Acting Secretary of the Navy Charles H. Allen to Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, Commander, North Atlantic Fleet
Washington, D.C.
June, 10 [1898]
The Department considers you should have a cruiser off San Juan, Porto Rico to observe the port.
Sig. Allen, Acting
Memo for Admiral
The St Paul is at the Mole waiting orders from the Department[.]1 When you can spare her she is to come north to guard our coast against Normannia &c2
Source Note: TCy, DNA, AFNRC, RG 313, Entry 53. Addressed below place-date line: “Sampson/Mole Hayti.”
Footnote 1: Auxiliary Cruiser St. Paul, Capt. Charles D. Sigsbee, commanding.
Footnote 2: Normannia, launched in 1890 as a passenger steamship on the Hamburg-Line, had been purchased by the Spanish Navy in 1898 for service in the Spanish-American War and renamed Patriota.
