Some few years later, that British Ambassador came to die; and to the British Embassy repaired Theodore Roosevelt. “Would it be possible for us to arrange,” he said, “a funeral more honored and marked than the United States has ever accorded to any one not a citizen? I should like it. And,” he suddenly added, shaking his fist at the German Embassy over the way, “I’d like to grind all their noses in the dirt.”
Confronted with the awkward fact that Britain was almost unanimously with us, from Mr. Balfour down through the British press to the British people, those nations whose ambassadors had paid so unsuccessful a call at the British Embassy had to give it up. Their coalition never came off. Such a thing couldn’t come off without England, and England said No.
Next, Lord Cromer, at Port Said, stretched out the arm of international law, and laid it upon the Spanish fleet. Belligerents may legally take coal enough at neutral ports to reach their nearest “home port.” That Spanish fleet was on its way from Spain to Manila through the Suez Canal. It could have reached there, had Lord Cromer allowed it coal enough to make the nearest home port ahead of it--Manila. But there was a home port behind it, still nearer, namely, Barcelona. He let it take coal enough to get back to Barcelona. Thus, England again stepped in.
The third time was in Manila Bay itself, after Dewey’s victory, and while he was in occupation of the place. Once more the Kaiser tried it, not discouraged by his failure with Mr. Balfour and the British Government. He desired the Philippines for himself; we had not yet acquired them; we were policing them, superintending the harbor, administering whatever had fallen to us from Spain’s defeat. The Kaiser sent, under Admiral Diedrich, a squadron stronger than Dewey’s.
Dewey indicated where the German was to anchor. “I am here by the order of his Majesty the German Emperor,” said Diedrich, and chose his own place to anchor. He made it quite plain in other ways that he was taking no orders from America. Dewey, so report has it, at last told him that “if he wanted a fight he could have it at the drop of the hat.” Then it was that the German called on the English Admiral, Chichester, who was likewise at hand, anchored in Manila Bay. “What would you do,” inquired Diedrich, “in the event of trouble between Admiral Dewey and myself?” “That is a secret known only to Admiral Dewey and me,” said the Englishman. Plainer talk could hardly be. Diedrich, though a German, understood it. He returned to his flagship. What he saw next morning was the British cruiser in a new place, interposed between Dewey and himself. Once more, he understood; and he and his squadron sailed off; and it was soon after this incident that the disappointed Kaiser wrote that, if only his fleet had been larger, he would have taken us by the scruff of the neck.