read the news of the blockade.

During the afternoon the rum-laden schooner _Mathilde_ was taken, after a
lively chase, by the torpedo-boat _Porter_. Between five and six o'clock
in the evening the torpedo-boat _Foote_, Lieut. W. L. Rodgers commanding,
received the first Spanish fire.

She was taking soundings in the harbour of Matanzas, and had approached
within two or three hundred yards of the shore, when suddenly a masked
battery on the east side of the harbour, and not far distant from the
_Foote_, fired three shots at the torpedo-boat. The missiles went wide of
the mark, and the _Foote_ leisurely returned to the _Cincinnati_ to report
the result of her work.

At Hongkong the United States consul notified Governor Blake of the
British colony that the American fleet would leave the harbour in
forty-eight hours, and that no warlike stores, or more coal than would be
necessary to carry the vessels to the nearest home port, would be shipped.

The United States demanded of Portugal, the owner of the Cape Verde
Islands, that, in accordance with international law, she send the Spanish
war-ships away from St. Vincent, or require them to remain in that port
during the war.

_April 24._ The following decree was gazetted in Madrid:

"Diplomatic relations are broken off between Spain and the United States,
and a state of war being begun between the two countries, numerous
questions of international law arise, which must be precisely defined
chiefly because the injustice and provocation came from our adversaries,
and it is they who by their detestable conduct have caused this great
conflict."

The royal decree then states that Spain maintains her right to have
recourse to privateering, and announces that for the present only
auxiliary cruisers will be fitted out. All treaties with the United States
are annulled; thirty days are given to American ships to leave Spanish
ports, and the rules Spain will observe during the war are outlined in
five clauses, covering neutral flags and goods contraband of war; what
will be considered a blockade; the right of search, and what constitutes
contraband of war, ending with saying that foreign privateers will be
regarded as pirates.

Continuing, the decree declared: "We have observed with the strictest
fidelity the principles of international law, and have shown the most
scrupulous respect for morality and the right of government.

"There is an opinion that the fact that we have not