The Baltic Fleet was divided into three divisions, and on the 16th-18th October the first division left Libau. The daring surprise attacks of the Japanese torpedo-boats at Port Arthur had filled the minds of the Russian naval authorities with every kind of misgiving; and by some means not yet disclosed, they had become possessed of the idea that the Japanese meditated an attempt on the Baltic Fleet during its passage through the narrow waters of the Danish Straits and the North Sea. Rumors of mysterious Japanese agents, endeavoring to charter vessels in obscure Danish and Norwegian ports filled the Russian newspapers. On the 14th October Admiral Wirenius, the Chief of the Russian Admiralty, solemnly declared to an interviewer that the narrow waters of the Belt and the Sound were particularly favorable for a surprise attack; that officers of the Japanese Navy were known to have left for Europe; and that there was reason to apprehend an attempt to throw mines in the track of the Russian Squadron in the Danish Straits. The state of "nerves" to which the Russian naval officers had been reduced by these apprehensions was shown when, as the Russian fleet passed through the Kattegat, an attempt was made to deliver to the Russian Admiral a cypher dispatch that had arrived from St. Petersburg. Two fishermen were sent out with the dispatch in a motor-launch, but when their vessel approached the flagship the searchlights were turned on, and blank charges fired to forbid a nearer approach. The dispatch was taken in by a boat launched by the battleship for the purpose. [Sidenote: In the North Sea]