f the King, to
christen a new British warship at Newcastle. It will be named the
"Eagle." Meantime I'll be trying to get outdoor life at Sandwich.

Yesterday a regiment of our National Army marched through the
streets of London and were reviewed by the King and me; and the
town made a great day of it. While there is an undercurrent of
complaint in certain sections of English opinion because we didn't
come into the war sooner, there is a very general and very genuine
appreciation of everything we have done and of all that we do.
Nothing could be heartier than the welcome given our men here
yesterday. Nor could any men have made a braver or better showing
than they made. They made us all swell with pride.

They are coming over now, as you know, in great quantities. There
were about 8,000 landed here last week and about 30,000 more are
expected this week. I think that many more go direct to France
than come through England. On their way through England they do not
come to London. Only twice have we had them here, yesterday and one
day last summer when we had a parade of a regiment of engineers.
For the _army_ London is on a sidetrack--is an out of the way
place. For our navy, of course, it's the European headquarters,
since Admiral Sims has his headquarters here. We thus see a good
many of our sailors who are allowed to come to London on leave. A
few days ago I had a talk with a little bunch of them who came from
one of our superdreadnaughts in the North Sea. They had just
returned from a patrol across to the coast of Norway. "Bad luck,
bad luck," they said, "on none of our long patrol trips have we
seen a single Hun ship!"

About the war, you know as much as I know. There is a general
confidence that the Allies will hold the Germans in their
forthcoming effort to get to Calais or to Paris. Yet there is an
undercurrent of fear. Nobody knows just how to feel about it.
Probably another prodigious onslaught will be made before you
receive this letter. It seems to me that we can make no intelligent
guess until this German effort is finished in France--no guess
about the future. If the Germans get the French ports (Calais, for
example) the war will go on indefinitely. If they are held back, it
_may_ end next autumn or winter--partly because of starv