We could not in fact distinguish French from Russians at the distance, but I had told them that the Russians were on the right wing, and as they looked, they could see the right wing opening out from the left. A sort of disappointed sigh passed round the group, as by a single impulse they dropped their glasses and looked at one another. I am sure I saw an impatient gesture of the Duke’s right arm, and a certain setting of his lips which confirmed it. There was no Dutch ensign. Common sense had overcome the sentiment of the allies; the terms were accepted, and the Russians were off to the Gulf of Finland. All this surmise was confirmed when Captain Brooke returned on board; but I never saw complete disappointment so unmistakably betrayed as it was on his face, that of the Admiral and the other officers who received him at the gangway. I have little more to say. The French Fleet presently passed us, steering to the westward. The Duke detached twelve of his battle-ships under Sir Michael Seymour with seven or eight cruisers—all newest types of ships—to follow up the Russians into their own waters, while he himself followed up the French with the remainder of his fleet. My wife and I were sent on board the _Thames_ which came home full speed with the news. I remain in a kind of mental paralysis. No one had ever suggested to me that in the presence of British power, naval war was to become but naval peace. All the naval people whom I had ever heard talk about it always seemed to have in their minds a certainty that in naval war, no two hostile fleets could ever see one another without rushing to a mutual destruction pell-mell. And yet I could get away from the fact that to every Frenchman and every Russian in the combined fleet I had seen, it must have been clear that no one but a madman could have pursued any other course than that which their Admirals followed. Of course it might have been different had war been actually declared. PREPARATIONS FOR THE LANDING OF BRITISH TROOPS AT TREBIZONDE. THE PROTECTION OF ERZEROUM—TURKS, LIKE THE ENGLISH, AS USUAL, TOO LATE. (_From our Special Correspondent, Mr. Francis Scudamore._) KARAKURGHAN, _April 29_.