On 15 June, Cámara finally received orders to depart immediately for the Philippines. His squadron, made up of "Pelayo" (his flagship), "Emperador Carlos V", two auxiliary cruisers, three destroyers, and four colliers, was to depart Cádiz escorting four transports. After detaching two of the transports to steam independently to the Caribbean, his squadron was to proceed to the Philippines, escorting the other two transports, which carried 4,000 Spanish Army troops to reinforce Spanish forces there. He then was to destroy Dewey's squadron. Accordingly, he sortied from Cádiz on 16 June and, after detaching two of the transports for their voyages to the Caribbean, passed Gibraltar on 17 June and arrived at Port Said, at the northern end of the Suez Canal, on 26 June. There he found that U.S. operatives had purchased all the coal available at the other end of the canal in Suez to prevent his ships from coaling with it and received word on 29 June from the British government, which controlled Egypt at the time, that his squadron was not permitted to coal in Egyptian waters because to do so would violate Egyptian and British neutrality.