‘We made for the vicinity of a French flagship, and were soon boarded by a boat from another ship with some sort of flag up. The officer warned us that the Jahde was blockaded, and that though, on our promise not to try to slip in, we might remain with the fleets, we should assuredly be captured or sunk if we tried to break blockade. As we only wanted to see what was going on, I readily gave a promise, and then we learnt that the Russian ships had only joined the French a few hours before we came in sight, and that no one knew what was going to be done, but it was ordered that the whole fleet must weigh before dark. The officer told us they expected transports and troops daily, but that he did not know what was intended. ‘Immediately after dark; accordingly, the whole combined fleet got under weigh. Lights were shown during the process, but then all were extinguished and the ships disappeared without our having the least idea which direction they had taken. ‘We were astonished soon after daylight next morning to see not only our friends the Russians and French steaming slowly in from the northward, but to see an apparently still greater fleet in the haze to the westward. ‘There was an evident check and hesitation in the Franco-Russian Fleet, and presently we well understood why, when we distinctly made out the English white ensign flying in the Western Fleet. Our ships came on quite slowly. We could make out that they were grouped in three great masses. I counted fifteen in the most advanced portion, all very large ships, and I soon made out that they were in three lines, with a flagship at the head of each. Soon I made out the middle one to be certainly the _Alexandra_ with an Admiral’s flag at the main. On her right I supposed was the _Camperdown_, with Vice-Admiral Seymour’s flag; and on the left the _Anson_, with that of Rear-Admiral Adeane. I had seen them both before I left England, and supposed they retained their commands. There were several small vessels near this great mass of ships, and then to the right of them was a group of seven large ships, three of them as if partly rigged, and four of them like turret-ships. Then, again, on the left of the main fleet I could make out what seemed to be a cluster of smaller vessels. ‘We had barely made out all this, when out of the cloud of mist overhanging the mouth of the Jahde there came clearly the body of the German Fleet—ten of them I counted. ‘Never was such an exciting time as this. It seemed to me that I was about to witness the greatest sea-battle that the world had ever seen, and when I noticed the Franco-Russian Fleet separating its bigger from its smaller ships, and drawing the latter into one long line, facing west, and stretching north and south, I made certain they were going to run right at the English Fleet pell-mell, in the way I had always read about.’ RETREAT OF FRENCH CRUISERS. SINKING OF THE ‘ELAINE.’