ten 4.1-inch guns and eight 5-pounder guns
made her quite a match for enemy warships of her class and superior as
for merchantmen. She was a sister ship to that other famous raider the
_Emden_. In 1909 she had taken her place among the other foreign
warships in the line in the Hudson River, participating in the
Hudson-Fulton Celebration. In the spring of 1914 she was in the
neighborhood of Central America and rescued a number of foreign
refugees who fled from Mexico, and also took Senor Huerta from Puerto
Mexico.

She was still in that neighborhood when the war broke out, and was
immediately sought after by British and French warships which were
near by. She managed to get away from these pursuers and sank the
British steamers _Hyades_ and _Holmwood_ off the Brazilian coast
during the latter part of August, 1914. She then went south, rounded
the Horn and joined the other ships under command of Admiral Von Spee,
taking part in the battle off Coronel, on November 1, 1914.

She remained with that squadron and took part in a second battle--that
off the Falkland Islands--on December 8, 1914. When Admiral von Spee
saw that he had little chance of winning the battle he gave orders
that the lighter ships should leave the line and seek safety in
flight. The _Dresden_ was one of the ships which escaped, to the
chagrin of the British Admiral. She then turned "raider."

Five days later, on December 13, 1914, she had appeared off Punta
Arenas, in the Straits of Magellan, stopped at that port long enough
to take on some provisions and put to sea again, with British and
Japanese warships on her trail. She was too closely hunted to be able
to sink many ships, but during the week of March 12, 1915, she sank
the British steamer _Conway Castle_, off the coast of Chile, and took
coal and provisions from the two German steamers _Alda_ and _Sierra
Cordoba_.

On March 14, 1915, she was sighted by the British cruisers _Glasgow_,
_Kent_ and _Orama_ near Juan Fernandez Island. What then ensued is in
doubt, owing to conflicting reports made by the senior British officer
and by the captain of the German cruiser. The latter insisted that,
seeing his ship was at the end of her career, he ordered his men to
leave her and then blew her up. The former declared that shots were
exchanged, that she was set afire and was otherwise badly damaged by
the British fire. At any rate, she was destroyed, and all of her men
were saved. It was estimated that t