I would carry out the policy enunciated in the Print on the Baltic Project which was submitted early in the war[16] and again reverted to in my letter to the Prime Minister, dated June 2nd, 1916. Sow the North Sea with mines as thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa! That blocks effectually the Kiel Canal, if continued laying of these mines is always perpetually going on with damnable pertinacity! Then I guarantee to force a passage into the Baltic in combination with a great Military co-operation, but that co-operation must not be the co-operation of the Walcheren Expedition! “Lord Chatham with his sword drawn Was waiting for Sir Richard Strachan, Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em! Was waiting for the Earl of Chatham!” It has got to be chiefly a Naval Job! And the Army will be landed by the Navy! The Navy will guarantee landing the Army on the Coast of Pomerania and elsewhere. Three feints, any of which can be turned into a Reality. Further in detail I won’t go, but I can guarantee success. Have I ever failed yet? It’s an egotistical question, but I never have! What a d--d fool I should be to brag now if I wasn’t certain! Yours, etc., (Signed) FISHER. P.S.--I have heard some Idiots say that the Baltic Sea is now impregnable because of German mines in it. No earthly System of mines can possibly avoid being destroyed. We can get into the Baltic whenever we like to do so. I guarantee it. “SOW THE NORTH SEA WITH MINES.” (_Written in November, 1914_). The German policy of laying mines has resulted in denying our access to their harbours; has hampered our Submarines in their attempts to penetrate into German waters; and we have lost the latest type of “Dreadnought” (“Audacious”) and many other war vessels and over 70 merchant vessels of various sizes. As we have only laid a patch of mines off Ostend (whose position we have notified), the Germans have free access to our coasts to lay fresh mines and to carry out raids and bombardments. We have had, to our own immense disadvantage in holding up our coastwise traffic, to extinguish the navigation lights on our East Coast, so as to impede German ships laying mines. At times we have had completely to stop our traffic on the East Coast because of German mines; and the risk is so great that freights in some cases have advanced 75 per cent.--quite apart from shortness of tonnage. The Germans have laid mines off the North of Ireland, and may further hamper movements of shipping in the Atlantic.