_ and the
_Yale_, to which, as being under his immediate charge, the Department
had given no orders, to go to sea, the former to cruise in the Mona
Passage, to detect the enemy if he passed through it for Puerto Rico,
the _Yale_ to assist the _St. Paul_ at the station of which he had
been notified from Washington. The Department was informed by him of
these dispositions. Sampson at the same time cabled Remey at Key West
to warn the blockaders off Cienfuegos--none of which were armored--of
the possible appearance of the enemy at that port. In this step he had
been anticipated by the Department, which, feeling the urgency of the
case and uncertain of communicating betimes through him, had issued an
order direct to Remey, thirty-six hours before, that those ships, with
a single exception, should be withdrawn; and that the vessels on the
north coast should be notified, but not removed.

These various movements indicate the usefulness and the employments of
the cruiser class, one of which also carried the news to Cienfuegos,
another along the north coast, while a third took Sampson's telegrams
from his position at sea to the cable port. Owing to our insufficient
number of vessels of the kind required, torpedo boats, of great speed
in smooth water, but of delicate machinery and liable to serious
retardation in a sea-way, were much used for these missions, to the
great hurt of their engines, not intended for long-continued high
exertion, and to their own consequent injury for their particular
duties. The _St. Paul's_ career exemplified also the changes of
direction to which cruisers are liable, and the consequent necessity
of keeping them well in hand both as regards position and preparation,
especially of coal. Between the time the _Minneapolis_ sailed and her
own departure, at 6 P.M., of May 14th, the news of the Spanish
division's arrival at Curacao was received; and as there had been
previous independent information that colliers had been ordered to
meet it in the Gulf of Venezuela, only a hundred miles from Curacao,
the conclusion was fair that the enemy needed coal and hoped to get it
in that neighborhood. Why else, indeed, if as fast as reported, and
aware, as he must be, that Sampson was as far east as San Juan, had he
not pushed direct for Cuba, his probable objective? In regard to
colliers being due in the Gulf of Venezuela, the reports proved
incorrect; but the inference as to the need of coal was accurate, and
tha