my, large enough
for the work in Cuba, time was needed for the result, and time was not
allowed. In one respect only the condition of the Peninsula seems to
have resembled our own; that was in the inadequacy of the coast
defences. The matter there was even more serious than with us,
because not only were the preparations less, but several large
sea-coast cities--for instance, Barcelona, Malaga, Cadiz--lie
immediately upon the sea-shore; whereas most of ours are at the head
of considerable estuaries, remote from the entrance. The exposure of
important commercial centres to bombardment, therefore, was for them
much greater. This consideration was indeed so evident, that there was
in the United States Navy a perceptible current of feeling in favor of
carrying maritime war to the coast of Spain, and to its commercial
approaches.

The objection to this, on the part of the Navy Department, was, with
slight modifications, the same as to the undertaking of operations
against Puerto Rico. There was not at our disposition, either in
armored ships or in cruisers, any superfluity of force over and above
the requirements of the projected blockade of Cuba. To divert ships
from this object, therefore, would be false to the golden rule of
concentration of effort,--to the single eye that gives light in
warfare. Moreover, in such a movement, the reliance, as represented in
the writer's hearing, would have been upon moral effect, upon the
dismay of the enemy; for we should soon have come to the end of our
physical coercion. As Nelson said of bombarding Copenhagen, "We should
have done our worst, and no nearer friends." The influence of moral
effect in war is indisputable, and often tremendous; but like some
drugs in the pharmacopoeia, it is very uncertain in its action. The
other party may not, as the boys say, "scare worth a cent;" whereas
material forces can be closely measured beforehand, and their results
reasonably predicted. This statement, generally true, is historically
especially true of the Spaniard, attacked in his own land. The
tenacity of the race has never come out so strongly as under such
conditions, as was witnessed in the old War of the Spanish Succession,
and during the usurpation of Napoleon.

On the other hand, such an enterprise on our part, if directed against
Spanish commerce on the seas, as was suggested by several excellent
officers, would have had but a trivial objective. The commerce of
Spain was cut up, roo