surrender, and reported it to Admiral their opponents. According to the conSampson, who had come up finally just tract speed, the Spanish cruisers had a in time to share in the last act of the drama. The Colon was only slightly hurt by shells, but it was soon found that the Spaniards, to whom the point of honor is very dear, had opened and broken her sea-valve after surrendering her, and that she was filling fast. The New York pushed her in nearer the shore, and she sank, comparatively uninjured, in shoal water. So the fight ended. Every Spanish ship which had dashed out of the harbor in the morning was a half-sunken wreck on the Cuban coast at half-past one. The officers and men of the Iowa, assisted by the Ericsson and Hist, took off the Spanish crews from the red-hot decks and amid the exploding batteries and ammunition of the Vizcaya. The same work was done by the Gloucester and Harvard for the Oquendo and Maria Teresa. From the water and the surf, from the beaches, and from the burning wrecks, at greater peril than they had endured all day, American officers and crews rescued their beaten foes. A very noble conclusion to a very perfect victory. The Spanish lost, according to their own accounts and the best estimates, 350 killed or drowned, 160 wounded, and ninety-nine officers and 1,675 men prisoners, including, of course, those on the Furor and Pluton, as already given. The American loss was one man killed and one wounded, both on the Brooklyn. Such completeness of result and such perfection of execution are as striking here as at Manila, and Europe, which had been disposed at first to belittle Manila, saw at Santiago that these things were not accidental, and considered the performances of the American navy in a surprised and flattering, but by no means happy, silence. At Santiago the Spaniards had the best types of modern cruisers, three built by British workmen in Spanish yards, and one, the Colon, in Italy, while the torpedo-boat destroyers were fresh from the Clyde, and the very last expression of English skill. The American ships were heavier in armament and armor, but much slower. The Americans could throw a heavier weight of metal, but the Spaniards had more quick-fire guns, and ought to have been able to fire at the rate of seventy-seven more shots in five minutes than great advantage over all their American opponents, with the exception of the Brooklyn, and of the New York, which was absent. If they had lived up to their qualities as set down in every naval register, they ought to have made a most brilliant fight, and some of them ought to have escaped. They also had the advantage of coming out under a full head of steam, which their opponents lacked, and yet in less than two hours all but one were shattered wrecks along the shore, and in less than two hours more that one survivor had been run down and had met the same fate. It is no explanation to say, what we know now to be true, that the Colon did not have her 10-inch guns, that the Vizcaya was foul-bottomed, that much of the ammunition was bad, and the other ships more or less out of order. One of the conditions of naval success, just as important as any other, is that the ships should be kept in every respect in the highest possible efficiency, and that the best work of which the machine and the organization are capable should be got out of them. The Americans fulfilled these conditions, the Spaniards did not; the Oregon surpassed all that the most exacting had a right to demand; the Colon and Vizcaya did far less; hence one reason for American victory. It is also said with truth that the Spanish gunnery was bad, but this is merely stating again that they fell short in a point essential to success. They fired with great rapidity as they issued from the harbor, and although most of the shots went wide, many were anything but wild, for the Brooklyn was hit twenty-five times, the Iowa repeatedly, and the other ships more or less. When the American fire fell upon them, their fire, as at Manila, slackened, became ineffective, and died away. Again it was shown that the volume and accuracy of the American fire were so great that the fire of the opponents was smothered, and that the crews were swept away from the guns. The overwhelming American victory was due not to the shortcomings of the Spaniards, but to the efficiency of the navy of the United States and to the quality of the crews. The officers and seamen, the gunners and engineers, surpassed the THE LAST OF CERVERA'S FLEET. Spaniards in their organization and in utter destruction, upon the flying Spanish cruisers. Thus the long chase of the Spanish fleet ended in its wreck and ruin beneath American guns. As one tells the story, the utter inadequacy of the narrative to the great fact seems painfully apparent. One wanders among the absorbing details which cross and recross the reader's path, full of interest and infinite in their complexity. The more details one gathers, puzzling what to keep and what to reject, the denser seems the complexity, and the dimmer and more confused the picture. The historian writing calmly in the distant future will weave them into a full and dispassionate narrative; the antiquarian will write monographs on all incidents, small or large, with unwearying patience; the naval critic and expert