The responsibilities of General Merritt in his Manila, campaign were graver than the country understands, and his success was regarded as so much a matter of course that there has been forgetfulness to take into account the many circumstances that gave anxiety preceding decisions that seem easy now that they have been vindicated by events.  The departure from San Francisco of the Major-General commanding the Philippine expedition was as well known to the Spanish as to the American cabinet, and there is reason to think there were no important particulars of the sailing of the third division of our Philippine soldiers unknown to enemies.  There were in gold coin, a million and a half dollars in the strong box of Merritt’s ship, the Newport.  The Spanish spies were not as well posted as an average hackman, if they did not report the shipment of gold.  It would have been a triumph for Spain to have captured the commanding general and the gold, the Astor Battery and the regular recruits with the headquarters ship, The Spanish were known to have a gunboat or two lurking in the islands within striking distance of our transports, unarmed vessels—­except a few deck pieces of field artillery—­with more than a thousand men on each.  General Merritt wanted the escort of ships of war to make all secure, and application to Admiral Dewey to send one of his war boats, brought the statement that he could not spare a ship.  Just at that time he heard of the run by Camara with the Cadiz fleet Eastward on the Mediterranean, and soon he had word that the Pelayo and her companions were in the Suez canal.  General Greene had not arrived at Manila at that time, and the monitors Monterey and Monadnock were getting along slowly.  Dewey knew he would have to evacuate the scene of his victory in case Camara was fully committed to go to Manila, and wait for the Monitors, and when he got them he said he would return and sink another Spanish fleet, but that was something it might be critical to explain, and General Merritt, after leaving San Francisco, did not get any news for twenty-six days.  All that time he would have had no justification for surprise if he had been attacked by a Spanish gunboat, and if the Spaniards had pushed on their Rapide—­the converted German liner the Normania—­she could have been handled to cut off the American reinforcements on the way to the camps of the little American army already landed.  When General Merritt reached Cavite, he found the situation difficult for the army and pushed things as the only way to get out of trouble.  He had two armies to deal with, one the Spaniards, fiercely hostile, and the other, the Filipinos, factional and jealous, each outnumbering by five thousand the American forces with which the city was assailed and finally captured.  There was no time lost, and if there had been any delay, even two days, the peace protocol would have found our army in the trenches, and the city belonging to the Spaniards.  It was the energy of General Merritt, heartily shared by