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"In the harbour of Kiel there are about a hundred transports and some older ironclads and cruisers, which cannot offer a serious resistance to our fleet. All these ships must be attacked with the greatest rapidity and vigour. It is of the utmost importance to send a battleship to the entrance of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, in order to cut off the retreat of the German ships.
The splendid victory of Heemskerk had struck the government with dismay and diffused a panic along the coast. The mercantile fleets, destined for either India, dared not venture forth so long as the terrible Dutch cruisers, which had just annihilated a splendid Spanish fleet, commanded by a veteran of Lepanto, and under the very guns of Gibraltar, were supposed to be hovering off the Peninsula.
Some twenty minutes later, after a lively bout of signalling by the wireless operators aboard the Japanese ships, it became certain that the smoke seen must proceed from enemy ships, and all our dispositions were made for dealing with them, the instructions of the armoured division being to close slowly in upon the enemy from the westward, while the battleships rushed down at full speed from the north, and the protected cruisers did the same from the south.
Accustomed as he was to the sight of Great Britain's noble squadrons, and the enormous size of her battleships and cruisers, the Chinese fleet at first glance seemed utterly insignificant as a fighting machine. In the first place, the ships were few in number, and there were but two battleships among them; and both they and the cruisers would nearly all have been considered obsolete in England.
AT the immediate time of which we now write, there had been some very aggravated instances of open resistance to the English and American cruisers on the African station by the slavers who thronged the coast, and the home government had sent out orders embracing extraordinary powers, in order that the first cases that might thenceforth come under the cognizance of the court might lead to such summary treatment of the offenders, as to act as an example for the rest, and thus have a most salutary effect upon the people thus engaged.
July 28. The expedition destined for Porto Rico, under command of Major-General Brooke, left Newport News. Four transports and the auxiliary cruisers St. Louis and St. Paul comprises the fleet. The Navy Department made public the following telegram: “U. S. S. MASSACHUSETTS, PONCE, PORTO RICO, July 28.
France, also with its fifty submarines and thirty-one under construction, and its great corps of scouting aeroplanes, will prove a formidable agent in crippling the activities of Germany's big fleet of dreadnoughts, armored cruisers and battleships.
Diplomatic discussions centred about such questions as the validity of the blockade established by President Lincoln, the recognition by England of Confederate belligerency, the Trent affair, and the responsibility of England for the depredations committed by the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers.
You and my other friends from both ships will be quite safe and happy there until order is restored. You must come. The men's lives, at any rate, would not be worth an hour's purchase if my opponent's forces found them here, and I feel certain that one or more cruisers will arrive off Maceio to-night.
His was the most stirring display of personal courage shown on a day when all were brave. To return to the correspondent's account: "Gun for gun and shot for shot the running fight was kept up between the Spanish cruisers and the four American vessels. At 10.30 o'clock the 'Infanta Maria Teresa' and 'Vizcaya' were almost on the beach, and were evidently in distress.
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