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When we passed the Brooklyn Navy Yard I talked so much and so eagerly of the battle-ships at anchor there that the lady must have thought I had followed the sea, for she asked: "Are you a sailorman?" It was the first question that was in any way personal. "I used to sail a catboat," I said. My answer seemed to puzzle her, and she frowned.
All these elements taken together made a body of public opinion so important during the decades immediately succeeding the Civil War as to put a stop to any serious effort to keep the Nation in a condition of reasonable military preparedness. The representatives of this opinion then voted just as they now do when they vote against battle-ships or against fortifying the Panama Canal.
Her armor and armament are heavy, although not so powerful as that of the battle-ships. Her main advantage, as with all of the monitors, is that she presents a comparatively small target for the enemy's fire.
And then, both in the roadway and along the foot-pavements, between the blue, red or yellow columns and kiosks, what mighty traffic there was, what an extraordinary crowd! The vehicles rolled along in a thundering stream: on all sides billows of cabs were parted by the ponderous tacking of huge omnibuses, which suggested lofty, bright-hued battle-ships.
The torpedo-boat destroyer, contrary to general belief, does not carry any heavy guns, but depends on its great speed and its ability to cripple a torpedo-boat with its 6-pounders while keeping out of range of the enemy’s tubes. All torpedo-boat destroyers carry torpedo tubes themselves, so that they can be used against the enemy’s battle-ships or cruisers if the occasion offers.
Even though a repetition, it should be set down that the North Atlantic fleet, Rear-Admiral W. T. Sampson commanding, with Commodores J. C. Watson and W. S. Schley of the first and second squadrons respectively, which blockaded the port of Santiago, consisted of the battle-ships Massachusetts, Iowa, Texas, Indiana, Oregon; armoured cruisers New York, Admiral Sampson’s flag-ship, Brooklyn, Commodore Schley’s flag-ship; protected cruisers New Orleans, Newark, Commodore Watson’s flag-ship; converted yachts Vixen, Gloucester.
Still the stranger showed no flag, and though Tremayne could hardly believe that a hostile cruiser and a couple of torpedo-boats would venture so near to the ground occupied by the British battle-ships, the fact that she showed no colours looked at the best suspicious. Determined to settle the question, if possible, one way or the other, he ran up the ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron.
It was, of course, useless to order forth his ironclads, simply to see them disabled and set adrift. There was another arm of the service which evidently could be used with better effect upon this peculiar foe than could the great battle-ships.
Vincent as first lord of the admiralty, Lord Cochrane was appointed to the Pallas, in which he again did excellent service; and distinguished himself still more when, in the Impérieuse, he attacked the whole French fleet in the Basque Roads, driving three or four of their battle-ships ashore, capturing three others, and compelling the rest to take to flight.
As important, and perhaps to be deemed as romantic some day; witness the rhapsodic advertisements of filing-cabinets that are built like battle-ships; of carbon-paper that is magic-inked and satin-smooth. Not as priest or soldier or judge does youth seek honor to-day, but as a man of offices.
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