clear as to command the support and approval of the civilized world."
This is the appearance of a new and a daring doctrine. That regardless of anything that Spain, with all honesty and even unheard-of humility, might do, this country was prepared to assume the rôle of the benevolent grandfather with the slipper, and take away the dangerous toys. It gave warning that diplomacy, in the sense of a negotiation between nations, might avail nothing, and that peace might not in the least depend upon our relations with Spain or their efforts to preserve it. That this was the actual case we shall see. Sincerely in hopes that the reforms inaugurated by Sagasta might bring some measure of tranquillity, the President on the 24th of January, 1898, told the Spanish Minister, Señor Dupuy de Lome, that he had determined to send the battleship Maine to Havana as a mark of friendship—a well-recognized form of international compliment. Old General Fitzhugh Lee, Consul at Havana,
