The German ships were all of recent construction. The _Scharnhorst_ and the _Gneisenau_ were armoured cruisers of 11,600 tons. The _Leipzig_, the _Nuernberg_, and the _Dresden_ were light cruisers of about 3,500 tons. The armament of the larger vessels included eight 8.2-inch and six 6-inch guns. The smaller relied upon either ten or twelve 4-inch pieces. Each ship carried torpedo tubes, and the speed of each was about twenty-two or twenty-three knots an hour. The _Dresden_, however, could go to twenty-seven knots. The squadron possessed all-important allies. Several German merchant-marine companies, notably the Kosmos, plied along the Chilian coast. The tonnage of their vessels, indeed, amounted to no less than half that of the English companies. The advance of German enterprise in Chili in recent years had been very marked. Von Spee's great stumbling-block was coal. The laws of war prevented him from sending more than three of his warships into a neutral port at the same time, from staying there more than twenty-four hours, from taking more coal than was necessary to reach the nearest German harbour, from coaling again for three months at a port of the same nationality. But if German merchantmen, hampered by no such restrictions, could constantly renew his supplies, the difficulty of fuel could be to some extent met. Provisions and secret information as to British movements could also be obtained through the same source. Such employment of merchantmen, however, being contrary to international law, would have to be clandestine. The great Pacific coast offered numerous harbours and abundant facilities for being utilized as a base under such conditions. It showed many historic precedents for bold and adventurous exploits which could not fail to appeal to an admiral whose family, ennobled by the Emperor Charles VI, took pride in its ancient and aristocratic lineage. The occasion seemed opportune, moreover, for the accomplishment, by himself, his officers, and men, of deeds which should inspire their posterity as British naval traditions, for lack of other, at present inspired them. They could recall how, on this very coast, in 1578-9, Drake, the master raider, had seized a Spanish treasure-ship off Valdivia, had descended like a hawk upon Callao, had pounced upon another great galleon, taking nearly a million pounds in gold and silver; and how the intrepid mariner, sailing off into the unknown ocean, had circumnavigated the globe, while the furious de Toledo waited, with eleven warships, in the Straits of Magellan. Why, indeed, should not the Germans imitate, in the twentieth century, the deeds of Drake in the sixteenth? If they preyed ruthlessly upon English merchantmen, laden with the wealth of the West, if they made a descent upon the Falkland Islands, if then they were to disappear into the wide Pacific, a career of splendid adventure and of unbounded usefulness would earn for them both the respect and the plaudits of the world.