MAJOR-GENERAL WESLEY MERRITT.
CHAPTER XVII.
PEACE.
On the twenty-sixth day of July, shortly after three o’clock in the afternoon, the French ambassador, M. Cambon, accompanied by his first secretary, called at the White House, the interview having been previously arranged and an intimation of its purpose having been given. With the President at the time was Secretary of State Day.
M. Cambon stated to the President that, representing the diplomatic interests of the kingdom of Spain, “with whom at the present time the United States is unhappily engaged in hostilities,” he had been directed by the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs to ask on what terms the United States would agree to a suspension of hostilities.
The French ambassador, continuing, said that Spain, realising the hopelessness of a conflict, knowing that she was unable to cope with the great power of her adversary, and appreciating fully that a prolongation of the struggle would only entail a further sacrifice of life and result in great misery to her people, on the ground of humanity appealed to the President to consider a proposition for peace.
Spain, said the ambassador, had been compelled to [pg 346]fight to vindicate her honour, and having vindicated it, having fought bravely and been conquered by a more powerful nation, trusted to the magnanimity of the victor to bring the war to an end.