I have already told you that there was what is called a "run" upon the Bank of England at the prospect of war. In order that the nation should be steadied at this crisis, the Bank Holiday was continued for three days longer, and an order was made that no one need pay his business debts for a month. To keep gold in the banks for the service of the Government, paper money was introduced, and postal orders passed from hand to hand instead of coin. The newspapers were not allowed to print anything they pleased about the war, for fear that the enemy might gain important information. All war news was to be passed by what is called a censor before being printed. [Footnote 165: The rate which the Bank of England charges for giving ready money for a legal promise to pay money at a future date. The rise of the bank rate shows that money is scarce; its fall, that money is plentiful.] [Footnote 166: Sailors who have left the Navy, but must return to it when required to do so.] [Footnote 167: The Territorials are citizen soldiers from 17 to 35 years of age, who enlist for four years, and may be required to serve in any part of the United Kingdom, but not out of it without their own consent. They must put in a certain number of drills each year, and attend an annual camp. At the outbreak of war they numbered about 250,000.] [Footnote 168: _Lon-wee´_, fortified town of France on the Belgian border, called by Louis the Fourteenth the "iron gate of France."] [Footnote 169: _See-ra-lay-Forge_, manufacturing town in France, 33 miles east of Nancy.] [Footnote 170: In the House of Commons the party or parties which support the Government sit on the Speaker's right; the party or parties which oppose the Government sit on the Speaker's left.] [Footnote 171: Those Irishmen who desire Home Rule for Ireland.] [Footnote 172: Residence of the German Ambassador in London. It was in Carlton House Terrace.] [Footnote 173: Born 1859. He has been in the Navy since 1872, and has seen service in Egypt, and in China where he was wounded. When called to take chief command of the Fleet he was Second Sea Lord at the Admiralty, the headquarters of the Navy in Whitehall, London.] CHAPTER XVII. THE SUBMARINE THAT FAILED. Meanwhile our Grand Fleet was watching and waiting for the German Navy to come out and fight. Our sailors seized many German merchant vessels on the seas, and those that were in our ports were captured; but the warships of the enemy were nowhere visible. We soon began to understand that the Germans did not propose to risk their ships in battle for some time to come. One of their military writers had recommended that they should try to reduce our Navy to the strength of their own by means of submarine[174] and destroyer[175] attacks before coming out to fight. On the second day after war was declared, we discovered that they had planned another method of sinking our ships without endangering their own. [Illustration: Floating Mine.]