Displacement. Date of Speed. Tons. Launch. Knots. Armoured cruisers-- _Infanta Maria Teresa_ (flagship) } { 1891 } _Vizcaya_ } 6890 { 1891 } 20 _Almirante Oquendo_ } { 1890 } _Cristobal Colon_ 6480 1896 20 Torpedo-boat destroyers-- _Terror_ } _Furor_ } 400 1896-7 28 _Pluton_ } Torpedo-boats-- _Azor_, _Ariete_, _Rayo_. Auxiliary cruiser-- _Ciudad de Cadiz_ (an armed liner acting as mother-ship to the torpedo-boats). The armoured cruisers were all of the same type, ships with an armoured deck under water protecting the engines and magazines, a 6-inch armour belt, and an armoured barbette fore and aft, mounting a 9 1/2-inch Hontoria gun. They had a secondary armament of ten 6-inch quick-firers, besides a number of lighter guns for defence against torpedo craft, and had maxims mounted in their fighting tops. The "Cristobal Colon," originally built for the Italian Navy as the "Giuseppe Garibaldi," and purchased by Spain and renamed, had only the quick-firers, and had no guns in her barbettes. These had originally been armed with Armstrong guns. The heavy Armstrongs were taken out of her at Cadiz to be replaced by Hontorias, but these were not ready when the war came, and the "Cristobal Colon" sailed for St. Vincent without them. The torpedo-boat destroyers were of the best and latest type of their class, and recently built on the Clyde. The war in the Atlantic began by Sampson's squadron leaving Key West, establishing the blockade of Western Cuba, reconnoitring the sea defences of Havana, and exchanging some shells with them at long range. Then, in order to satisfy popular feeling in America, Sampson bombarded the batteries of San Juan, in Puerto Rico, an operation that had no real effect on the fortunes of the war, and inflicted only trifling local loss on the Spaniards.