Lord Folkestone was standing for Enfield; and when I went down to speak for him, I found bread upon the waters which returned to me after many days, in the shape and size of a Royal Marine. While I was speaking, there arose a tumult at the back of the hall. So far as I could make out from the platform, a man was insisting on being heard. I called to him to come up to the platform, where, if he had anything to say, he could say it. Whereupon a large, resolute and aggressive person came swiftly up to me. I thought he wanted to fight, and was ready for him. But he seized my hands in his, shook them warmly, then turned to the audience and told them the whole story of how I had saved his life off the Falkland Islands, years before, when I was a lieutenant in the _Galatea_. The ship was lying at anchor; it was a dark night; when the Marine somehow fell overboard I had just come on board from a shooting expedition, and my pockets were full of cartridges. I dived after the man and seized him. Catching the end of a coil of rope I went down and down, wondering if the other end of the rope I held was fast, until at last I felt myself and the Marine being pulled upwards. As we came to the surface the ship's corporal, who had jumped overboard, got hold of us, and we were hauled in-board by the quartermaster. The story was received with great enthusiasm, and I cannot but suppose it contributed to win the election for my friend, none the less because there was no real connection whatever between its subject and politics. Upon my return from Egypt in 1885, I was convinced of the superiority in guns and armour and general excellence of the French ships of war over our own, because I had utilised many opportunities of comparing the vessels of {338} the two navies. Observation and reasoning had also taught me that in many most essential respects the British Navy was deficient. And above all, it was deficient in organisation for war. In these opinions I was confirmed by a large number of my brother officers, among whom I may mention Lord Alcester, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Keppel, Admiral Sir Thomas M. C. Symonds, Admiral Sir Geoffrey T. Phipps Hornby, Captain E. R. Fremantle, Admiral Sir Charles G. J. B. Elliot, Vice-Admiral Sir William Montagu Dowell, Vice-Admiral Sir R. Vesey Hamilton. Accordingly, I enforced the necessity of reform in these matters in my public speeches, which were numerous. At that time, in the summer of 1885, I find that I was demanding a loan of twenty millions to be expended upon a shipbuilding programme.