"Your telegrams 27th received and answered by letter. Volunteers are surrendering themselves with arms and ammunition; four-fifths of the people are overjoyed at the arrival of the army. Two thousand from one place have volunteered to serve with it. They are bringing in transportation, beef, cattle and other needed supplies.
"The Custom House has already yielded $14,000.
"As soon as all the troops are disembarked they will be in readiness to move.
"Please send any national colors that can be spared, to be given to the different municipalities.
"I request that the question of the tariff rates to be charged in the parts of Porto Rico occupied by our forces be submitted to the President for his action, the previously existing tariff remaining meanwhile in force. As to the government under military occupation, I have already given instructions based upon the instructions issued by the President in the case of the Philippine Islands, and similar to those issued at Santiago de Cuba.
"Miles."
When the soldiers entered Ponce the people sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" in a mixture of Spanish and English, and every time this tune was heard the police forced everybody to remove his hat!
"The natives are, upon the whole, exceedingly friendly," says a correspondent of the New York Sun, "and almost all of them welcome the American army. The flag is voluntarily displayed from many of the principal stores. If there are any Spanish flags in the city they are kept carefully concealed. In the stores American goods are sometimes to be found, particularly in hardware stores. All fabrics, foods, and luxuries, however, have been imported from Europe, mostly from Spain. The Spanish Government forces its colonies to import from home by levying a heavy discriminating duty upon all goods not Spanish. Prices are very high, notwithstanding which fact business is brisk.
"The soldiers are good customers and buy all sorts of curios as souvenirs for friends at home. The officers, too, buy considerable quantities of light underclothing. It is safe to say that there has never before been as much money in circulation here. All the merchants favor annexation."
In an article in the National Magazine the following is said: