Finally, in turning from a record of service not to be estimated in many volumes, and with America's sonship of admiralty already, as we may hope, amply proved, let us finish this chapter with the following report of a young American naval ensign, working with a patrol of British seaplanes over the waters of the North Sea. "On June 4th," he said, "we received orders to carry out a reconnaissance and hostile aircraft patrol over the North Sea and along the coast of Holland. It was a perfect day for such work, for the visibility was extremely good, with a light wind of 15 knots and clouds at the high altitude of about eight or ten thousand feet. Our three machines at Felixstowe rose from the water at twelve o'clock, circled into patrol formation, and proceeded northeast by north along the coast to Yarmouth. Here we were joined by two more planes but not without some trouble and slight delay because of a broken petrol pipe which was subsequently repaired in the air. We again circled in formation, Captain Leckie, D.S.O., of Yarmouth, taking his position as leader of the squadron. "At one o'clock the squadron proceeded east; our machine, being in the first division, flew at 1,500 feet, and at about half a mile in the rear of Captain Leckie's machine, but keeping him on our starboard quarter. We sighted nothing at all until half-past two, when the Haaks Light Vessel slowly rose on the horizon, but near this mark and considerably more to the south we discovered a large fleet of Dutch fishing smacks. This fleet consisted of more than a hundred smacks. Ten minutes later we sighted the {278} Dutch coast where we changed our course more to the northeast. We followed the sandy beaches of the Islands of Texel and Vlieland until we came to Terschelling. In following the coast of Vlieland we were close enough to distinguish houses on the inside of the Island and even to make out breakers rolling up on the sandy beach.