The engagement began about half-past nine in the morning; by two o’clock in the afternoon the last ship, the _Cristobal Colon_, was run ashore sixty miles down the coast, and Admiral Cervera himself was a prisoner. In the interval the _Infanta Maria Teresa_, the _Oquendo_, and the _Vizcaya_ were forced ashore and burnt, blown up, or surrendered, within twenty miles of Santiago. The _Furor_ and _Pluton_ were destroyed within four miles of the port. Cervera’s ship was about two knots faster than the American ships which first assailed it, but it could not hope to escape the other American vessels lying off the coast, nor did it. In respect to fighting power, weight of metal, armour protection, and condition for fighting, the Spanish ships were hopelessly overmatched; and the Spanish guns, whatever may have been their value on paper, were as inferior as the Spanish gunnery. One knows not whether to wonder more at the state of mind of an administration which could send so ill-equipped and neglected a fleet to the seat of war, or at the extraordinary bravery of the crews who went in a patriotic cause to what was little else than certain death. The indifferent shooting which the Spaniards displayed in the Santiago affair, from first to last, prompted Captain (afterwards Admiral) Robley D. Evans, otherwise “Fighting Bob,” to declare that they “couldn’t hit a d----d thing but the ocean” when they missed his ship with unfailing regularity. [Illustration: U.S. BATTLESHIP “TEXAS.”] [Illustration: U.S. BATTLESHIP “IOWA.”] When the _Cristobal Colon_ appeared, the _Indiana_ headed close in shore to get within short range. The Spaniard fired her 11-inch Hontoria gun and missed. The American ship replied with her 13-inch guns, and then discharged every weapon she could bring to bear upon her ill-fated antagonist, one shell exploding on the Spanish cruiser’s deck. The _Iowa_ and _Texas_ took up the attack upon the _Cristobal Colon_; the _Indiana_ joined with the _Brooklyn_ and _Texas_ in smashing the _Oquendo_, which stranded on fire. The _Vizcaya_ next appeared to run the gauntlet, with two destroyers close behind her. The destroyers tried to torpedo the _Indiana_, but the American ship’s secondary battery soon accounted for them, one drifting ashore and blowing up. The _Vizcaya_ was set on fire by the American shells, but was fought until she was no longer tenable before she was surrendered. The _Eulate_ was also surrendered. The _Cristobal Colon_ raced with the _Brooklyn_ and _Oregon_ for 3,000 yards, until she struck the rocks bow-on and remained fast.