[Illustration: EX-MINISTER DE LOME.] As has already been said, the United States government at once ordered a court of inquiry to ascertain the cause of the disaster, and this, together with the search for the bodies of the drowned crew, was prosecuted with utmost vigour. Very many of the people in the United States believed that Spanish officials were chargeable with the terrible crime, while those who were not disposed to make such exceedingly serious accusation insisted that the Spanish government was responsible for the safety of the vessel,—that she had been destroyed by outside agencies in a friendly harbour. In the newspapers, on the streets, in all public places, the American people spoke of the possibility of war, and the officials of the government set to work as if, so it would seem, they also were confident there would be an open rupture between the two nations. _February 28._ In Congress, Representative Gibson of Tennessee introduced a bill appropriating twenty million dollars “for the maintenance of national honour and defence.” Representative Bromwell, of Ohio, introduced a similar resolution, appropriating a like amount of money “to place the naval strength of the country upon a proper footing for immediate hostilities with any foreign power.” On the same day orders were issued to the commandant at Fort Barrancas, Florida, directing him to send men to man the guns at Santa Rosa Island, opposite Pensacola. _February 28._ Señor Louis Polo y Bernabe, appointed minister in the place of Señor de Lome, who resigned, sailed from Gibraltar. By the end of February the work of preparing the vessels at the different navy yards for sea was being pushed forward with the utmost rapidity, and munitions of war were distributed hurriedly among the forts and fortifications, as if the officials of the War Department believed that hostilities might be begun at any moment. Nor was it only within the borders of this country that such preparations were making. A despatch from Shanghai to London reported that the United States squadron, which included the cruisers _Olympia_, _Boston_, _Raleigh_, _Concord_, and _Petrel_, were concentrating at Hongkong, with a view of active operations against Manila, in the Philippine Islands, in event of war. At about the same time came news from Spain telling that the Spanish were making ready for hostilities. An exceptionally large number of artisans were at work preparing for sea battle-ships, cruisers, and torpedo-boat destroyers. The cruisers _Oquendo_ and _Vizcaya_, with the torpedo-boat destroyers _Furor_ and _Terror_, were already on their way to Cuba, where were stationed the _Alphonso XII._, the _Infanta Isabel_, and the _Nueva Espana_, together with twelve gunboats of about three hundred tons each, and eighteen vessels of two hundred and fifty tons each.