eered straight for Subig Bay in the Philippines, where
he expected to meet his opponent. Finding the Bay empty, he steamed on
without pause and entered the Boca Grande, the southern channel leading
to Manila Bay, at midnight of the 30th of April. Slowly, awaiting
daylight, but steadily he approached Manila. Coming within three miles
of the city, he discovered the Spanish fleet, half a dozen miles to the
southeast, at the naval station of Cavite. Still without a pause, the
American squadron moved to the attack.

The Spanish Admiral Montojo tried, though ineffectually, to come to
close quarters, for his guns were of smaller caliber than those of the
American ships, but he was forced to keep his vessels for the most part
in line between the Americans and the shore. Commodore Dewey sailed back
and forth five times, raking the Spanish ships and the shore batteries
with his fire. Having guns of longer range than those of the Spaniards,
he could have kept out of their fire and slowly hammered them to pieces;
but he preferred a closer position where he could use more guns and
therefore do quicker work. How well he was justified in taking this risk
is shown by the fact that no man was killed on the American fleet that
day and only a few were wounded. After a few hours' fighting, with a
curious interval when the Americans withdrew and breakfasted, Dewey
completed the destruction or capture of the Spanish fleet, and found
himself the victor with his own ships uninjured and in full fighting
trim. By the 3d of May, the naval station at Cavite and the batteries at
the entrance of Manila Bay were in the hands of Commodore Dewey, and
the Asiatic squadron had wrested a safe and commodious harbor from the
enemy.

Secure for the moment and free, Dewey found himself in as precarious a
strategic position as has ever confronted a naval officer. With his
six war vessels and 1707 men, he was unsupported and at least a month's
voyage from America. It was two months, indeed, before any American
troops or additional ships reached him. Meanwhile the Spaniards held
Manila, and a Spanish fleet, formidable under the circumstances, began
to sail for the Philippines. Nevertheless Dewey proceeded to blockade
Manila, which was besieged on the land side by the Filipino insurgents
under Aguinaldo. This siege was indeed an advantage to the Americans as
it distressed the enemy and gave an opportunity to obtain supplies from
the mainland. Dewey, however, pla