in my life I find the drawing-room sentiment altogether with us.
If we wanted it--which, of course, we do not--we could have the
practical assistance of the British Navy--on the do ut des
principle, naturally." On the 25th of May he added: "It is a
moment of immense importance, not only for the present, but for
all the future. It is hardly too much to say the interests of
civilization are bound up in the direction the relations of
England and America are to take in the next few months." Already
on the 15th of May, Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary,
had said to the Birmingham Liberal Unionists: "What is our next
duty? It is to establish and to maintain bonds of permanent amity
with our kinsmen across the Atlantic. There is a powerful and a
generous nation.... Their laws, their literature, their
standpoint upon every question are the same as ours."

In Manila Harbor, where Dewey lay with his squadron, these
distant forces of European colonial policy were at work. The
presence of representative foreign warships to observe the
maintenance of the blockade was a natural and usual naval
circumstance. The arrival of two German vessels therefore caused
no remark, although they failed to pay the usual respects to the
blockading squadron. On the 12th of May a third arrived and
created some technical inconvenience by being commanded by an
officer who outranked Commodore Dewey. A German transport which
was in the harbor made the total number of German personnel
superior to that of the Americans, and the arrival of the Kaiser
on the 12th of June gave the Germans distinct naval preponderance.

The presence of so powerful a squadron in itself closely
approached an international discourtesy. Disregarding the laws of