The 4th Cruiser Squadron (formerly the North America and West Indies Station), with its main base the Royal Naval Dockyard at Bermuda, was tasked to protect Allied merchant shipping from commerce raiders in the Caribbean and along the East Coast of North America and Craddock dispersed his ships shortly before the war began on 4 August 1914 in a futile search for the two German warships known to be in the area. In the early evening of 6 August, "Bristol" spotted the German light cruiser , but failed to inflict any significant damage before engine problems allowed the German ship to disengage behind her own smoke. Later in the month, "Bristol" began patrolling off the northern coast of Brazil in an unsuccessful attempt to find the German ships. The ship was detached to continue to patrol the Brazilian coast and did not join Craddock's ships as they searched for the East Asia Squadron off the Chilean coast in October.