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.