s of Aguinaldo, who were neither friends nor foes.

While the dispatch of Commodore Watson's fleet to Spain was still being
threatened and delayed, while General Miles was rapidly approaching
the capital of Porto Rico, and on the same day that Admiral Dewey and
General Merritt captured Manila, Spain yielded. On the 18th of July
Spain had taken the first step toward peace by asking for the good
offices of the French Government. On the 26th of July, M. Cambon, the
French Ambassador at Washington, opened negotiations with the United
States. On the 12th of August, a protocol was signed, but, owing to the
difference in time on the opposite side of the globe, to say nothing
of the absence of cable communication, not in time to prevent Dewey's
capture of Manila. This protocol provided for the meeting of peace
commissioners at Paris not later than the 1st of October. Spain agreed
immediately to evacuate and relinquish all claim to Cuba; to cede to the
United States ultimately all other islands in the West Indies, and one
in the Ladrones; and to permit the United States to "occupy and hold the
city, bay, and harbor of Manila pending the conclusion of a treaty of
peace which shall determine the control, disposition, and government of
the Philippines."

President McKinley appointed the Secretary of State, William R. Day,
as president of the peace commission, and summoned John Hay home from
England to take his place. The other commissioners were Senators
Cushman K. Davis and William P. Frye, Republicans, Senator George Gray,
Democrat, and Whitelaw Reid, the editor of the New York "Tribune".
The secretary of the commission was the distinguished student of
international law, John Bassett Moore. On most points there was general
agreement as to what they were to do. Cuba, of course, must be free. It
was, moreover, too obvious to need much argument that Spanish rule on
the American continent must come altogether to an end. As there was no
organized local movement in Porto Rico to take over the government, its
cession to the United States was universally recognized as inevitable.
Nevertheless when the two commissions met in Paris, there proved to be
two exciting subjects of controversy, and at moments it seemed possible
that the attempt to arrange a peace would prove unsuccessful. However
reassured the people were by the successful termination of the war, for
those in authority the period of anxiety had not yet entirely passed.

The fi