light ran off to the eastward, hugging the shore, with the wind on her starboard quarter. About three miles east of the entrance to the har. bor she came over on the port tack. A light haze fringed the horizon and she was not discovered until three miles off shore, when the Mayflower made her out and signaled the Morrill and Vicksburg.

They Take the Bait.

Captain Smith, of the Morrill, and Commander Lilly, of the Vicksburg, immediately slapped on all steam and started in pursuit. The schooner instantly put about and ran for Morro Castle before the wind. By doing so she would, according to the well-conceived Spanish plot, lead the two American warships directly under the guns of the Santa Clara batteries. These works are a short mile west of Morro, and are a part of the defenses of the harbor. There are two batteries, one at the shore, which has been recently thrown up, of sand and mortar, with wide embrasures for eight-inch guns, and the other on the crest of the rocky eminence which juts out into the water of the gulf at the point.

The upper battery mounts modern 10-inch and 12-inch Krupp guns behind a six-foot stone parapet, in front of which are twenty feet of earthwork and a belting of railroad iron. This battery is considered the most formidable of Havana's defenses except Morro Castle. It is masked and has not been absolutely located by the American warships. It is probably due to the fact that the Spanish did not desire to expose its position that the Vicksburg and Morrill are now afloat.

The Morrill and Vicksburg were about six miles from the schooner when the chase began. They steamed after her at full speed, the Morrill leading until within a mile and a half of the Santa Clara batteries. Commander Smith, of the Vicksburg, was the first to realize the danger into which the reckless pursuit had led them. He concluded it was time to haul off and sent a shot across the bow of the schooner.

Nearly Hit by Shrapnel Shells.

The Spanish skipper instantly brought his vessel about, but while she was still rolling in the trough of the sea, with her sails flapping, an 8-inch shrapnel shell came hurtling through the air from the water battery, a mile and a half away. It passed over the Morrill between the pilothouse and the smokestack and exploded less than fifty feet on the port quarter. The small shot rattled against her side. It was a close call.

Two more shots followed in quick succession, both shrapnel. One burst close under the starboard quarter, filling the engine room with the smoke of the explosion of the shell, and the other, like the first, passed over and exploded just beyond.

The Spanish gunners had the range and their time fuses were accurately set. The crews of both ships were at their guns. Lieutenant Craig, who was in charge of the bow 4-inch rapid-fire gun of the Morrill, asked for and obtained permission to return the fire. At the first shot the Vicksburg, which was in the wake of the Morrill, slightly in-shore, sheered off and passed to windward under the Morrill's stern.

Another Narrow Escape.

In the meantime, Captain Smith also put his helm to port, and was none too soon, for as the Morrill stood off a solid 8-inch shot grazed her starboard quarter and kicked up tons of water as it struck a wave 100 yards beyond. Captain Smith said afterward that this was undoubtedly an 8-inch armor-piercing projectile, and that it would have passed through the Morrill's boilers had he not changed his course in the nick of time.

All the guns of the water battery were now at work. One of them cut the Jacob's ladder of the Vicksburg adrift, and another carried away a portion of the rigging. As the Morrill and the Vicksburg steamed away their aft guns were used, but only a few shots were fired. The Morrill's 6-inch gun was elevated for 4,000 yards and struck the earthworks repeatedly. The Vicksburg fired but three shots from her 6-pounder.

The Spaniards continued to fire shot and shell for twenty minutes, but the shots were ineffective. Some of them were so wild that they roused the American "Jackies" to jeers. The Spaniards only ceased firing when the Morrill and Vicksburg were completely out of range.

If all the Spanish gunners had been suffering from strabismus their practice could not have been worse. But the officers of both the Morrill and Vicksburg frankly admit their own recklessness and the narrow escape of their vessels from destruction. They are firmly convinced that the pursuit of the schooner was a neatly planned trick, which almost proved successful.

If any one of the shots had struck the thin skin of either vessel it would have offered no more resistance than a piece of paper to a rifle ball.

The accurate range of the first few shots is accounted for by the fact that the Spanish officers had ample time to make observations. The bearings of the two vessels were probably taken with a range-finder at the Santa Clara battery, and, as this battery is probably connected by wire with Morro, they were able to take bearings from both points, and by laborious calculations they fixed the positions of the vessels pretty accurately. With such opportunity for observation it would have been no great trick for an American gunner to drop a shell down the smokestack of a vessel.

As soon as the ships sheered off after the first fire, the Spanish gunners lost the range and their practice became ludicrous. If they had waited five minutes longer before opening fire, Captain Smith says it would have been well-nigh impossible to have missed the target.

Prior to the invasion of Cuba by our army large stores of arms and ammunition were sent to the insurgents. One of the most notable of these expeditions was made by the tug Leyden, which carried 50,000 rounds of rifle cartridges and two chests of dynamite. She left Key West with Colonel Acosta and some twenty-five other Cubans on board, who were to join General Gomez in Santa Clara Province. The tug reached the Cuban coast and after landing her passengers in safety steamed to a point seventeen miles west of Havana, where she was met by General Perico Delgado with about 100 Cubans on the beach. The Leyden's crew began landing the ammunition, when a small body of Spanish cavalry appeared some little distance back from the shore, and, dismounting, began firing upon the Leyden. Several bullets had penetrated the tug's smoke-stack, when the boat drew off the shore some three miles, where it met the gunboat Wilmington.

Returning under the protection of the gunboat, the Leyden again began landing its cargo. The Spaniards soon returned, and, ignoring a lively fusillade from Degaldo's insurgents, resumed their attack on the Leyden. The Wilmington, which had taken up a position further off shore, sent a three-pound shell into the midst of the cavalry, wounding several of them and putting them to flight. The Leyden then finished the work of landing the ammunition, and returned to Key West.

CHAPTER XLII.

DECLARATION OF WAR.

The Spanish Minister in Washington Demands His Passports - Minister Woodford Leaves Madrid-Formal Declaration of War-Our Government Declares Its Intentions-The War Feeling in Spain-Effect of the Declaration in Cuba-Opinion of the Vice-President of the Cuban Republic.

Spain was given until Saturday, April 23, at noon, to answer the demand of our government expressed in the joint Cuban resolutions, passed by both Houses of Congress, and signed by the President. In default of an answer by that time, the President declared his intention to carry out the purpose of the ultimatum. A copy of this ultimatum was delivered to Senor Polo, the Spanish Minister at Washington. Senor Polo instantly demanded his passports, declared all diplomatic relations between himself as Minister and the United States no longer possible, and within a few hours was on his way to Canada.

At Madrid, before our Minister could comply with his instructions, he was notified by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs that diplomatic relations were at an end. He at once asked for his passports, and the same day left for Paris.

President McKinley rightly regarded the conduct of Spain in breaking off diplomatic intercourse and refusing even to receive his demand, as an equivalent to an absolute refusal. There remained no reason to await action till Saturday noon, as no possible reply could be expected to a demand the very presentation of which had been positively rejected. In short, Spain instantly showed that it regarded the act of Congress and President as practically a declaration of war, and there remained no resort except to arms.

On Monday, April 25, the President sent to Congress a message asking for a joint resolution declaring that a state of war existed between Spain and the United States, and a bill was at once introduced into the House declaring that war did exist, and had existed, since and including April 21, which passed in less than two minutes. The Senate promptly concurred and the bill became a law.

While the United States was not a party to the Declaration of Paris, the government made known its intention to maintain its four cardinal principles: (1) Privateering abolished. (2) Neutral flags to exempt an enemy's goods from capture, except contraband of war. (3) Neutral goods under an enemy's flag not to be seized (4) Blockade to be binding must be effective. Spain, on her part, issued a decree recognizing the fact that a state of war existed, breaking off all treaties with the United States, and promising to observe the rules just given, except that she maintained her right to grant letters of marque to privateers. But this exception was modified by Spain's declaring her intention to send out only auxiliary cruisers taken from the mercantile marine and kept under naval control. One consideration which may have influenced this decision was the self-evident fact that the European Powers would certainly interfere, in the event that Spain attempted to carry on privateering under the old methods.

The War Feeling in Spain.

In Spain the war feeling was high. The Queen Regent, in her speech to the Cortes, declared "the unalterable resolution of my government to defend our rights, whatsoever sacrifices may be imposed upon us in accomplishing this task." She said further:

"Thus identifying myself with the nation, I not only fulfil the oath I swore in accepting the regency, but I follow the dictates of a mother's heart, trusting to the Spanish people to gather behind my son's throne and to defend it until he is old enough to defend it himself, as well as trusting to the Spanish people to defend the honor and territory of the nation."

The Policy of the Administration.

The President and Congress undoubtedly acted on the lines of good policy in making a formal declaration of war. As Mr. McKinley said in his message to Congress, the trend of events compelled him to take measures of a hostile kind. A blockade had been established and Spanish vessels had been captured. While every civilized power on earth immediately learned the facts, there still remained the necessity of going through the formal act of notifying them of this government's intentions. In this instance, as in others in the nation's history, the actual hostilities were begun before it seemed necessary for the government to make a formal declaration. According to the authorities on international law, "a declaration may be necessary, but is not essential." In