The signaling from the flagship and the hurried movement on every deck showed that the fleet was about to attack. In the meantime the McCulloch received her orders. She was to lie well outside, that is, to the west of the fighting line, and protect the two cargo ships, Nanshan and Zafiro. The position assigned to her permitted the American fleet to carry on their fighting maneuvers and at the same time to keep between the Spanish fleet and the three American ships which were not qualified to go into the battle. GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S PROCLAMATION. Shortly before 5 o'clock Sunday morning and when every vessel in the fleet had reported itself in readiness to move on Cavite, the crews were drawn up and the remarkable proclamation issued by the governor-general of the Philippine islands, on April 23, was read to the men. Every American sailor went into battle determined to resent the insults contained in the message, which was as follows: Spaniards! Hostilities have broken out between Spain and the United States. The moment has arrived for us to prove to the world that we possess the spirit to conquer those who, pretending to be loyal friends, have taken advantage of our misfortune and abused our hospitalities, using means which civilized nations count unworthy and disreputable. The North American people, constituted of all the social excrescences, have exhausted our patience and provoked war with their perfidious machinations, with their acts of treachery, with their outrages against laws of nations and international conventions. The struggle will be short and decisive, the God of victories will give us one as brilliant and complete as the righteousness and justice of our cause demand. Spain, which counts on the sympathies of all the nations, will emerge triumphantly from the new test, humiliating and blasting the adventurers from those states that, with out cohesion and without history, offer to humanity only infamous tradition and the ungrateful spectacle of chambers in which appear united insolence, cowardice and cynicism. A squadron, manned by foreigners possessing neither instructions nor discipline, is preparing to come to this archipelago with the ruffianly intention of robbing us of all that means life, honor and liberty.