hs before found,
with all his shipmates, that grave in the "unharvested sea" which England
never forgets to honour, and from which no sailor shrinks. At the same
luncheon-table were two other Admirals and many junior Officers, who took
part in the same great action; and looking back upon it, and upon the
notes which I embodied in my first Letter, I see more vividly than ever
how every act and thought of those brave and practised men, among whom I
passed those few--to me--memorable hours, were conditioned by an intense
_expectation_, that trained prevision of what must come, which, in a
special degree, both stirs and steadies the mind of the modern sailor.

But one thing perhaps they had not foreseen--that by a combination of
mishaps in the first reporting of the battle, the great action, which has
really demonstrated, once and for all, the invincible supremacy of Great
Britain at sea, which has reduced the German Fleet to months of impotence,
put the invasion of these islands finally out of the question, and enabled
the British blockade to be drawn round Germany with a yet closer and
sterner hand, was made to appear, in the first announcements of it, almost
a defeat. The news of our losses--our heavy losses--came first--came
almost alone. The Admiralty, with the stern conscience of the British
official mind, announced them as they came in--bluntly--with little or no
qualification. A shock of alarm went through England! For what had we paid
so sore a price? Was the return adequate, and not only to our safety, but
to our prestige?

There were a few hours when both Great Britain--outside the handful of men
who knew--and her friends throughout the world, hung on the answer.
Meanwhile the German lie, which converted a defeat for Germany into a
"victory," got at least twenty-four hours' start, and the Imperial
Chancellor made quick and sturdy use of it when he extracted a War Loan of
L600,000,000 from a deluded and jubilant Reichstag. Then the news came in
from one quarter after another of the six-mile battle-line, from one unit
after another of the greatest sea-battle Britain had ever fought, and by
the 3rd or 4th of June, England, drawing half-ironic breath over her own
momentary misgiving, had realised the truth--first--that the German Fleet
on the 31st had only escaped total destruction by the narrowest margin,
and by the help of mist and darkness; secondly--that its losses were,
relatively far greater, and in all probabi