Hundreds of ships, drawn from the mercantile marine and the fisheries, steam yachts, motor boats, armed launches, and vessels of other classes, are employed in such dangerous work. They share the trials of war, wind, and weather with the regular naval patrols. Sir Edward Carson, when First Lord of the Admiralty, directed attention to the magnificent work of the mine-trawlers of these patrols. The force employed at the beginning of the war numbered about 150 small vessels, but increased to 3,000 or more. The whole nation should understand what mine-sweepers were doing. “The thousands of men engaged in this operation are the men who are feeding the whole population of this country, from morning till night, battling with the elements as well as the enemy, facing dangers under the sea. A mine-sweeper carries his life in his hands at every moment, and he does it willingly.” Later again he expressed his thanks and the thanks of the nation for the splendid work they had accomplished. Of all the seamen who had so deservedly earned the gratitude of the country none had had more arduous and dangerous duties to perform than the gallant fellows in the patrols. They have worked in reliefs day and night at sea, though sometimes driven to port by the fury of the elements, and they brave every kind of weather. As Admiral Bacon, commanding the Dover Patrol, has said, with reference to the security with which thousands of merchantmen had passed through the waters in his control, “no figures could emphasise more thoroughly the sacrifice made by the personnel of the patrols and the relative immunity ensured to the commerce of their country.” They have trawled for mines not only in British but in distant waters. Their magnificent work under fire, and attacked by bomb-dropping aeroplanes, at the Dardanelles will never be forgotten. An American correspondent, Mr. Gordon Brace, who sailed in a mine-trawler to learn its work, concluded an article in the _New York Tribune_ in these words:— I looked at those men who go out day after day; who wear their lifebelts continuously; who take their tea on the decks while they peer over the rims of their cups for the death that lurks in those sombre waters. I thought how fine was their devotion to their duty; how great a part they are playing in the war—out there alone, where their deeds are attended with no sounding of trumpets, where they give to their work the same quality of bravery as is required of the man in the trenches. And as I glanced at the inscription over the cabin, which read “England expects every man to do his duty,” I knew that England would not be disappointed.