o duty.

Unfortunately,--or perhaps fortunately,--the object for which
Lieutenant Hobson and his men risked their lives was not attained. The
_Merrimac_ failed to swing around so as to lie transversely across the
channel, but sank in such a way as to place her hull parallel with the
middle of it and near its eastern edge. This left plenty of water and
plenty of room for vessels to pass on the western, or Smith Cay, side.
Egress, however, although still possible, was extremely difficult and
dangerous, on account of the strictness and closeness of the blockade
which was established when Admiral Sampson arrived and took command of
the combined fleets. The battle-ships and larger vessels, which formed
the outer line of the blockade, were disposed in a semicircle around the
mouth of the harbor, at a distance of four or five miles, with the
flagship _New York_ at one end of the line and the _Brooklyn_ at the
other. Inside of this semicircle, and much nearer the entrance, were
stationed two or three small cruisers or gunboats, whose duty it was to
watch the mouth of the harbor incessantly and give instant warning of
the appearance of any hostile vessel. At night, when the danger from the
Spanish torpedo-boats was greatest and when Cervera's fleet was most
likely to escape, a powerful and piercing search-light was held
constantly on the mouth of the narrow canon between Morro and Socapa;
the battle-ships closed in so as to diminish the radius of their
semicircle by nearly one half; the cruisers and gunboats, under cover of
the blinding radiance of the search-light, moved a mile nearer to the
mouth of the harbor; and three steam-launches patrolled the coast all
night within pistol-shot of the enemy's batteries. In the face of such a
blockade it was virtually impossible for Cervera to escape, and almost
equally impossible for his torpedo-boats to come out of the harbor
unobserved, or to reach any of our larger vessels even if they should
venture out. Long before they could get across the mile and a half or
two miles of water that separated the harbor entrance from the nearest
battleship, they would be riddled with projectiles from perhaps a
hundred rapid-fire guns. Torpedo-boats, however, did not play an
important part on either side. Our own were prevented from entering the
harbor by a strong log boom stretched across the channel just north of
the Estrella battery, and those of the Spaniards never even attempted to
make an aggre