"It was refreshing and exhilarating beyond words to find oneself in a world governed by a great tradition so strong that it has become an instinct of unity and mutual trust. But to the influence of this great tradition must be added the influence of a great personality. I can not refrain from saying here that I left the Grand Fleet sharing to the full the admiration, affection, and confidence which every officer and man within it feels for its Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Jellicoe. He reassuredly is the right man in the right place at the right time. His officers give him the most absolute trust and loyalty. When I spoke of him to his men I always felt that quick response which to a speaker is the sure sign that he has reached and touched the hearts of his hearers. The Commander-in-Chief--quiet, modest, courteous, alert, resolute, holding in firm control every part of his great fighting engine--has under his command not only the ships but the heart of his Fleet. He embodies and strengthens that comradeship of single-minded service which is the crowning honor of the Navy." More than once the criticism has been uttered in England itself that the Fleet has been conspicuously lacking in the "Nelson touch." Even Americans, friendly observers, have ventured to suggest that there seemed to be an absence of the Farragut or Dewey "to-hell-with-mines" spirit. Up to the end of the first year of war, Britons faced the fact that their "supreme navy" had lost seven battleships aggregating 97,600 tons (not counting a super-dreadnought reported by the foreign press to have been lost in the early months of the war, but which was a loss never "officially confirmed" in England), and ten cruisers aggregating 81,365 tons. Submarines, in that nerve-racking and troublous day before Scott and Jellicoe solved the problem of sinking "U boats" almost faster than German dockyards could launch substitutes, accomplished terrific havoc among the British merchant fleet, even though the sea commerce of these islands was never remotely in danger of being "paralyzed," as von Tirpitz and the minions of Frightfulness fondly planned. [Illustration: Sir J. R. Jellicoe.]