weeks following her arrival. No appreciable excitement attended her
stay. On the contrary, a feeling of relief and confidence followed the
resumption of the long-interrupted friendly intercourse. So noticeable
was this immediate effect of her visit that the consul-general strongly
urged that the presence of our ships in Cuban waters should be kept up
by retaining the _Maine_ at Havana, or, in the event of her recall,
by sending another vessel there to take her place.

At forty minutes past 9 in the evening of the 15th of February the
_Maine_ was destroyed by an explosion, by which the entire forward
part of the ship was utterly wrecked. In this catastrophe 2 officers and
264 of her crew perished, those who were not killed outright by her
explosion being penned between decks by the tangle of wreckage and
drowned by the immediate sinking of the hull.

Prompt assistance was rendered by the neighboring vessels anchored in
the harbor, aid being especially given by the boats of the Spanish
cruiser _Alfonso XII_ and the Ward Line steamer _City of Washington_,
which lay not far distant. The wounded were generously cared for by
the authorities of Havana, the hospitals being freely opened to them,
while the earliest recovered bodies of the dead were interred by the
municipality in a public cemetery in the city. Tributes of grief and
sympathy were offered from all official quarters of the island.

The appalling calamity fell upon the people of our country with
crushing force, and for a brief time an intense excitement prevailed,
which in a community less just and self-controlled than ours might have
led to hasty acts of blind resentment. This spirit, however, soon gave
way to the calmer processes of reason and to the resolve to investigate
the facts and await material proof before forming a judgment as to the