No trouble at all in breathing; ten hours’ sleep; and an almost entire disappearance this morning of asthmatic symptoms, . . .
After we got settled down to business [this morning] there was some more discussion of the Spanish paper. Gray spoke of it as an able document. I dissented and said it struck me as pettifogging and dishonest. Day dwelt a good deal on the efforts to impugn his veracity in his account of the transactions preceding the protocol, and is evidently bent on giving it very serious attention. On renewed suggestions from several [Commissioners], I undertook to prepare our reasons for taking the Philippines and spent the afternoon in doing it….