On the 3d of November the American commissioners cabled to the President that they were convinced that the occupation of Manila did not constitute a conquest of the islands as a whole.
By this time, however, the President had decided that the United States must have the islands.

On the 13th of November, Hay telegraphed that the United States was entitled to an indemnity for the cost of the war.

This argument was not put forward because the United States wished indemnity but to give a technical basis for the American claim to the Philippines.
In the same cablegram, Hay instructed the commissioners to offer Spain ten or twenty millions for all the islands.

Upon this financial basis the treaty was finally concluded; it was signed on December 10, 1898; and ratifications were exchanged on April 11, 1899.
The terms of the treaty provided, first, for the relinquishment of sovereignty over Cuba by Spain.

The island was to be occupied by the United States, in whose hands its subsequent disposition was left.