"_Lieutenant-Colonel and Inspector-General_.
"E. H. CROWDER,
"_Lieutenant-Colonel and Judge-Advocate_.
"NICHOLAS DE LA PENA,
"_Auditor-General's excts._
"CARLOS REYEO,
"_Colonel de Ingenieros_.
"JOSE MARIA OLQUEN,
"_Felia de Estado Majors_.
(Signed) "MERRITT."

"HONGKONG, August 20th.

"_Adjutant-General, Washington_:--Cablegram of the twelfth directing
operations to be suspended received afternoon of sixteenth. Spanish
commander notified. Acknowledged receipt of cablegram same date,
containing proclamation of President.

"MERRITT."

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL WESLEY MERRITT.]

CHAPTER XVII.

PEACE.

On the twenty-sixth day of July, shortly after three o'clock in the
afternoon, the French ambassador, M. Cambon, accompanied by his first
secretary, called at the White House, the interview having been previously
arranged and an intimation of its purpose having been given. With the
President at the time was Secretary of State Day.

M. Cambon stated to the President that, representing the diplomatic
interests of the kingdom of Spain, "with whom at the present time the
United States is unhappily engaged in hostilities," he had been directed
by the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs to ask on what terms the
United States would agree to a suspension of hostilities.

The French ambassador, continuing, said that Spain, realising the
hopelessness of a conflict, knowing that she was unable to cope with the
great power of her adversary, and appreciating fully that a prolongation
of the struggle would only entail a further sacrifice of life and result
in great misery to her people, on the ground of humanity appealed to the
President to consider a proposition for peace.

Spain, said the ambassador, had been compelled to fight to vindicate her
h