The mission of the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, and the secrecy with which it was enshrouded, is one of the most romantic episodes of the war. I have already dealt fully with it. But there has since come to me one little detail which reveals how very near we were, at one time, to a German discovery of the whole game. The two battle cruisers coaled at St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands—Portuguese territory, within which we had no powers of censorship—and at the Pirates’ Lair off the Brazilian coast. Their movements began to be talked about in Rio and the River Plate. Men knew of the Coronel disaster and shrewdly suspected that the two great ships were on their way to the South Atlantic. A description of their visit had been prepared, and was actually in type. It was intended for publication in a local South American paper. That it was not published, when urgent representations were made on our behalf, reveals how scrupulous was the consideration with which our friends of Brazil and the Argentine regarded our interests. There were no powers of censorship, the appeal was as man to man, and Englishman to Portuguese, and the appeal prevailed—even over the natural thirst of a journalist for highly interesting news. The battle cruisers coaled and passed upon their way, and no word of their visit went forth to Berlin or to von Spee. The _Glasgow_ was among the British cruisers which greeted Sturdee at the Pirates’ Lair, and as soon as ammunition and stores had been distributed and coal taken in, the voyage to the Falkland Islands began. The squadron arrived in the evening of December 7th, and at daybreak of the 8th von Spee ran upon his fate. The part played by the _Glasgow_ in the action was less spectacular than that which fell to the battle cruisers, but it was useful and has some features of interest. Among other things it illustrates how little is known of the course of a naval action—spread over hundreds of miles of sea—while it takes place, and for some time even after it is over. On the morning of December 8th, at eight o’clock, the approach of the German squadron was observed, and at this moment the English squadron was hard at work coaling. By 9.45 steam was up and the pursuit began. The _Glasgow_ was lying in the inner harbour with banked fires, ready for sea at two hours’ notice, but her Engineer Lieutenant-Commander Shrubsole and his staff so busied themselves that in little over an hour from the signal to raise steam she was under weigh, and an hour later she was moving in chase of the enemy at a higher speed than she obtained in her contractors’ trials when she was a brand-new ship three years earlier. Throughout the war the engineering staff of the Royal Navy has never failed to go one better than anyone had the right to expect of it. It has never failed to respond to any call upon its energies or its skill, never.