Before the _Dreadnought_ there paraded then the submarines, some showing their decks awash, others betraying their route only by their periscopes, yet others diving to disappear completely. Next, a herd of black destroyers rushed by with vindictive speed, discharging unloaded torpedoes at the _Dreadnought_, whose sides were protected by nets. Each torpedo found the mark; many, their driving force far from expended, searched and spluttered at the nets, foaming up the water, spitting out fire and smoke. It was significant of the perfect confidence in the Navy that no one of the onlookers crowding the sides of the _Dreadnought_, within a few feet of the nets, flinched. Yet had one of those torpedoes by mistake been loaded, it would have sprinkled death far around. But no one thought of danger. It was "the Navy," which does not often make mistakes. That was my first view of the British Navy. I had many opportunities afterwards of studying its ships, its men, its system. I saw, on a day of grey fog blurring the features of England and hiding its defending sea, such a day as might make this island fortress open to attack, the _Neptune_ (an improvement even on the _Dreadnought_) take the water. This, the latest addition to the ramparts of Empire, seemed as if eager to get into her element, anxious to hurry to the fighting line. The first steps towards letting her to the sea were taken some while before the appointed time, and the _Neptune_ glided so swiftly down the ways that she was afloat before the moment announced for her naming. The water fled back from the onrush of her vast bulk, then, returning, took the _Neptune_ to its bosom, and she floated easily and confidently. The launching could not have testified better to that perfection of calculation and arrangement which Britain expects of her naval men. One moment the ship pushed a monstrous form high up on to the land, the flowers bedecking her prow accentuating rather than relieving the impression of uncouthness; the next moment she was swimming bravely on the water, a mere hulk of a ship as yet, but in all her lines telling clearly of vast power and swiftness in defence or in attack. The simple religious service with which the launching was prefaced came harmoniously into the spirit of the occasion. There was no bluster of threat, no echo of the fierce war hymns of the Old Testament; but a humble, and yet confident invocation to the Supreme Power for guardianship and safety. It might have been taken as a declaration that this handiwork of man, terrible engine of battle as it was, had for its aim and end no desire of rapine or aggression, but that of peace and conservation. Since the _Neptune_ I have seen many other warships launched, including the Australian vessels, which are to help the Empire to hold the Pacific marches; and the Armada seems ever to grow, and yet ever to be thought insufficient for its grave responsibility.