Sampson, more intent
on immediate business than on psychological pressure, was not
enthusiastically in favor of the plan. Nevertheless preparation
proceeded with that deliberation which in this case was part of the
game, and presently the shadow of an impending American attack hung
heavy over the coasts of Spain. The Spanish Government at first perhaps
considered the order a bluff which the United States would not dare to
carry out while Cervera's fleet was so near its own shores; but with the
destruction of Cervera's ships the plan became plainly possible, and on
the 8th of July the Spanish Government ordered Camara back to parade his
vessels before the Spanish cities to assure them of protection.

But, before Camara was called home, the public were watching his advance
against the little American fleet at Manila, with an anxiety perhaps
greater than Dewey's own. Nothing in modern war equals in dramatic
tension the deadly, slow, inevitable approach of a fleet from one side
of the world against its enemy on the other. Both beyond the reach of
friendly help, each all powerful until it meets its foe, their home
countries have to watch the seemingly never coming, but nevertheless
certain, clash, which under modern conditions means victory or
destruction. It is the highest development of that situation which has
been so exploited in a myriad forms by the producers of dramas for the
moving pictures and which nightly holds audiences silent; but it plays
itself out in war, not in minutes but in months. No one who lived
through that period can ever forget the progress of Camara against
Dewey, or that of Rozhestvensky with the Russian fleet, six years later,
against Togo.

Meanwhile another move was made in the Caribbean. General Miles had from
the first considered Porto Rico the best immediate objective: it was
much nearer Spain than Cuba, was more nearly self-sufficing if left
alone, and less defensible if attacked. The War Department, on the 7th
of June, had authorized Miles to assemble thirty thousand troops for
the invasion of Porto Rico, and preparations for this expedition were
in progress throughout the course of the Santiago campaign. Miles at
the time of the surrender of Santiago was actually off that city with
reinforcements, which thereupon at once became available as a nucleus to
be used against Porto Rico. On the 21st of July he left Guantanamo Bay
and, taking the Spaniards as well as the War Department completely