Crossword-Solution: CERVERA 7 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 12

Accordingly on the 29th of April, Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands and sailed westward with one fast second-class battleship, the Cristobal Colon, three armored cruisers, and two torpedo boat destroyers.

Admiral Cervera realized to the full the difficulty of the situation and protested against an expedition which he feared would mean the fall of Spanish power, but public opinion forced the ministry, and he was obliged to put to sea.

Cervera's objective was guessed to be everything from a raid on Bar Harbor to an attack on the Oregon, then on its shrouded voyage from the Pacific coast.

Sampson, rightly divining that Cervera would make for San Juan, the capital and chief seaport of Porto Rico, detached from his blockading force a fighting squadron with which he sailed east, but not finding the Spanish fleet he turned back to Key West.

Cervera would have preferred to be at San Juan, where there was a navy yard and where his position would have obliged the American fleet either to split into two divisions separated by eight hundred miles or to leave him free range of action.