the article to be given to
the Press, lest it might seem thereby to lend a sanction to views,
the expression of which it had not authorized.

Respectfully yours,

_William R. Day_.

During the first few weeks following the Cavite naval battle nothing
remarkable occurred between the belligerents. The British Consul
and Vice-Consul were indefatigable in the services they rendered
as intermediaries between Admiral Dewey and General Augusti. The
American fleet was well supplied with coal from British vessels. The
Manila-Dagupan Railway was in working order, and bringing supplies
into the city. The Spanish authorities issued a decree regulating the
price of meat and other commodities. American vessels made occasional
trips outside the Bay, and brought in captive sailing-vessels. Neutral
passenger-steamers were allowed to take away refugees other than
Spanish subjects. The rebels outside Manila were very active in the
work of burning and pillaging churches and other property. Streams
of smoke were daily seen rising from the valleys. In the outskirts
of the city, skirmishes between Spanish troops and rebels were of
frequent occurrence. The Spaniards still managed to preserve routes
of communication with the country districts, although, little by
little, the rebels were closing in upon them. Aguinaldo and his
subordinate leaders were making strenuous efforts effectually to cut
off all supplies to the city, with the view of co-operating with the
Americans to starve the Spaniards into capitulation. The hospitals in
the capital were crowded with wounded soldiers, brought in at great
risk from the rural districts. Spanish soldiers sauntered about the
city and Binondo--sad spectacles of emaciation in which body and soul
were only kept together by small doles of rice and dried fish. The
volunteers who had enlisted on the conditions of pay, food, and
clothing, raised an unheeded cry of protest, and threatened revolt,
whilst the officers whiled away the time in the cafes with resigned
indifference. The Archbishop issued his Pastoral Letter, in which he
told the natives that if the foreigners obtained possession of the
Islands there would be an end to all they most dearly cherished. Their
altars would be desecrated; the churches would become temples of
heresy; Christian morality would be banished, and vice would become
rampant. He reminded them (with the proviso "circumstances permitting")
that he had appointed J