_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. [Illustration: U. S. S. MONTEREY.] 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. “When we reached San Juan,” said the captain of the _Restormel_, “the consignees told me very curtly that the persons for whom the coal was destined were in Curacoa. At Porto Rico I learned that war had been declared. I began to suspect that the coal was going to Cervera’s fleet, but my Spanish consignees said it would be all right. They told me not to ask any questions, but to go to Curacoa as soon as possible. I did so, placing my cargo under orders.