Porto Rico: its Capture and its Problems: Peace Commissioners and Manila

The remarkable welcome given to Americans in this island might well be considered the death-blow to Spanish colonial rule. The least harassed of all Spain's possessions, the people were glad to escape her clutches. It was not surprising that Spanish soldiers in Cuba were eager to surrender and autonomist officials in some towns begged to have their municipalities included in Toral's surrender. At Manila it was not so much surrender to Americans that was dreaded, as the expectation of terrible retaliations from the insurgent natives who had been so cruelly oppressed. There had been no Porto Rican revolutions in recent times. But Cuba and the Philippines had written their histories in their own blood.

When Spain perceived the hopelessness of further struggle overtures were made for peace. A protocol was drawn up, which through the medium of France, resulted in the formal submission of Spain to the terms ultimately stated in the treaty. The United States were in possession of Manila, which Spain contended should be restored to its former status. The destiny of the islands as fixed by the Peace Commissioners is sufficiently detailed in the final draft of the treaty of Paris, signed in December, 1898, which is given below in full, as frequent references to its terms occur in the pages which follow. General Merritt was ordered from Manila to Paris, as representing the United States army. Our Peace Commissioners were William R. Day, Cushman K. Davis, William P. Frye, George Gray and Whitelaw Reid. The Spanish Commissioners made a long struggle, and protracted their unhappy task for more than two months, using all arts of procrastination and persuasion, claiming that the United States should pay the Cuban debt, and striving for allowances of indemnity, but they yielded at last to the inevitable.