hips and merchandise, and to mutually
waive all claims for indemnity--(_vide_ Annex to Protocol No. 15 of
the Paris Peace Commission conference of November 21).

For a few days the Spaniards still held out, and to appease public
feeling in the Peninsula a fleet under Admiral Camara was despatched,
ostensibly to the Philippines. It was probably never intended that
the fleet should go beyond Port Said, for on its arrival there it was
ordered to return, the official explanation to the indignant Spanish
public being that America was preparing to seize the Archipelago by
force, if necessary, and send a fleet to Spanish waters under the
command of Admiral Watson. Sagasta's Government had not the least
intention of letting matters go so far as that, but it suited the
Spanish Cabinet, already extremely unpopular, to make an appearance of
resistance. Moreover, Senor Sagasta had personal motives for wishing
to protract the negotiations, the examination of which would lead
one too far away from the present subject into Spanish politics.

At the next conference of the Commission the demands of the Americans
were reluctantly conceded, and the form in which the treaty was to
be drafted was finally settled. The sitting of the Commission was
terminated by the reading of a strongly-worded protest by Senor
Montero Rios in which the Spanish Commissioner declared that they
had been compelled to yield to brute force and abuse of international
law against which they vehemently protested. The secretaries of the
respective Commissions were then instructed to draw up the document of
the Treaty of Peace, which was signed at 9 p.m. on Saturday, December
10, 1898, in the Grand Gallery of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Paris. The expenses of the Spanish Commission amounted to L8,400. A
delay of six months was agreed upon for the ratification by the two
Governments of the treaty, the text of which is given at the end of
this chapter. America undertook to establish equal duties on Spanish
and American goods for a period of ten years; but it subsequently
transpired that this was no special boon to Spain, seeing that America
declared shortly after the signing of the treaty that there would be
no preferential tariff, and that merchandise of all nations could
enter the Islands at the same rate of duty and on equal terms with
America. The clauses of the treaty relating to the Philippines met
with determined opposition in the United States, where poli