Question: From which navy was the cruiser "Reina Mercedes" captured by the USA in 1898?
Context: HMAS "Pioneer (formerly HMS "Pioneer) was a "Pelorus"-class light cruiser built for the Royal Navy at the end of the 19th century.  She was transferred to the fledgling Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1912.  During World War I, the cruiser captured two German merchant ships, and was involved in the East African Campaign, including the blockade of the cruiser SMS "Königsberg" and a bombardment of Dar-es-Salaam.  She returned to Australia in late 1916 and was decommissioned.  "Pioneer" was used as an accommodation ship for the following six years, then was stripped down and sold off by 1926.  The cruiser was scuttled outside Sydney Heads in 1931 Reina Mercedes is politically subdivided into 20 barangays. Reina Mercedes, was an "Alfonso XII"-class cruiser of the Spanish Navy. HMS "Aurora" was an "Arethusa"-class light cruiser that saw service in World War I with the Royal Navy.  During the war, the cruiser participated in the Battle of Dogger Bank and was a member of the Grand Fleet when the main fleet of the Imperial German Navy surrendered to it in 1918.  Following the war, "Aurora" was placed in reserve and in 1920, the cruiser was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy.  Her service with the Royal Canadian Navy was brief, being paid off in 1922.  The cruiser was sold for scrap in 1927 and broken up. The SS "Valencia" was an iron-hulled passenger steamer built as a minor ocean liner for the Red D Line for service between Venezuela and New York City.  She was built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons, one year after the construction of her sister ship "Caracas".  She was a 1,598 ton vessel (originally 1,200 tons), 252 feet (77 m) in length.  In 1897, "Valencia" was deliberately attacked by the Spanish cruiser "Reina Mercedes" off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  The next year, she became a coastal passenger liner on the U.S. West Coast and served periodically in the Spanish–American War as a troopship to the Philippines.  "Valencia" was wrecked off Cape Beale, which is near Clo-oose, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in 1906.  Since her sinking killed 100 people (including all of the women and children aboard), some classify the wreck of "Valencia" as the worst maritime disaster in the "Graveyard of the Pacific", a famously treacherous area off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. HMS "Swiftsure" was a "Minotaur"-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy.  She was laid down by Vickers Armstrong at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 22 September 1941, launched on 4 February 1943 by Lady Wake-Walker and commissioned on 22 June 1944.  The first of a new Minotaur class, a development of the later Colony class with extra beam and a fifth twin 4 inch turret.  "Swiftsure" was the last Royal Navy cruiser completed during World War Two and was the first British cruiser designed around the concept of an operations room and modern radar, with sensor screens and communications positioned for efficient operation.  In 1945 in the Pacific, she proved the most efficient anti-aircraft cruiser in the fleet and was the first Royal Navy cruiser with the 274 lock-and-follow radar targeting for her main armament A cruiser is a type of warship.  The term has been in use for several hundred years, and has had different meanings throughout this period.  During the Age of Sail, the term "cruising" referred to certain kinds of missions – independent scouting, commerce protection, or raiding – fulfilled by a frigate or sloop, which were the "cruising warships" of a fleet.  Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers, and can usually perform several roles. Próspero Morales (San Marcos, Guatemala, 1856 - Huehuetenango, 17 August 1898) was a Guatemalan lawyer who served as Secretary of Infrastructure, War and Public Instruction during José María Reina Barrios administration.  Two year after being in office, Morales married the well known Guatemalan teacher Natalia Górriz.  Morales resigned as Secretary on 5 March 1897 in order to run for president for the upcoming presidential elections; however, due to the failure of the Exposición Centroamericana and the severe economic crisis that Guatemala was undergoing at the time, due to the plummeting of coffee and silver international prices, general Reina Barrios suspended the elections and forcibly extended his tenure until 1902.  Morales then joined the revolution that was brewing in Quetzaltenango, but the rebels were defeated on 14 September 1897.  After Reina Barrios assassination on 8 February 1898, he unsuccessfully tried to overthrow interim president Manuel Estrada Cabrera–who also had served as Secretary under Reina Barrios–but was repelled by the forces of former president Manuel Lisandro Barillas. Reina Regente was a protected cruiser built for the Spanish Navy in the 1900s, the only member of her class.  She had a very lengthy construction period, being laid down in 1899, launched in 1906, and finally completed in 1908.  The last cruiser built in Spain for nearly twenty years, she was armed with a battery of ten 5.5 in guns and was capable of a top speed of 20 kn .  "Reina Regente"' s career was uneventful, the result of limited naval budgets and Spain's neutrality during World War I.  In the early 1920s, she was employed as a training ship until she was discarded in 1926. USS "Reina Mercedes" (IX-25) was an unprotected cruiser of the Spanish Navy which was captured in Cuba in 1898 by the U.S. Navy during the Spanish–American War.  She was refurbished and used by the U.S. Navy as a non-self-propelled receiving ship at Newport, Rhode Island, and subsequently as a detention vessel and barracks ship for the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, until 1957.
Answer: Spanish Navy