THE CAPTURE OF MANILLA. T HE inefficiency of which we have
repeatedly spoken as the note of modern Spain comes out to the full in the accounts of the defence of Manilla. Though the Spaniards had months of warning, nothing except the hearts of the seamen was ready for the fight. Seller Sagasta says Spain has spent £100,000,000 upon fortifications within the last twenty-five years, but whether Manilla was forgotten, or the money was intercepted, or the engineers were incompetent, the fortifications in the Far Eastern colony proved of no avail. Alexandria was better defended against the British fleet than Manilla against the American. The magnificent harbour, which would hold all the fleets of Europe, is one of the most defensible positions in the world, for the entrance, only ten miles wide, is divided into two channels, one of them very dangerous, by the fortified island of Corregidor, which no vessel can pass unseen or unassailed. Manilla, on the east of the bay, and Cavite, five miles south of the capital, are both fortified ; and if they repulsed the attacking squadron the foreign ships would be caught as in a trap, and must in the end surrender. Nevertheless, the American Commodore Dewey, though his squadron was small and had no place to which to retreat in case refitting became necessary, on the night of April 30th steamed undauntedly into the harbour, and passed Corregidor without damage. He had not been ex- pected, it was night, the searchlights were not ready, and the forts on the island did not even fire until the invaders passed. The Spanish fleet in the early morning was, how- ever, ready, and the seamen prepared to fight as if they did not know that ship for ship they were hopelessly over- matched ; but the forts, we suspect, were not in the best order. At least if they were, we do not know how Com- modore Dewey won the battle. Everybody says he had the stronger fleet, and that is true ; but they forget that Admiral Montojo had the forts at his back, and that they alone ought to have been able to drive off the attacking squadron. Two great fortresses with Krupp guns mounted upon them, and Spanish artillerymen to man them, ought surely to have given a good account of four warships, none of them of the first class, with a gunboat and some tramp steamers laden with coal behind them; but they did not. The American Commodore kept his ships in incessant motion —he "was driven to manceuvre," says Admiral Montojo —and his squadron was apparently not damaged by the fire from the forts, while ship after ship opposed to him sank under his fire, or burst into flames, or retreated to the little inner harbour of Bakor, there to be destroyed by their owners' hands. The Spaniards fought bravely, losing, it is asserted, two thousand men—we imagine this account includes the wounded, while the other account, with its loss of four hundred, is limited to the dead—but in four hours their fleet in the Pacific was literally annihilated, and Commodore Dewey left free to attack Manilla and Cavite. Both, we believe, were taken, but at this point communication was cut off, the Spaniards, to avoid sending details of their defeat to Spain, having cut the cable, an act which could yield them no military advantage whatever. Commodore Dewey had, therefore, to send news of his victory to Hong-kong, and it may be some hours after this paper is published before the details of the engagement are clearly known, but of the broad result no one, even in Madrid, entertains a doubt. The Philippines are lost to Spain. Setter Sagasta says the garrison can and will hold out, but garrisons do not hold out when unable to reply to an enemy's fire ; the whole non- Spanish population, say 95 per cent., is unfriendly to Spain ; the Governor knows that help from the Peninsula. within any reasonable time is physically impossible ; there are vast multitudes of houseless people to be fed from the hostile interior ; and altogether the situation is one in which capitulation would involve no discredit even in soldiers' eyes. Commodore Dewey, who is to be supported by troops from San Francisco, is, we doubt not, at this moment in military possession of the colony.
It is impossible, though in this war we are American in feeling, to read of such a catastrophe without a deep emotion of pity for Spain. The mismanagement, or the corruption, or the ineptitude among her governing men must have been so awful. Spain has at her disposal all the resources of modern science; she has a free revenue not pledged to bondholders of twenty millions a year ; up to January she could and did raise loans ; her people hold their colonies as dear as their own pro- vinces, and yet the second of them, which has been in their possession since 1565, has been taken by four ships belonging to a Power seven thousand miles away. There was no reason in the world, except inefficiency in the rulers, why the Spanish Pacific Squadron should have consisted of antiquated vessels, why Corregidor should not have been made impregnable, or why Manilla. should not have been defended by forts against which a. much greater invading fleet might have battered in vain.. A fort, though it is motionless, has always this superiority over a vessel, that it can be resupplied for ever, while the ship rapidly exhausts its stores. The Spaniards were ready to give their lives, they had given their money, there is no suspicion of any treachery ; but a fatal want of competence at the top, continued for generations, destroyed the fighting value of courage, patriotism, and even despair. It must be heartbreaking to all Spaniards, and, for our own part, we cannot blame the fury of the Madrilenos, or the rage of the Republicans, or the suspicions of the provincials, who believe in treason. Even Englishmen would be hard to hold in under such circumstances ; and Englishmen have not been trained to believe that their country is always unlucky because it is badly governed, or rendered bitter by centuries of a slow decline from the topmost position in the world. We rejoice in the efficiency of the American representative of our race, because we believe that, failing the Anglo- Saxon, the wronged of the world will find no defender ; we exult in his skill, his preparedness, and his daring ; but we can, nevertheless, feel for Spain, and hope that, thrown back by deserved misfortune upon themselves, her people may yet commence a brighter and more humane career. They have governed tyrannically abroad, and they have failed ; but they may yet govern themselves well, and, so governing, succeed. After all, we who are so proud, justly proud, of our success in administering India, have never stamped ourselves upon that continent as the Spaniards, whom we reproach with ineptitude, have stamped themselves upon the two Americas. You cannot say that India is English, but from Alabama to Tierra del Fuego the Americas are Iberian.
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