THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 274 " There wereno proper vessels here,"he said. "Ever since Iassumed commandIhave been requisitioning theGovernment for shipsand torpedoes,and nothing came. Ihad no torpedoes whatever. Iconstructed some formyself,butwe didnot have proper material,and the torpedoes werevery bad. My original intention was to go to Subic Bay (Subic being a military port 65 miles northof Manila)and to offer battle there to the American fleet. We went there on April 25thandreturnedto Cavite on the 30th,theday before the arrival of the American fleet. I wouldhave remained if the port had been protected adequately with cannon and torpedoes, but, as the Subic fortifications offered no protection,Ibrought my ships back to Manila Bay. Iwent to Subic believingit to beprotected,but, seeing it would have taken more than a month to make it even passably capable of defence,I had noremedy, the American squadronbeingon its way to the Philippines,but to abandonSubic and rely upon the shelter of Cavite. The Minister of Marine promised to send supplies, butthey never came. Iknew- from the first that my squadron would be completely destroyed. Iknew the Americans had men-of-war, whereas my ships were incapable of fighting with any chance of success. The Americans had at least 150 guns,modern, and all of superior pattern. Ours were inferiorinnumber and calibre."

of recent date and in good repair, several of the Spanish vessels were old, with worn-out engines and boilers and leaky hulls. All this the American commodore knew, and, before he left Hong Kong, he must have felt quite certain that if he could bring the Spanish fleet to action, he could destroy it with very little risk to hisown powerful cruisers.

By the terms of the British proclamation of neutrality,issuedon Monday,April 25th,United States war vessels weregivenforty-eight hoursin which to leaveBritish"ports. The proclamation wasbrought to Dewey'snotice by the Governor of Hong Kong, and, accordingly, the squadron put to sea on Wednesday, the 27th. It would have got away two days earlier but for an accident to one of the Raleigh's pumps, wdaich took that time to repair. The distance from Hong Kong to Manila is about sevenhundred miles. But Dewey was handicapped by storeships, andit was not till Saturday evening that he was off the entrance of Manila Bay.

When he leftHong Kong he hadon board a number of refugees from the Philippines, who hadarranged to land with arms andsuppliesand revive the smoulderinginsurrection. The leader of the party was Aguinaldo, who had so soon forgottenbispledges to the Spanish Government and the solidconsideration he had receivedfor them. The squadron on its way to Manila touched at Bolinao in Luzon, in order to land oneof the rebelchiefs,Alejandrino, a lieutenant ofAguinaldo. A call was also made at Subic Bay to make sure that the Spanish fleet wasnot lying in wait there. Information was obtained thatit had visited Subic a few days before,but hadreturnedthat very day toits anchorage near the arsenalof Cavite inManilaBay.

No one doubts Admiral Montojo's personal courageand devoted sense of duty,but his very words offer sad proof of his incompetence for high command. It is curious that, although entrustedwith the naval defence of the Philippines, he knew nothing of the state ofaffairs at Subic till he took his fleet there. His desperate resolve to fight a hopeless battle can only be explainedby the effect of repeateddisappointments and troublesinhisdealings withhisGovernment. It would have been better if he had taken his fleet out of the Bay and kept it,or a portion of it,at sea, eluding pursuit in the labyrinthofreefs and islands formed by the northernPhilippines. He would thus have been in a position to seriously embarrass Dewey in his operations against Manila. Or if this course wasimpossible (as some say) on account of leaky boilers 3iid worn-out engines, he should have done as AdmiralKorniloffdidat Sebastopol— landed his crews with their guns andammunition and sun* the ships. In this wayhe would have considerably strengthened General Augustin'sdefence of the city.

Manila Bay is about thirty miles long and The admiralin commandon the Spanish side was Don Patricio Montojo y Pasaron. Born at Ferrol in1839 he had entered the navy at the age of sixteen, but, apparently from want of influence in high quarters, his promotion was very slow. Notwithstanding a good deal of active service, mostly against rebels and pirates in the Philippines, it was not till 1893 that he hoisted his flag as captain. The limes correspondent atManila describeshim as "a spareman of small stature, with the air of an old Spanish grandee." He speaks English with a slight foreign accent, and after the battle he told the correspondent of the difficulties that had been put in his wayby the negligence of the Madrid Government, on which he threw all the responsibility for his failure.