Commodore Dewey had won a decisive victory in Manila Bay.

But before the attack, he had cut the telegraph cable linking Manila to Hong Kong.

This meant there was no quick way to communicate the news of his victory to the rest of the world.

Back in America, people waited with mounting anxiety for news of the outcome.

As the days passed, some began to give credence to the Spanish propaganda that was suggesting that the Asiatic squadron had been driven off.

Once Dewey was confident of his position in Manila Bay, he sent the smallest and fastest of his ships,

the U.S. revenue cutter, Hugh McCulloch, back to Hong Kong. It arrived late in the day on May

7th, almost a week after the battle. A board was an American journalist, Edwin Hardin, who immediately

filed a dispatch.

The Hong Kong Telegraph office refused to recognize Hardin's press credentials,

so he was forced to pay the full rate.

There was no Trans-Pacific cable at that time,

so the message had to travel from Hong Kong to Singapore, to India,den to Egypt to Gibraltar to Ireland to New York.

What may have been the most expensive telegram ever sent arrived at the New York Herald at 3 o'clock

in the morning. Americans were jubilant, but President McKinley later said privately that if Dewey had just sailed away after he destroyed the Spanish fleet, what a lot of trouble he would have saved us.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 5. Islands or canned goods.

At the end of episode 3, we left Emilio Aginaldo in Singapore.

Commodore Dewey had just sent a telegram to Spencer Pratt, the U.S. consul in

Singapore, that said send Aginaldo to Hong Kong right away. Recall that Aginaldo believes that

Commodore Dewey is on board with independence for the Philippines. Aginaldo did indeed hustle back to Hong Kong as fast as he could,

and you can imagine how he felt when he got there and discovered

that war between the United States and Spain had broken out while he was en route,

...