treated. After her loss there were not many who thought we ought not to.
Our people were in a fury. They wanted war, and were eager to have it.

The heads of the government at Washington felt the same way. Many
millions of dollars were voted by Congress, and much of this was spent
in buying ships and hiring and repairing ships, and much more of it in
getting the army ready for war.

For Congress was as full of war-feeling as the people. President
McKinley would have liked to have peace, but he could no more hold back
the people and Congress than a man with an ox-chain could hold back a
locomotive. So it was that, two months after the _Maine_ sank in the mud
of Havana harbor, like a great coffin filled with the dead, war was
declared against Spain.

Now, I wish to tell you how the loss of the _Maine_ was avenged. I am
not going to tell you here all about what our navy did in the war. There
are some good stories to tell about that. But just here we have to think
about the _Maine_ and her murdered men, and have to tell about how one
of her officers paid Spain back for the dreadful deed.

As soon as the telegraph brought word to the fleet at Key West that "War
is declared," the great ships lifted their anchors and sped away, bound
for Cuba, not many miles to the south. And about a month afterward this
great fleet of battleships, and monitors, and cruisers, and gunboats
were in front of the harbor of Santiago, holding fast there Admiral
Cervera and his men, who were in Santiago harbor with the finest
warships owned by Spain.

There were in the American fleet big ships and little ships, strong
ships and weak ships; and one of the smallest of them all was the little
_Gloucester_. This had once been a pleasure yacht, used only for sport.
It was now a gunboat ready for war. It had only a few small guns, but
these were of the "rapid-fire" kind, which could pour out iron balls
almost as fast as hailstones come from the sky in a storm.

And in command of the _Gloucester_ was Lieutenant Wainwright, who had
been night officer of the _Maine_ when that ill-fated ship was blown up
by a Spanish mine. The gallant lieutenant was there to avenge his lost
ship.

I shall tell you later about how the Spanish ships dashed out of the
harbor of Santiago on the 3d of July and what happened to them. Just now
you wish to know what Lieutenant Wainwright and the little _Gloucester_
did on that great day, and how Spain was made to pay for the lo