In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 25th day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1898, and of the independence of the United States, the 122d.

William McKINLEY.

By the President, William K. Day, Secretary of State.

Running down his prey.

Four weeks after the victory of Rear-Admiral Dewey at Manila, Commodore Schley, in command of the flying squadron, had his shrewdness and pertinacity rewarded by finding the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba.

For ten days he had, in the face of conflicting rumors, insisted that the ships of Spain were trying to make a landing on the southern coast of Cuba.  This was evidently not in consonance with certain official information and his opinion was not given much weight.

The captain of the British steamer Adula, who was interviewed at Cienfuegos, told of seeing the Spanish fleet in the vicinity of Santiago de Cuba, evidently awaiting an opportunity to get in.  Captain Sigsbee of the St. Paul related how he had captured a Spanish coal vessel going into the harbor of Santiago, and Commodore Schley argued from these two incidents that the fleet of Spain was waiting in some haven near by until such time as a visit, fruitless in its results, should be made there by the Americans when, upon their departure, the Spanish fleet would run in.

Consequently, Commodore Schley determined to find it.  Himself in the lead with the flagship, he started toward the harbor.  The Spanish troops at the works and batteries could be seen, through glasses, preparing in haste to give the American ships as warm a reception as possible.

When about five miles from the batteries the lookouts reported the masts of two ships, and Flag Lieutenant Sears and Ensign McCauley made out the first to be the Cristobal Colon.  Two torpedo boats were also made out and a second vessel of the Vizcaya class was seen.

All this time Commodore Schley was upon the afterbridge of the Brooklyn making good use of his binoculars.  Arrived at the harbor entrance, when the ships were sighted from the deck, he turned his eyes from the glasses long enough to wink and say:  “I told you I would find them.  They will be a long time getting home,”

The voyage of the Oregon.

The voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to Florida is a matter of historic interest, for it was the first craft of the kind to weather the famous cape.  When it anchored off Sand Key, Fla., it had completed the longest trip ever made by a battleship.  Altogether she sailed 18,102 miles in eighty-one days, and this includes the days she spent in coaling.  Prior to this trip the record for long voyages had been held by a British flagship, which steamed from England