The descent of the fleet of home and foreign warships down the North River was a triumphal parade, not less imposing than the great naval review in celebration of the Columbian anniversary. Whistles shrieked, sirens screamed, cannon roared in deafening, unbroken chorus from the Palisades to the Narrows. An unnumbered multitude of craft great and small swarmed in the wake of the majestic warships. Down past the Statue of Liberty, past the green slopes of Staten Island into the whitening waters of the open sea the floating city moved. New York escorted to her very gates the dumb guest whose presence she coveted but dared not tolerate. No prisoner ever went to execution so honored by his judges. Sandy Hook was the farthest limit to which the majority of the vast fleet cared to venture. The choppy sea beyond was too rough for most of the frail and overloaded pleasure boats which composed the greater part of the volunteer escort. It had been announced that the warships would steam straight out to sea at full speed for fully forty-eight hours before executing their strange mission. No ordinary craft could hope to witness the final act to take place almost in mid-ocean. Some few private yachts and other sea-going vessels convoyed the stately men-of-war some miles farther toward their vague destination, but by sundown none but the five great battleships remained upon the sea. They sailed abreast almost due east. The _Massachusetts_, in the center of the line, was flanked on the right by the British and Italian men-of-war, and on the left by the French and German ships. Nearly a mile separated each vessel from its nearest neighbor. In the same relative positions they steamed on through the night and all the next day. A stiff wind from the southeast and a lowering sky made a turbulent, forbidding sea, and it was not deemed wise to engage in any of the evolutions and sea-courtesies that would otherwise have been indulged in. The night brought a welcome change. When the morning of Saturday dawned, the blue depths of the sky and the green depths of the sea were as clear and calm as though the stately ships lay anchored in the Bay of Naples. All the morning the signal flags fluttered greetings and congratulations from ship to ship. At ten o’clock the _Massachusetts_ signaled a request that the fleet should reduce speed and draw in closer, so that half a mile only should separate the ships. An hour later the flags on the United States vessel signaled an invitation to the admiral and staff on each of the other ships to come on board, and the fleet came to a stop for the purpose.