Through the intervention of Cambon, the French Ambassador at Washington, negotiations were opened which resulted in a protocol which bound Spain to relinquish all sovereignty over Cuba, to cede Porto Rico and other West India island possessions to the United States, and it provided for a Commission to agree upon a treaty of peace, to meet in Paris, not later than October 1, 1898; also provided for Commissions to regulate the evacuation of Cuba and Porto Rico.
The treaty was signed in Paris December 10, 1898; was submitted by the President to the Senate January 11, 1899, and ratified by it, and its ratification approved by him, February 6, 1899. The Queen of Spain ratified the treaty March 19, 1899, and its ratifications were exchanged and proclaimed at Washington April 11, 1899. It provided for the cession, also, to the United States of the Philippine Islands and the payment of $20,000,000 therefor.
The total casualties in battle, during the war, in our navy, were 17 killed and 67 wounded (no naval officer injured); and, in our army, 23 officers and 257 men killed, and 113 officers and 1464 men wounded; grand total, 297 killed and 1644 wounded, of all arms of the service.
The deaths from disease and causes other than battle, in camps and at sea, were, 80 officers and 2485 enlisted men. Many died at their homes of disease; some of wounds.
An insurrection broke out in the Philippines in February, 1899, which is not yet suppressed.
The war was not bloody, and the end attained in the cause of humanity and liberty is a justification of it; but whether the acquisition of extensive tropical and distant island possessions was wise, or will tend to perpetuate our Republic and spread constitutional liberty, remains to be shown by the infallible test of time. Our sovereignty over Cuba, thus far, appears to be a friendly usurpation, without right, professedly in the interest of humanity, civilization, and good government. Our acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, all in the tropics, is a new national departure which may prove wise or not, according as we deal justly and mercifully with the people who inhabit them. It may be in the Divine plan that these countries should pass under a more beneficent, enduring, newer, and higher civilization, to be guided and dominated by a people speaking the English tongue.
( 1) The certificate of his naturalization reads:
"Maryland ss.
"These are to certify all persons whom it may concern: That George Keifer of Frederick County, within the Province aforesaid, born out of the Allegiance of his most Sacred Majesty King George the Third, etc., did, on the 3d day of September Anno Domini 1765, Personally appear before the Justices of his Lordship's Provincial Court, and then and there, in Term Time, between the hours of nine and twelve in the forenoon of the same day, produced and delivered a certificate in writing of his having received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in a Protestant or Reformed Congregation in the said Province of Maryland, within three months next before the exhibiting of such certificate, signed by the person administering such Sacrament, and attested by two credible witnesses, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament made in the thirteenth year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Second, entitled, An Act for naturalizing such foreign Protestants, and others therein mentioned, as are settled or shall settle in any of his Majesty's Colonies in America; and then and there made appear, that he had been an inhabitant in some of his Majesty's Plantations seven years, and had not been absent out of some of the said Colonies for a longer space than two months at any one time during the said seven years; and also then and there took the oaths of Allegiance, Abhorrency, and Abjuration, repeated the Test, and subscribed the same, and oath of Abjuration. In testimony whereof, I have hereto set my hand, and affixed the seal of the said court, this 3d day of September in the year of our Lord God, one thousand seven hundred and Sixty-five.
"Test. Reverdy Ghiselm, Clk."