ong supporting force sufficient to
resist being driven off by an attack from within or from without the
port; for it is an accepted tenet of international law that a blockade
raised by force ceases to exist, and cannot be considered
re-established until a new proclamation and reoccupancy of the ground
in force. Hence it follows that, prior to such re-establishment,
merchant vessels trying to enter or to depart cannot be captured in
virtue of the previous proclamation. Consequent upon this requirement,
therefore, the blockades on the north and on the south side, to be
secure against this military accident, should each have been supported
by a division of armored ships capable of meeting Cervera's division
on fairly equal terms; for, considering the sea distance between
Cienfuegos and Havana, one such division could not support both
blockades. It has already been indicated why it was impossible so to
sustain the Cienfuegos blockaders. The reason, in the last analysis,
was our insufficient sea-coast fortification. The Flying Squadron was
kept in Hampton Roads to calm the fears of the seaboard, and to check
any enterprise there of Cervera, if intended or attempted. The other
division of the armored fleet, however, was placed before Havana,
where its presence not only strengthened adequately the blockading
force proper, but assured also the safety of our naval base at Key
West, both objects being attainable by the same squadron, on account
of their nearness to each other.

It should likewise be noticed that the same principle of concentration
of effort upon the single purpose--the blockade--forbade, _a priori_,
any attempts at bombardment by which our armored ships should be
brought within range of disablement by heavy guns on shore. If the
blockade was our object, rightly or wrongly, and if a blockade, to be
secure against serious disturbance, required all the armored ships at
our disposal,--as it did,--it follows logically and rigorously that to
risk those ships by attacking forts is false to principle, unless
special reasons can be adduced sufficiently strong to bring such
action within the scope of the principle properly applied. It is here
necessary clearly to distinguish. Sound principles in warfare are as
useful and as necessary as in morals; when established, the
presumption in any case is all on their side, and there is no one of
them better established than concentration. But as in morals, so in
war, the applicati