Led by the Royal Yacht, the _Victoria and Albert_, her graceful black hull streaked with gold--preceded, according to custom, by the state vessel of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House--by the time the _Iron Duke_, at the head of the First Fleet's battleships, came abreast of the Nab Lightship, the Royal Yacht was already at anchor to receive the salutes of the departing navy. For two whole hours the King stood on the bridge, while ship after ship filed before him, each of the larger battleships an embodiment of greater strength than was represented by the whole fleet that had destroyed the Armada, and each of the battle-cruisers capable of a speed and striking-power that, a century before, would have seemed but the {6} wildest of dreams. These were led by the _Lion_, flying the flag of a then comparatively unknown officer, Sir David Beatty, who, only the evening before, had received the honour of knighthood on board the Royal Yacht. Following the _Lion_ and her consorts came the light cruisers, and after these the destroyers and submarines, each of the latter submerging and rising to the surface again as she came abreast of the _Victoria and Albert_, while, to complete the picture, and to foreshadow the enormous development of aerial power in the years immediately to follow, each accompanying aeroplane and seaplane dipped in the air by way of salute. So the Fleet passed out, great though it was, still only a portion of the total British sea forces, and producing scarcely a ripple upon the national attention, fixed on what seemed to it then a thousand more important matters. Had it been known that, as it then was, no eye would ever behold it again; that, in less than three weeks, stripped at its war stations, the fate of the world would visibly depend upon it--with what other eyes would the whole Empire have watched Spithead on that July morning! But, for the vast mass of Englishmen the world over, the incident passed without notice. Politically, the affairs of Ireland, the readjustment of the House of Lords, and the aspirations of Labour apparently held the field. For the anxious few, to whom the position in Europe seemed already ominously uneasy, it may have been otherwise. But none of them had publicly spoken; and it is now clear, with so sinister a rapidity {7} did the events leading to war follow each other, that the test mobilization designed, not without criticism, to supercede the usual manoeuvres, was coincident with, rather than the outcome of, the hardening of the general diplomatic position.