenant chuckled complacently, as though he thought it was a compli

VOL. XCVIII.-No. 585-61

ment to the activity of his commanderin-chief, but he was wholly unable to comprehend that, when Dewey became so sweetly suave, it was a good time to look out for squalls.

One night one of the German steamlaunches came steaming toward our fleet at full speed. She was picked up by the search-lights of our squadron fully a mile away, and was kept in the focus of their rays until she came alongside. Our officers almost universally believed that the object of her unnecessary and untimely visit was to discover whether it would be possible for a Spanish torpedo-boat to get within range of our vessels without being discovered by us.

Then the Princess Wilhelmina, lying off Subig Bay, notified the insurgents that she would not permit them to attack the Spanish troops at that point. At another time one of the German ships tried to sneak into the anchorage off the city of Manila at night, all her lights being extinguished, and her course being an unusual one. She was detected, and promptly "brought to" by a shell across her bows from the United States cruiser that was on picket duty that night.

Our courteous and courtly Commodore made no sign. He was waiting until he could put an end to the whole annoyance with one crushing blow. At last the opportunity came. He learned, on unquestionable authority, that one of the German vessels had landed provisions in Manila, thereby violating neutrality. I was not present when he sent his message to Admiral von Diederich, and therefore I do not speak from personal knowledge concerning it; but I learned the facts from a perfectly authentic source, as follows:

"Orderly, tell Mr. Brumby I would like to see him," said Admiral Dewey, one forenoon.

"Oh, Brumby," he continued, when the flag-lieutenant made his appearance on the quarter-deck, "I wish you to take the barge and go over to the German flagship. Give Admiral von Diederich my compliments, and say that I wish to call his attention to the fact that the vessels of his squadron have shown an extraordinary disregard of the usual courtesies of naval intercourse, and that finally one of them has committed a gross breach of neutrality in landing provisions in Manila, a port which I am blockading."

"THERE is a special providence for HERE is a special providence for States," says a philosopher. The good natured satire suggests our American habit of looking upon our history, our political system, and our foreign policy as if they had nothing to do with other nations. We talk of "Old World" and "New World" as though the experience of mankind could be cut up into sections by painting lines on a globe. For the sake of enjoying the sensation of being a peculiar people, we are willing to forget the glorious heritage of a thousand years: was not Augustine our saint? and Hildebrand our pope? and William of Normandy our conqueror? and Elizabeth our queen? and Shakspere our poet? and Drake our hero and protector when the Spanish Armada bore down on our fathers' shores? The face of this continent is new, but the intellectual, social, moral, and political development of America is simply a part of the advance of the human race. We have shared, or rather have inherited, the religious traditions of our kinsmen oversea; we have had their art and literature; we have profited by their systems of education; we have used their inventions; we have learned from their mistakes and successes in government. In return, we have given the results of our experience in invention, in intellectual growth, in government, and in religious freedom.

There is sometimes supposed to be a tradition that in diplomatic relations America is isolated from the rest of the world with which she is intellect ually and commercially so closely connected. Historically there has never been such an isolation; from the earliest colonial times the international forces which moved Europe have affected the Western hemisphere. When, in the Revolution, the United States first took a place in the family of nations, by claiming the rights and privileges of inde

pendence, it accepted the duties and obligations laid upon nations by the international law of the time. Nor did the fathers of the republic suppose that their influence was to be bounded by the coastlines of the two Americas; their earliest diplomacy was directed to disturbing the existing European balance of power by transferring their strength to the French side; and their physical force actually turned the balance, besides showing itself ample for self-protection. The question when, where, and to what degree to exercise influence in the counsels of the nations has never been one of prerogative, but of expediency. The policy of the United States as a World Power has been carried out oftener by refusing the dictation of other powers than by joining them in common action.

