| Show 1 EXTENSION I Of TE LOCKADE COVERS 500 MILES OF THE CUBAN CU-BAN COAST < LINE Intention of the Government to CutOff I Cut-Off Supplies From the Towns Held By the Spaniards Washington June 28By proclamation proclama-tion issued today the president gave notice of the intention of the govern ment to assume the formidable task of blockading about 500 miles of Cuban coast line in addition to the sections already blockaded This increases the extent of the blqckade fully four fold it having been confiiied heretofore to a I stretch of a little more than 100 miles on the north and the single port of Cienfuegos on the south coast of the island The demands upon the navy I will not be nearly so heavy In proportion propor-tion to the territory to be covered a in the case of the Initial blockade for the reason that the new blockaded coast line lies entirely within the great bight on the south Cuban coast in which the water is generally very shallow shal-low and the ports are few into which a vessel of any draft could enter The most important of these ports are Manzanillo Trinidad and Tunas West of Trinidad is Cienfuegos which is already blockaded effectively From that point westward for nearly 140 miles there is no port to be blockaded until Batabno is reached This port is only about 40 miles from Havana by rail and is believed to have been the principal source of food supply for the Spanish capital For 150 miles west of this clear over to Cape Frances the western edge of the blockaded territory there are no ports for deep vessels of any considerable draught and even i there were the country in the interior Pinar del Rio is in the hands of the insurgents and supplies could not be sent through to Havana The purpose of extending the blockade was to command com-mand the channel on the west side of the Isle of Pines and Cape Francis and thus render much easier the task of blockading vessels The vessels for the additional blockade block-ade service will be supplied almost entirely en-tirely from the patrol fleet which under un-der Commodore Howell has been guarding the North Atlantic coast from Maine to South Carolina This service ha been abandoned because be-cause the only available Spanish warships ships are with Admiral Camara thousands thou-sands of miles away from the nearest point on the Atlantic coast The vessels ves-sels are already on their way southward south-ward having been reinforcd by several of the new torpedo boats which are particularly adapted because of their light draft for blockade duty in the shallow waters lying between the Isle of Pines and Cuba The blockade of San Juan proclaimed proclaim-ed today is in reality already in effect having been initiated by Captain Sigs bee last week when he turned back from that port a British steamer laden with supplies |
