nation, if it was as easily to be discouraged by the difficulties and
dangers, now past, as it is in some quarters represented again to be
by the problems arising out of the war and its conquests. Such
discouragement, perplexity, and consequent frustration of the
adversary's purposes are indeed the prime function of a "fleet in
being,"--to create and to maintain moral effect, in short, rather than
physical, unless indeed the enemy, yielding to moral effect, divides
his forces in such wise as to give a chance for a blow at one portion
of them. The tendency to this also received illustration in our war.
"Our sea-coast," said a person then in authority to the present
writer, "was in a condition of unreasoning panic, and fought to have
little squadrons scattered along it everywhere, according to the
theory of defence always favored by stupid terror." The "stupidity,"
by all military experience, was absolute--unqualified; but the Navy
Department succeeded in withstanding the "terror"--the moral
effect--so far as to compromise on the Flying Squadron; a rational
solution, though not unimpeachable. We thus, instead of a half-dozen
naval groups, had only two, the combination of which might perhaps be
effected in time enough.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In this number is included the _Emperador Carlos V._; which,
however, did not accompany the other four under Cervera.

III

POSSIBILITIES OPEN TO THE SPANISH NAVY AT THE BEGINNING OF
THE WAR.--THE REASONS FOR BLOCKADING CUBA.--FIRST
MOVEMENTS OF THE SQUADRONS UNDER ADMIRALS SAMPSON AND
CERVERA.

For the reasons just stated, it was upon Cervera's squadron that the
attention of instructed military students was chiefly turned at the
outset of the war. Grave suspicions as to its efficiency, indeed, were
felt in many quarters, based partly upon actual knowledge of the
neglect of the navy practised by the Spanish Government, and partly
upon the inference that the general incapacity evident for years past
in all the actions of the Spanish authorities, and notably in Cuba,
could not but extend to the navy,--one of the most sensitive and
delicate parts of any political organization; one of the first to go
to pieces when the social and political foundations of a State are
shaken, as was notably shown in the French Revolution. But, though
suspected, the ineffectiveness of that squadron could not be assumed
before proved. Until then--to use the words of an It