By the relinquishment of Cuba and the cession of Porto Rico, the Philippine and Sulu Islands, and Guam, the largest of the Colonial Ladrones, to the United States, as a consequence Posses- of the war of 1898, and of the remaining Ladrone sions, or Marianne Islands, together with the Caroline and Pelew Islands, to Germany by a treaty of the 8th of February 1899, the colonial possessions of Spain were greatly reduced.