will even now draw many technical and sciNo generous man can fail to admire entific lessons from everything that hapand to praise the despairing courage which pened, and will debate and dispute about held El Caney and carried Cervera's fleet it, to the great advantage of himself and out of the narrow channel of Santiago; his profession. And yet these are not but it is not the kind of courage which the things which appeal now, or will apleads to victory, such as that was which peal in the days to come, to the hearts of sent American soldiers up the hills of San men. The details, the number of shots, Juan and into the blood-stained village the ranges, the part taken by each ship, streets of El Caney, or which made the the positions of the fleet-all alike have American ships swoop down, carrying begun to fade from recollection even now, and will grow still dimmer as the years nificent crew. So long as the enemy showrecede. But out of the mist of events and the gathering darkness of passing time the great fact and the great deed stand forth for the American people and their children's children, as white and shining as the Santiago channel glaring under the search-lights through the Cuban night. ed his flag, they fought like American seamen; but when the flag came down, they were as gentle and tender as American women." They all stand out to us, these gallant figures, from admiral to seaman, with an intense human interest, fearless in fight, brave and merciful in the hour of victory. And far away along the hot ridges of the San Juan heights lie the American soldiers, who have been fighting, and winning, and digging intrenchments for fortyeight hours, sleeping little and eating less. There they are under the tropic sun that Sunday morning, and presently the heavy sound of guns comes rolling up the bay, and is flung back with many echoes from the surrounding hills. It goes on and on, so fast, so deep and loud, that it is like battle is on; they know that. Wild rumors begin to fly about, drifting up from the coast. They hear that the American fleet is coming into the harbor; then for an hour that it has been defeated; and then the truth begins to come, and before nightfall they know that the Spanish fleet is no more, and the American soldier cheers the American sailor, and is filled anew with the glow of victory, and the assurance that he and his comrades have not fought and suffered and died in vain. They remember, and will always remember, that hot summer morning, and the anxiety, only half whispered, which overspread the land. They see, and will always see, the American ships rolling lazily on the long seas, and the sailors just going to Sunday inspection. Then comes the long, thin trail of smoke drawing nearer the harbor's mouth. The ships see it, and we can hear the cheers ring out, for the enemy is coming, and the American sailor rejoices mightily to know that the battle is set. There is no need of continuous thunder filling all the air. A signals, no need of orders. The patient, long-watching admiral has given direction for every chance that may befall. Every ship is in place; every ship rushes forward, closing in upon the advancing enemy, fiercely pouring shells from broadside and turret. There is the Gloucester firing her little shots at the great cruisers, and then driving down to grapple with the torpedo-boats. There are the Spanish ships, already mortally hurt, running along the shore, shattered and breaking under the fire of the Indiana, the Iowa, and the Texas; there is the Brooklyn racing by to head the fugitives, and the Oregon dealing death-strokes as she rushes forward, forging to the front, and leaving her mark everywhere as she goes. It is a captains' fight, and they all fight as if they were one man with one ship. On they go, driving through the water, firing steadily and ever getting closer, and presently the Spanish cruisers, helpless, burning, twisted wrecks of iron, are piled along the shore, and we see the younger officers and the men of the victorious ships perilling their lives to save their beaten enemies. We see Wainwright on the Gloucester, as eager in rescue as he was swift in fight to avenge the Maine. We hear Philip cry out: "Don't cheer. The poor devils are dying." We watch Evans as he hands back the sword to the wounded Eulate, and then writes in his report: "I can not express my admiration for my mag The thought of the moment is of the present victory, but there are men there who recognize the deeper and more distant meanings of that Sunday's work, now sinking into the past. They are stirred by the knowledge that the sea-power of Spain has perished, and that the Spanish West Indies, which Columbus gave to Leon and Castile, shall know Spain no more. They lift the veil of the historic past, and see that on that July morning a great empire had met its end, and passed finally out of the New World, because it was unfit to rule and govern men. And they and all men see now, and ever more clearly will see, that in the fight off Santiago another great fact had reasserted itself for the consideration of the world. For that fight had displayed once more the victorious sea spirit of a conquering race. It is the spirit of the Jomsberg Viking, who, alone and wounded, springs into the sea from his sinking boat with defiance on |