The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-26

l gave the order to Captain Clarke to
 open fire with his 13 inch guns. Cap | tain Clarke has testified that
 he did not receive It and have always
 been under the impression until heard
 him say otherwise, that that order had
 been transmitted. However, we con-
 tinued to advanee--the Oregon and the
 Brooklyn. l don't think the Oregon
 was further astern than 500 yards. l
 do not believe the prolongtaion of her
 course at any time would have passed i within 800 yards of the Brooklyn. We were practically and relatively at the same distances; perhaps the Brooklyn | was little nearer at times and then the Oregon little nearer. We con- tinued in this position until about 12:50 when we realized that we were within
 range of this vessel and we tried the
 IS inch and inch guns on her. Sev-
 eral of them fell short but remember
 that one of the Oregon's 13 inch shots
 passed entirely over the Colon and that
 one of the inch shots of the Brooklyn
 passed over her also. I saw with my
 own eyes the jet of water beyond. l
 t ought at firts it had gone through
 her, but it appears that 1t did not
 strike her The position of the Colon
 being directly under the fire of the two
 ships, there was no question in the
 mind of the captain of the Colon that
 1t would be fatal.~I think he did ex-
 actly right A sacrifice of life would
 have been unnecessary, so he fired
 gun to the leeward and hauled his flag
 down and ran in onto the bar at the
 mouth of Rio Tarquino. I signalled at
 once to cease firing, that the enemy
 had surrendered We hauled up and immediately pasesd into po- sitlon We had some difficulty
 in getting out boat on account of the steam being burned off and the cranes. being struck. They were more or less damned. We steam ed into position of thousand yards. l remember distinctly Captain Cook asking if we should slow up I said: No, continue in Captain Cook chang ed his coal. We were all in fighting rig. We arrived in the vicinity of the Colon certainly at 1:30 At the time she hauled her colors down I did not think she was over four miles from us We were running then in the neighbor- hood of fifteen knots. When this sur render took place I naturally felt inter- ested in the vessels that were following. I was then on the bridge and with glasses I saw three vessels astern. I could see the masts of two. I could see only the smoke of the third one. We | lowered the boat and Captain Cook 1 went aboard. He said to me, 'Commo- dore, what are the terms of surrender | I said to him: Unconditional These l are matters that the commander-inchief must arrange. We can only receive an surrender At ? o'clock | and rwenty-three minutes about the | New York came up. had made sig nals to her. think she was quite half an hour In answering one of them | Of course, there was not very much breeze in under the land, When she | came up made the signal to her that It was glorious day for our country and I, soon as could, went on board to pay my respects. In the meantime Captain Cook. who had been detained some little time, started off to make his report and went on board the flag ship. When he returned I took the ooat and went on board myself There reported substantially what had oc- ,urred, the incidents and events of the ,attle, i'll hurried way. After having stated item to the commander-inchief Crouv of officers who were standing ,n the opposite side came up to me and lnsked me-Of course everybody was nterested-for the details of this battle lnd I rehearsed them in hasty way. Captain Royce of the New York came lp and said: Commodore, your work Is lot over yet, The Resolute has just Lrrlved Captain Eaton reports that here is Spanish battleship on the cast and the admiral wants to see you.
 went over and there found Captain Ilark in the presence of the command