type, ships with an armoured
deck under water protecting the engines and magazines, a 6-inch armour
belt, and an armoured barbette fore and aft, mounting a 9 1/2-inch Hontoria
gun. They had a secondary armament of ten 6-inch quick-firers, besides a
number of lighter guns for defence against torpedo craft, and had maxims
mounted in their fighting tops. The "Cristobal Colon," originally built for
the Italian Navy as the "Giuseppe Garibaldi," and purchased by Spain and
renamed, had only the quick-firers, and had no guns in her barbettes. These
had originally been armed with Armstrong guns. The heavy Armstrongs were
taken out of her at Cadiz to be replaced by Hontorias, but these were not
ready when the war came, and the "Cristobal Colon" sailed for St. Vincent
without them. The torpedo-boat destroyers were of the best and latest type
of their class, and recently built on the Clyde.

The war in the Atlantic began by Sampson's squadron leaving Key West,
establishing the blockade of Western Cuba, reconnoitring the sea defences
of Havana, and exchanging some shells with them at long range. Then, in
order to satisfy popular feeling in America, Sampson bombarded the
batteries of San Juan, in Puerto Rico, an operation that had no real effect
on the fortunes of the war, and inflicted only trifling local loss on the
Spaniards.

An army had been assembled at Tampa, in Florida, and a huge fleet of
transports was collected to ferry it over to Cuba. Its destination was
supposed to be the western end of the island, where, in co-operation with
the insurgents by land and the fleet by sea, it would besiege and capture
Havana. But again and again the sailing of the fleet was delayed, and there
was alarm in the cities of the Atlantic states, because the newspapers
published wild reports of phantom armadas hovering off the coast. When news
came that Cervera had sailed from St. Vincent, and for many days there was
no trace of his movements, there was a quite unnecessary alarm as to what
the Spanish squadron might do. A wise Press censorship would have been very
useful to the United States, but there was little or no attempt to control
the wild rumours published by the newspapers.

For some days after the declaration of war (23 April) Cervera's squadron
lay at St. Vincent. All the ships were repainted a dead black, some coal
was taken on board, and quantities of ammunition transferred from the holds
of the "Ciudad de Cadiz" to the magazines o