The President presented his first message to Congress on May 28. He spoke with gratitude of the disinterested intervention and services of the United States, and with confidence of Cuba's ability to fulfil her duties as a sovereign State. He recommended care in the preparation of the budget, and the formulation of measures for the encouragement of cattle-raising and the growing of sugar and tobacco. Just then, owing to the great increase of European beet sugar growing the Cuban sugar trade was in an unsatisfactory state, but he hoped to improve it by securing a reciprocity treaty with the United States which would admit Cuban sugar to the markets of that country free of tariff duty. He also promised to promote the building of much-needed railroads. He urged the cultivation of cordial relations and commercial intercourse with all nations, but especially with the United States. As a special act of grace, a number of Americans who had justly been sentenced to terms in Cuban prisons under the Government of Intervention received pardons. These included three men, Rathbone, Neely and Reeves, who had been sentenced for ten years for frauds in the Cuban postoffice, the only serious scandal of the American administration. Two of the items in the Platt Amendment were soon taken up by the United States government, and were settled in a way eminently satisfactory to Cuba. One was the disposition of the Isle of Pines. It was decided by the State Department at Washington that when the American government was withdrawn from Cuba, control of the Isle of Pines was transferred to the Cuban government, to be held and exercised by it unless and until some other disposition should subsequently be effected. In time Cuban ownership of the isle was definitively confirmed by the government of the United States. The other point was that of American naval stations. A report was made by Rear-Admiral Bradford of the United States Navy, recommending the establishment of naval stations at Triscornia, in Havana Harbor; and at Guantanamo, east of Santiago; and the establishment of coaling stations at Nipe Bay and Cienfuegos. The Cubans were not inclined to object to any of these excepting the first-named, to which their objection was reasonable and convincing. It would not be agreeable, they thought, to have the flag of a foreign power flying right in front of their own capital and at the very gate of the harbor of that capital, so that foreign vessels would pass by it and salute it equally with the Cuban flag. This objection was recognized and respected by the United States government, which waived all claim to Triscornia, and on July 2, 1903, contented itself with land for naval stations at Guantanamo, one of the finest harbors in the world, on the south coast of Oriente, and Bahia Honda, another superb harbor, on the north coast of Pinar del Rio. Of these only Guantanamo has actually been utilized.