_May 17._ The Spanish squadron reported as yet remaining at Cadiz.
The U. S. S. _Wilmington_ had a slight action with a Spanish gunboat off the Cuban coast, during which the latter was disabled.
_May 18._ The U. S. cruiser _Charleston_ left San Francisco for the Philippines with supplies for Commodore Dewey's fleet.
_May 19._ By cable from Madrid it was learned that the Spanish fleet had arrived at Santiago de Cuba.
The cruiser _Charleston_, which sailed for Manila, returned to Mare Island navy yard with her condensers out of order.
_May 21._ An order was despatched to San Francisco to prepare the _Monterey_ for a voyage to Manila, where she would join Commodore Dewey's fleet. The _Monterey_ is probably the most formidable monitor in the world; technically described she is a barbed turret, low freeboard monitor of four thousand tons displacement, 256 feet long, fifty-nine feet beam, and fourteen feet six inches draught. She carries in two turrets, surrounded by barbettes, two 12-inch and two 10-inch guns, while on her superstructure, between the turrets, are mounted six 6-pounders, four 1-pounders, and two Gatlings. The turrets are seven and one-half and eight inches thick, and the surrounding barbettes are fourteen inches and eleven and one-half inches of steel.
One of the most important prizes captured during the war was taken by the U. S. S. _Minneapolis_ off the eastern coast of Cuba. The craft was the Spanish brig _Santa Maria de Lourdes_, loaded with coal, ammunition, arms, and supplies for Admiral Cervera.
Nearly four hundred men, with a pack-train and a large quantity of arms and ammunition, sailed for a point about twenty-five miles east of Havana, on the steamer _Florida_. These men and their equipment constituted an expedition able to operate independently, and to defend itself against any body of Spanish troops which might oppose it.
The _Florida_ returned to Key West on the thirty-first, after having successfully landed the ammunition and men.
_May 22._ The U. S. S. _Charleston_ again left San Francisco, bound for Manila.
_May 25._ The U. S. S. _St. Paul_ captured the British steamer _Restormel_, loaded with coal, off Santiago de Cuba. The prize is a long, low tramp collier belonging to the Troy company of Cardiff, Wales. She left there on April 22d, the day before war was declared, with twenty-eight hundred tons of the finest grade of Cardiff coal consigned to a Spanish firm in San Juan de Porto Rico, where the Spanish fleet was supposed to make its first stop.