Such then was the navy in which on August 3d, speaking in that breathless House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey had said that those responsible for it had the completest confidence. To it had been added, on the outbreak of war, a couple of battleships that had just been completed for Turkey and two destroyer-leaders, built for Chile, that had been purchased from her by arrangement. As the child of the cockle-ships that Alfred had beaten the Danes with, that had won the Battle of Sluys for Edward III; as the offspring of the fleets of Drake or even of Nelson, its least unit would have defied belief. But it was of the same family, legitimately descended, and with the {23} old names scattered amongst its children. _Bellerophon_, _St. George_, _Téméraire_, its history was implicit in its roll call; while the dead animals stood re-invoked upon the prows that bore their legends. Collingwood, Benbow, St. Vincent; Albemarle, Cochrane, Hawke--they were at war for England if only as words. But did they live again in the men that hailed them? Well, the nation believed so, and, in that dark hour, this was the sheet-anchor of its hope. In the words of the King to Sir John Jellicoe, it sent them the full assurance of its confidence that they would "prove once again the true shield of Britain and of her Empire in the hour of trial." {24} CHAPTER II THE BATTLE OF THE BIGHT In his speech of August 3d in the House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey told his listeners that we had incurred no obligations to help France either by land or sea. In view not less, however, of the increasing difficulties of our diplomatic relations with Germany than of the spontaneous friendship that had been growing between ourselves and our French neighbours, the question of coöperation with the latter, in certain eventualities, had inevitably arisen and been discussed. It had also been pointed out that unless some conversations were to take place between the naval and military experts of both countries--unless some definite lines were laid down as to the methods by which each country was to help the other--such coöperation, even if desired, would almost certainly be fruitless. At the same time, in a letter written on November 22, 1912, to the French ambassador, Sir Edward Grey had made it clear that these discussions between their respective experts did not commit either Government to a specified course of action "in a contingency which has not yet arisen and may never arise."