The cost of these vessels was estimated at 73,000,000 thalers, that of their maintenance in the year 1882 at 1,300,000 thalers. The plan, which was much more modest in its pretensions than its predecessors, and in principle constituted a retirement from the position formerly taken up, was approved by the first Parliament of the new Germany. The first royal review of the German Fleet took place in the Warnemünde roads in 1875. The ships present were four ironclads, a despatch-boat, and four school-ships; their total complements 2,862 officers and men. When the year 1883 arrived, General von Stosch published a Memorandum on the execution of his plan. It is significant of the change that had come over public opinion that the Government had not dared to ask the Reichstag for a substitute for the armoured frigate _Grosser Kurfürst_, which was lost in collision off Folkestone, and that consequently one of the eight vessels of her type was lacking. The last of the six armoured corvettes had yet to be built, and instead of five monitors thirteen armoured gunboats had been constructed, because it was thought that the latter class of ship was better suited for the defence of the Jade, Weser, and Elbe. It had been decided not to build the floating batteries, which would have been an easy prey to the "fish" torpedo, introduced as a weapon of naval warfare since they were projected. One out of the twenty corvettes, and eight large and nine small torpedo craft were also still wanting. German national vanity had, however, secured a questionable triumph: the Empire was now entirely independent of foreigners so far as its warships were concerned. But if Germany had continued to purchase some of her warships in England while she was still but a tyro in the art of naval architecture, she would have saved much money, and made more rapid progress.