66

The key to the foreign policy of the United States is simply national interest. Phrases like "entangling alliances," European political system," or "Monroe doctrine are not laws of the ten tables; they only express national convictions for the time being as to what our interests are. If, so far, the United States has chosen to exercise its international influence chiefly in affairs of the Americas, it is because there our interests chiefly lie. The diplomatic history of the country shows that the government has never hesitated to assert itself anywhere on the globe, if its interests seemed sufficient. In such a crisis as that of the year 1898, therefore, the United States takes no new position, but reasserts what history shows has never been abandoned-the place of a World Power.

All the present discussion on the future policy of the United States really comes down to the question whether it is to the national interest to go far afield in new enterprises. Some light may be thrown on that inquiry if we collect, analyze, and discuss the instances in which the United States has exercised its latent pre

rogatives in international concerns. The principal episodes have been the following: 1. The colonial period. 2. The Revolution. 3. The Napoleonic era. 4. Latin America to 1865. 5. The Pacific and the East to 1865. 6. European relations to 1865. 7. The last three decades.

The discovery of America brought a new element into the calculations of statesmen and the predictions of historians, and furnished a new subject for international contests. In geographical position, in commerce, in the movement of persons, and in intellectual and political inventiveness, the United States has had from the beginning the elements of a World Power.

The territory of the United States lies athwart a continent: some other countries in the world possess an interior equally fertile, if less accessible; no other has also a frontage on two oceans, with a territory all in a temperate climate. It is as though Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and North Italy were fused into one country, stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. We have the international advantage of an area impenetrable by invaders, yet looking both east and west, and in the south dominating the Gulf of Mexico. Geographically, therefore, the territory of the United States is the seat of a World Power.

Commercially the United States has from earliest colonial times showed its importance to the world, and at present our combined imports and exports count up to 1800 millions a year. Our productions have always been sought by other countries, and the United States lies on a new world-highway from Europe westward to Asia, and commands another great international trade route to the West Indies and South America.

In the movement of people to and fro across the ocean, the United States has been the focus of the most tremendous hegira of civilized people which the world has ever seen; from 1821 to 1898 more than 18,000,000 persons came to our shores to make their homes here; in the last ten years more people have emigrated to America than the whole population of Switzerland. There are now here more Germans and children of Germans than in Bavaria. And the tide of travel eastward-chiefly visitors-also numbers hundreds of thousands every year.

In unmaterial things the influence on America and the world-influence of Americans are equally felt. Emigrants and travellers, books and newspapers, bring European experiences and carry American ideas. Two instances may be mentioned: one of the causes of the emancipation of the slaves was the conviction of the North that the rest of the civilized world was against us; and the success of the United States in federal government has been a lesson eagerly studied by the constitution-makers of Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia. The intellectual lives of Europeans and Americans are so closely connected that it is impossible that their political lives should be separated.

America has never known a policy of isolation, and least of all in the period of colonization. The three great causes of international conflicts-territory, commerce, and dominion-were all potent in the Western world. England and France came to blows in America in 1613 over the possession of Mount Desert, and continued to fight over territory at intervals till 1763; and the Venezuelan controversy is the last stage of a colonial war between the English and the Dutch. The Swedes were plundered of their American colonies on the Delaware by the Dutch within eighteen years of their foundation. English sailors fought to get the trade of the Spanish colonies in 1568, and kept the process up much of the time till those colonies became independent in 1823.

The commerce of the English colonies, including the slave trade established for the benefit of the colonists, was for a century and a half an object of illicit trade and of fierce international dispute, and was regulated by many treaties.

It was not accident that made the West Indies and the Gulf of St. Lawrence fighting-ground in so many of the naval wars of the eighteenth century: nations measured their naval strength in regions where islands were easy to pick up; nor was it by mere chance, that while the British, aided by their colonists, took Quebec in 1629 and 1759, Louisbourg in 1745 and 1758, and Havana in 1762, no foreign fleet ever held an English colonial port in North America, except New York for a few months in 1673 and 1674.

In the French and Indian war the international importance of America was