matter which caused
considerable diplomatic correspondence; but it was overshadowed when the
battle-ship _Maine_ was blown up in the harbour of Havana.

[Illustration: EX-MINISTER DE LOME.]

As has already been said, the United States government at once ordered a
court of inquiry to ascertain the cause of the disaster, and this,
together with the search for the bodies of the drowned crew, was
prosecuted with utmost vigour.

Very many of the people in the United States believed that Spanish
officials were chargeable with the terrible crime, while those who were
not disposed to make such exceedingly serious accusation insisted that the
Spanish government was responsible for the safety of the vessel,--that she
had been destroyed by outside agencies in a friendly harbour. In the
newspapers, on the streets, in all public places, the American people
spoke of the possibility of war, and the officials of the government set
to work as if, so it would seem, they also were confident there would be
an open rupture between the two nations.

_February 28._ In Congress, Representative Gibson of Tennessee introduced
a bill appropriating twenty million dollars "for the maintenance of
national honour and defence." Representative Bromwell, of Ohio, introduced
a similar resolution, appropriating a like amount of money "to place the
naval strength of the country upon a proper footing for immediate
hostilities with any foreign power." On the same day orders were issued to
the commandant at Fort Barrancas, Florida, directing him to send men to
man the guns at Santa Rosa Island, opposite Pensacola.

_February 28._ Senor Louis Polo y Bernabe, appointed minister in the place
of Senor de Lome, who resigned, sailed from Gibraltar.

By the end of February the work of preparing the vessels at the different
navy yards for sea was being pushed forward with the utmost rapidity, and
munitions of war were distributed hurriedly among the forts and
fortifications, as if the officials of the War Department believed that
hostilities might be begun at any moment.

Nor was it only within the borders of this country that such preparations
were making. A despatch from Shanghai to London reported that the United
States squadron, which included the cruisers _Olympia_, _Boston_,
_Raleigh_, _Concord_, and _Petrel_, were concentrating at Hongkong, with a
view of active operations against Manila, in the Philippine Islands, in
event of war.

At about the sam