The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation was received by cable in cipher, at Manila, December 29th, and as soon as it had been written out in long hand General Otis hurried a copy down to General Miller at Iloilo by a ship sailing that day, so that General Miller might "understand the position and policy of our government." But he forgot to tell Miller to conceal the policy for the present. [164] So the latter, on January 1st, not only sent a copy of it to the "President of the Federal Government of Visayas," Mr. Lopez, [165] but in the note of transmittal he "asked," says his report, "that they permit the entry of my troops." [166] What a fatal mistake! Here was a proclamation representing all the "majesty, dominion, and power" of the American Government, signed by the President of the United States, in terms asserting immediate, absolute, and supreme authority, and the natives were "asked" if they would "permit" its enforcement. General Miller's report says that he also had the proclamation "translated into Spanish and distributed to the people." [167] "The people laugh at it," he says. "The insurgents call us cowards and are fortifying at the point of the peninsula, and are mounting old smooth-bore guns left by the Spaniards. They are intrenching everywhere, are bent on having one fight, and are confident of victory. The longer we wait before the attack the harder it will be to put down the insurrection." This is especially interesting in the light of President McKinley's justification of the wisdom of temporizing--on the idea that delay would weaken the insurgents and could not hurt us. "Let no one convince you," writes Miller to Otis on January 5th, "that peaceful means can settle the difficulty here." The appeal to Otis to permit commencement of operations was without avail. Otis was the Manila agent of the Aldrich Old Guard in the Senate, in charge of the pending treaty. He would simply send the disgusted Miller messages not to be hasty, assuring him that the firing of a shot at Iloilo would mean the precipitation of general conflict about Manila and all over the place, and that this would be "most disappointing to the President of the United States, who continually urges extreme caution and no conflict." [168] The Administration was counting senatorial noses at the time, and that its anxiety was justified is apparent from the fact already noted, that on the final vote whereby the treaty was ratified it had but one vote to spare. So General Miller sat sunning himself on the deck of his transport, and watching the insurgents working like ants at their fortifications, and vainly wishing his 2500 men could get ashore at least long enough to stretch themselves a bit. John F. Bass, correspondent for Harper's Weekly, left Iloilo, returned to Manila, and wrote his paper on January 23d: "I returned to Manila well knowing that there was nothing more to be done in Iloilo until the Senate voted on the Treaty of Peace."