r Spanish gentleman peering frequently into the
engine-room, with evident uneasiness. When asked the cause of his
concern, the reply was, "I don't feel comfortable unless the man in
charge of the engines talks English to them."

When to the need of constant and sustained ability to move at high
speed is added the necessity of frequent recoaling, allowing the
hostile navy time to come up, it is evident that the active use of a
"fleet in being," however perplexing to the enemy, must be both
anxious and precarious to its own commander. The contest is one of
strategic wits, and it is quite possible that the stronger, though
slower, force, centrally placed, may, in these days of cables, be able
to receive word and to corner its antagonist before the latter can
fill his bunkers. Of this fact we should probably have received a very
convincing illustration, had a satisfactory condition of our coast
defences permitted the Flying Squadron to be off Cienfuegos, or even
off Havana, instead of in Hampton Roads. Cervera's entrance to
Santiago was known to us within twenty-four hours. In twenty-four more
it could have been communicated off Cienfuegos by a fast despatch
boat, after which less than forty-eight would have placed our division
before Santiago. The uncertainty felt by Commodore Schley, when he
arrived off Cienfuegos, as to whether the Spanish division was inside
or no, would not have existed had his squadron been previously
blockading; and his consequent delay of over forty-eight hours--with
the rare chance thus offered to Cervera--would not have occurred. To
coal four great ships within that time was probably beyond the
resources of Santiago; whereas the speed predicated for our own
movements is rather below than above the dispositions contemplated to
ensure it.

The great end of a war fleet, however, is not to chase, nor to fly,
but to control the seas. Had Cervera escaped our pursuit at Santiago,
it would have been only to be again paralyzed at Cienfuegos or at
Havana. When speed, not force, is the reliance, destruction may be
postponed, but can be escaped only by remaining in port. Let it not,
therefore, be inferred, from the possible, though temporary, effect of
a "fleet in being," that speed is the chief of all factors in the
battleship. This plausible, superficial notion, too easily accepted in
these days of hurry and of unreflecting dependence upon machinery as
the all in all, threatens much harm to the future eff