Six hundred and eighty officers and men form the complement of the _Monmouth_, and their pay costs the nation L32,000 a year. To feed them, 'bare navy,' costs two-thirds of that sum a year. The ship herself, as she floats, represents to the country a value not very far short of three-quarters of a million sterling, or, put in concrete form, 8 tons of sovereigns--a railway truck packed tight. Our first ironclad, the _Warrior_, cost less than half the amount expended on the _Monmouth_. The _Collingwood_, a first-class battleship of eighteen years ago, cost to complete L20,000 less than the price paid for the _Monmouth_ cruiser of to-day. Ten _Victorys_ or _Royal Georges_ could have been built and fitted for sea at the cost of this one cruiser of ours. Such, in brief, are some of the 'points' of our modern _Monmouth_. The reputation that she has to live up to, the ancestry of her famous name, in particular the magnificent feat of arms that one of our _Monmouths_, the most famous of all, once achieved--these have now to be told. * * * * * The _Monmouth_, as a fact, bears a name that ranks second to none for brilliant associations and memories of heroism. Hardly another man-of-war has so many 'battle honours' to its credit. No ship of the Old Navy perhaps ever won such distinction in battle for sheer hard fighting as did the six _Monmouths_, one after the other, from which our cruiser _Monmouth_ of to-day takes her name. Were it possible for His Majesty's ships-of-war to have ship flags for display at reviews or on other ceremonial occasions, just as the regiments of the army use regimental colours, the _Monmouth's_ flag would show a record of upwards of thirty fights, and even then the list would not be complete. No flag, probably, could display the detailed record of the occasions on which _Monmouths_ of old did their duty before the enemy at sea. The navy owes the name to Charles the Second, who introduced it on the roll of the fleet as a mark of special favour and a paternal compliment to Lucy Walters' ill-starred son, the vanquished of Sedgemoor, whose headless body now lies beneath the altar of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower. That was in the year of the Dutch attack on Chatham, and the same year saw our first _Monmouth's_ first fight. Mr. Pepys's 'complaints' notwithstanding, the _Monmouth_ made a good show on the occasion.[1] Her allotted duty was to bar the approach to the iron chain stretched across the Medway below Upnor Castle, and Captain Clarke, the _Monmouth's_ captain, kept his ship at her post until the position was no longer tenable. The _Monmouth_ later on was in the thick of the fight in the tremendous battle off Solebay, where James, Duke of York, defeated the Dutch fleet under Admiral Ruyter after nearly sixteen hours at close quarters; in Prince Rupert's three battles with the Dutch in 1673; and at La Hogue.