"Neutral ships, even neutral ships _en route_ from neutral port to neutral port, have been destroyed, just as hostile ships, in steadily increasing number. Attacked merchantmen have sometimes been warned and challenged to surrender before being fired on or torpedoed, sometimes the most scanty security has been granted to their passengers and crews of being allowed to enter boats before the ship was sunk; but repeatedly no warning has been given, and not even refuge in boats was granted to passengers on board. Great ships like the _Lusitania_ and the _Arabic_, and purely passenger ships like the _Sussex_, have been attacked without any warning, often before they were aware they were in the presence of an armed enemy ship, and the life of non-combatants, passengers, and crews was indiscriminately destroyed in a manner which the Government of the United States could only regard as wanton and lacking every justification. Indeed, no sort of limit was set to the further indiscriminate destruction of merchantmen of every kind and nationality outside the waters which the Imperial Government has been pleased to indicate as within the war zone. The list of Americans who lost their lives on the vessels thus attacked and destroyed has increased month by month, until the terrible number of the victims has risen to hundreds." The German reply to America was dated 4th May, 1916, and one or two extracts will indicate its tone. After vigorously denying any "deliberate method of indiscriminate destruction of vessels of all sorts," the German Government states "that it has as far as possible instituted a far-reaching restraint upon the use of the submarine weapon solely in consideration of neutrals' interests, in spite of the fact that these restrictions were necessarily of advantage to Germany's enemies. No such consideration has ever been shown to neutrals by Great Britain and her Allies." This last sentence is very typical of the hardy impertinence of Berlin. Later on in the Note, the German Government "notifies the Government of the United States that the German Naval Forces receive the following orders for submarine warfare in accordance with the general principles of visit, search, and destruction of merchant vessels recognised by international law. Such vessels, both within and without the area declared as a naval war zone, shall not be sunk without warning, and without saving human lives, unless the ship attempts to escape or offer resistance."