Heavier ships were not needed; fewer ships might have allowed some enemy to escape; when Cervera came out, the Massachusetts was coaling at guantanamo, and the New York necessarily several miles distant, circumstances which, had the ships been bigger and fewer, would have taken much more, proportionately, from the entire squadron at a critical moment.
"Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles"
Alfred T. Mahan
The two vessels then moved away to guantanamo Bay, having been off Santiago nearly forty-eight hours.
"Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles"
Alfred T. Mahan
The writer remembers that the captain of the St. Louis, having soon afterwards to come north for coal, found it difficult to believe that he could have missed the Spanish vessels by so little; and the more so because he had spent the 19th off guantanamo, less than fifty miles distant.
"Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles"
Alfred T. Mahan