ular and political
pressure, of the same kind that in our country sought to force the
division of our fleet among our ports. That the Spanish Government was
thus goaded and taunted, at the critical period when Cervera was lying
in Santiago, is certain. To that, most probably, judging from the
words used in the Cortes, we owe the desperate sortie which delivered
him into our hands and reduced Spain to inevitable submission. "The
continuance of Cervera's division in Santiago, and its apparent
inactivity," stated a leading naval periodical in Madrid, issued two
days before the destruction of the squadron, "is causing marked
currents of pessimism, and of disaffection towards the navy,
especially since the Yankees have succeeded in effecting their
proposed landing. This state of public feeling, which has been
expressed with unrestricted openness in some journals, has been
sanctioned in Congress by one of the Opposition members uttering very
unguarded opinions, and reflecting injuriously upon the navy itself,
as though upon it depended having more or fewer ships." The Minister
of Marine, replying in the Cortes, paraphrased as follows, without
contradiction, the words of this critic, which voiced, as it would
appear, a popular clamor: "You ask, 'Why, after reaching Santiago, has
the squadron not gone out, and why does it not now go out?' Why do
four ships not go out to fight twenty? You ask again: 'If it does not
go out, if it does not hasten to seek death, what is the use of
squadrons? For what are fleets built, if not to be lost?' We are bound
to believe, Senor Romero Robledo, that your words in this case express
neither what you intended to say nor your real opinion." Nevertheless,
they seem not to have received correction, nor to have been retracted;
and to the sting of them, and of others of like character, is
doubtless due the express order of the Ministry under which Cervera
quitted his anchorage.

Like ourselves, our enemy at the outset of the war had his fleet in
two principal divisions: one still somewhat formless and as yet
unready, but of very considerable power, was in the ports of the
Peninsula; the other--Cervera's--at the Cape Verde Islands, a
possession of Portugal. The latter was really exceptional in its
qualities, as our Italian author has said. It was exceptional in a
general sense, because homogeneous and composed of vessels of very
high qualities, offensive and defensive; it was exceptional also, as
to