City of Paris, was a British-built passenger liner of the Inman Line that held the Blue Riband as the fastest ship on the north Atlantic route from 1889 to 1891 and again from 1892 to 1893.

[1] A sister ship of the City of New York and a rival of the White Star Line Teutonic and Majestic, she proved to be the quickest of the pre-Campania twin-screw express liners.

Paris served in the US Navy as the auxiliary cruiser USS Yale during the Spanish–American War and is remembered for slipping into the harbor at San Juan, Puerto Rico, under the Spanish guns of Morro Castle.

The firm's Vice President, Clement Griscom immediately sailed to Liverpool with a commitment from the Pennsylvania Railroad to provide $2 million in capital towards the building of a new ship to compete against Cunard and White Star.

However, City of Paris was dead in the water and was towed to Queenstown by the tramp steamer Aldersgate, commanded by Captain - and Master Mariner - George Humphrey James Chesshire.

It was ultimately determined that the accident was caused by failure to synchronize the engines, a common problem with early twin screw express liners.

Even before City of Paris was completed, the British Government responded to Inman's ownership change by revoking the line's mail contract.

Under this legislation, International Navigation was required to build two similar ships in the US and make all four twin screw liners available to the government in the event of a crisis.

As Paris was in the UK preparing to depart from Liverpool, her American flag was raised two weeks later by Clement Griscom's 13-year-old daughter when the ship arrived in New York.

Under the command of Captain William Wise USN, the renamed Yale, commissioned on 2 May 1898, was dispatched to Puerto Rico to look for the Spanish fleet.

[2] On the day of her commissioning into the Navy, Yale put to sea from New York, bound for Puerto Rico to patrol and help locate Admiral Cervera's Spanish fleet.

Wise knew that the Spanish government was trying to acquire passenger ships and that one of the vessels potentially available was the Anchor (former Inman) City of Rome, which was almost identical to the Yale.

When out of range, Yale captured (2 May 1898) the Spanish Steamer Rita and put a prize crew aboard to sail her to Charleston, South Carolina.

Pursuant to her orders, Yale patrolled off Puerto Rico until 13 May, at which time she left for St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) to telegraph her report to Washington.

Paris returned to her regular trade and in December 1898 rescued 22 of 23 seamen aboard the British Vindobala before the tanker sank during a bad winter storm.

[4] The supervising salvage engineer was Matthew Wheldon Aisbitt (Superintendent, Cardiff Docks) and the scanned image is taken from his 1900 photograph album, which includes his original notes.

The Paris ran aground mere metres from another steamer, Mohegan, which had sunk 9 months earlier with a loss of 106 of 197 onboard; in fact, she almost struck the sunken ship.

Captain Watkins was held by the New York Board of Inspectors of Steam Vessels to have been wholly responsible for the negligent navigation of his ship and had his master's certificate suspended for two years.

[6] After she was pulled from the rocks, the badly damaged ship was rebuilt at Belfast, Ireland, receiving new engines and having her triple smokestacks replaced by a pair of taller ones.

For the remainder of the conflict she continued to take troops to Europe, making four voyages to England and France before the November 1918 Armistice brought an end to the fighting.

Returned to her owners in September 1919 and again named Philadelphia, she resumed sailings on the New York–Southampton route for nine months until the American Line suspended that service.