“According to the protocol of peace, signed August 12th, I, obeying the orders of the government of her Catholic Majesty, the Queen–Regent of Spain, and in the name of her son, his Majesty the King, deliver the island of Cuba to the Government of the United States, represented by your commission.” General Wade, chief of the American commissioners, made an equally brief reply, and then gave this important trust into the keeping of General Brooke, the military governor. As General Castellanos left the palace for the steamer on which he was to take his departure, the American soldiers drawn up in the plaza presented arms, the officers saluted with their swords, and the American military band played the royal Spanish march. This unfortunate Spanish official, to whom had been intrusted the disagreeable duty of relinquishing into foreign hands the supreme authority over Cuba, was profoundly moved, and, as he heard the salutes being fired in honour of the American flag, which had now supplanted the emblem of Spain, he said, brokenly: “This is the most bitter moment of my life. I pray that none of you will ever suffer what I am suffering now.” Thus he departed, carrying with him the sympathy and esteem of those who but recently had been his foes. The spirit of goodwill and fraternal feeling was never more manifest than between the Spaniards and Americans in Cuba; for with the cessation of strife disappeared all animosities of whatever nature. Only the Cubans, who had been prevented for important reasons from participating in the final demonstrations attendant upon the occupation of Havana, and who allowed themselves to distrust the motives of the conquerors, held aloof at first and seemed to cherish revengeful feelings. But when General Castellanos advanced to General Menocal, a Cuban high in authority, and said, “I am sorry, sir, that we have been enemies, having the same blood in our veins,” the latter answered generously: “Sir, we fought for Cuba. Now that she is free, we are no longer enemies!” All animosities seemed then to be forgotten, and it would appear that the United States had already succeeded in its pacific mission of intervention, as the air was rent with the cries of “_Viva España!” “Viva America!” “Viva Cuba Libre!_” If a spirit of revenge had been cherished by the Americans, it must needs have been appeased that afternoon, at the sight of American soldiers marching through the capital city of Havana, with the former Consul–General Fitzhugh Lee at their head, and in the harbour the Stars and Stripes floating from a spar above the sunken war ship Maine. There seems every reason to believe that the noble aspiration of the great American Executive will be realized: