definitions, for by it all goods
become contraband; the extension of it therefore was to us imperative.

As things were, although this neutral trade frustrated our purposes to
a considerable degree, it afforded us no ground for complaint. On the
contrary, we were at times hard driven by want of vessels to avoid
laying ourselves open to reclamation, on the score of the blockade
being invalid, even within its limited range, because ineffective.
This was especially the case at the moment when the army was being
convoyed from Tampa, as well as immediately before, and for some days
after that occasion: before, because it was necessary then to detach
from the blockade and to assemble elsewhere the numerous small vessels
needed to check the possible harmful activity of the Spanish gunboats
along the northern coast, and afterwards, because the preliminary
operations about Santiago, concurring with dark nights favorable to
Cervera's escape, made it expedient to retain there many of the
lighter cruisers, which, moreover, needed recoaling,--a slow business
when so many ships were involved. Our operations throughout
labored--sometimes more, sometimes less--under this embarrassment,
which should be borne in mind as a constant, necessary, yet perplexing
element in the naval and military plans. The blockade, in fact, while
the army was still unready, and until the Spanish Navy came within
reach, was the one decisive measure, sure though slow in its working,
which could be taken; the necessary effect of which was to bring the
enemy's ships to this side of the ocean, unless Spain was prepared to
abandon the contest. The Italian writer already quoted, a fair critic,
though Spanish in his leanings, enumerates among the circumstances
most creditable to the direction of the war by the Navy Department the
perception that "blockade must inevitably cause collapse, given the
conditions of insurrection and of exhaustion already existing in the
island."

From this specific instance, the same author, whose military judgments
show much breadth of view, later on draws a general conclusion which is
well worth the attention of American readers, because much of our
public thought is committed to the belief that at sea private property,
so called,--that is, merchant ships and their cargoes,--should not be
liable to capture in war; which, duly interpreted, means that the
commerce of one belligerent is not to be attacked or interrupted by the
other. "B