We left Plymouth the morning after I joined her to join the fleet at Portland. We were making our best possible speed, but she was a ship that resented being driven beyond a certain pace, for when doing anything over ten or eleven knots her steering was erratic to the last degree. A yaw of three points on either side was of constant occurrence, and my sympathies went out to the chief engineer, who stood looking at her wake in grim calculation of an enormous amount of wasted energy. In due course we joined up at Portland with the Red Fleet under the command of Admiral Fitzroy. Compared with our fleets of to-day it was a motley gathering. The best vessels in the manœuvres were four ships of the _Royal Sovereign_ class, all allotted to the Red Fleet, while first-class cruisers were put into the line of battle to make up sufficient numbers to carry out the scheme of operations. But if the Red Fleet was one of all sorts, the Blue Fleet was still worse, for with the exception of some armoured and other cruisers, there were not in it any two homogeneous ships. This, be it remembered, was in 1894. It would be interesting to hear the comments of an admiral to-day if he were given the command of a fleet of battleships consisting of six different types, such as _Alexandra_, _Barfleur_, _Benbow_, _Inflexible_, _Colossus_, and _Edinburgh_. It speaks well for the capacity of the officers in charge that they were able to obtain satisfactory results from so strange a mixture, but that really was the transition time of the Navy, for since that date ships have been built with a view to homogeneity. No object would be served by relating the details of those manœuvres. I shall content myself with one or two remarks upon occurrences that impressed themselves upon me. We left Portland in due course for a week’s manœuvres in the Channel, and Admiral Fitzroy expressed his satisfaction at the manner in which they were performed. We then put into Falmouth to coal and get ready for the battle that would probably take place between the opposing Fleets. By this time the crew and officers had got used to the ship and to one another. We had on board about thirty Naval Reserve men and they fell to my division; the great mistake made was in putting them on board with an insufficient kit. This led to all sorts of excuses being made for them, and it was easy to see that instructions had been given that they were to be treated with a very light hand. This they were not slow to discover. They were not a bad lot, but it was unsatisfactory to me to have to handle them under those conditions, and when the captain expressed his satisfaction at their general appearance, I had to take it seriously, but knew that Falstaff’s regiment must have been in his thoughts. The matter of inferior appearance by some members of a ship’s company is no trifling matter.