During the years 1912 and 1913 the Captain of the British cruiser _Monmouth_, the senior English Naval Officer on the China Station, and Admiral Count von Spee, commanding the German Far-Eastern Squadron, were close and intimate friends. The intimacy of the chiefs extended to the officers and men of the two squadrons. The English and Germans discussed with one another the chances of war between their nations, and wished one another the best of luck when the scrap came. The German Squadron, which has since been destroyed, was like no other in the Kaiser’s Navy. It was commanded by professional officers and manned by long-service ratings. It had taken for its model the English Navy, and it had absorbed much of the English naval spirit. Count von Spee, though a Prussian Junker, was a gentleman, and with Captain von Müller, who afterwards made the name of the _Emden_ immortal, was worthy to serve under the White Ensign. Let us always be just to those of our foes who, though they fight with us terribly, yet remain our chivalrous friends. I will tell a pretty story which will illustrate the spirit of comradeship which existed between the English and German squadrons during those two years before the war. In December 1912 the _Monmouth_ was cruising in the Gulf of Pechili, which resembles a long flask with a narrow bottle neck. Admiral von Spee, who was lying with his powerful squadron off Chifu, in the neck of the bottle, received word from a correspondent that the second Balkan War had brought England and Germany within a short distance of “Der Tag.” Von Spee and his officers did not clink glasses to “The Day”; they were professionals who knew the English Navy and its incomparable power; they left silly boastings to civilians and to their colleagues of Kiel who had not eaten of English salt. Count von Spee thought first of his English friend who, in his elderly cruiser, was away up in the Gulf at the mercy of the German Squadron, which was as a cork in its neck. He at once dispatched a destroyer to find the _Monmouth’s_ captain and to warn him that though there might be nothing in the news it were better for him to get clear of the Gulf. “There may be nothing in the yarn,” he wrote, “I have had many scares before. But it would be well if you got out of the Gulf. I should be most sorry to have to sink you.” When the destroyer came up with the _Monmouth_ she had returned to Wei-hai-wei, and the message was delivered. Her skipper laughed, and sent an answer somewhat as follows: “My dear von Spee, thank you very much. I am here. _J’y suis, J’y reste._ I shall expect you and your guns at breakfast to-morrow morning.” War did not come then; when von Spee did meet and sink the _Monmouth_ she had another captain in command, but the story remains as evidence of the chivalrous naval spirit of the gallant and skilful von Spee.