Sir George Tryon seems to have been very early informed that if war arose the Home Government must depend greatly on the alliance of Italy and Austria to maintain command of the Mediterranean Sea, for a great naval force would be necessary in the North to counteract the designs of Russia and France on the German sea-coast. Sir George Tryon, on his part, talked quite openly—which was said to be a wonder for him—of the fact that he was not desirous of large reinforcements. He did not believe, he said, that, if it came to the point, the French would bring out their older wooden ships, such as the _Colbert_, the _Suffren_, or even the _Richelieu_. The Italians, on the other hand, would most probably be able to complete eight of their very fine ships, while Austria might bring four or five vessels, which, though inferior, would not be ineffective. As it turned out, Tryon was only reinforced by two ships, the _Ajax_ and the _Benbow_. Thus, supposing the eight Italians could be brought into line, and supposing the French produced eighteen ships, Tryon’s fleet would be but two sail stronger than that of Admiral Rieunier. As events developed themselves, it was plain that Sir George grew anxious; but it was, both with himself and Admiral Markham, the anxiety of eagerness, and we were all very well assured that if it came to blows we should be daringly, as well as efficiently, led. On the withdrawal of the fleet from the Black Sea, we were all assembled at Malta, where the garrison was labouring night and day in constructing out-works and exercising in the batteries. For us, on the other hand, there was absolutely nothing to do, except to keep our coals and stores complete day by day, which was not a very arduous undertaking. There were, however, constant and long conferences between the Admirals and the captains of the battle-ships, and it was no secret that every one of these took the form of discussions over possible or probable forms of attack or defence by the fleet at sea. It came to be accepted that if we met the French in open fight we should be numerically inferior, and the question was, how we should act from that point of view? The discussions amongst us, who were not directly responsible, took every variety of form. Sometimes a hot party would arise, claiming that it was perfectly useless to make plans until the enemy disclosed his. This was met by another party declaring that, if plans were not carefully made beforehand, there would be no plans at all. This, again, was taken up by a third party, which claimed that there was only one plan of any use, and that was, as soon as the hostile fleet was seen, to make a general signal, ‘Ram the enemy,’ and leave each ship to fight it out with its fellow. When it was pointed out that perhaps the enemy would not stay to be rammed, the general answer was, ‘Well, it is all the same. There is nothing like the ram.’